Country music star Jason Aldean has urged those opposed to changes in U.S. gun laws to walk in his shoes after the Route 91 Harvest Festival massacre.
The singer was on stage at the event in Las Vegas last year (17) when bullets rained down on the crowd, claiming 58 lives.
Aldean, who is still recovering from the tragedy, has been careful to choose his words when asked about America's ongoing gun laws debate, but now it seems he's ready to talk.
In a new interview with the Associated Press, he suggests it should be much more difficult to get hold of firearms.
"It’s too easy to get guns, first and foremost," Aldean says. "When you can walk in somewhere and you can get one in five minutes, do a background check that takes five minutes, like how in-depth is that background check? Those are the issues I have.
"It’s not necessarily the guns themselves or that I don’t think people should have guns. I have a lot of them."
He can also understand the frustrations and fears of the Florida students who organised last month's (Mar18) March For Our Lives rally in Washington, D.C. following the high school massacre in Parkland on 14 February (18), adding, "Unless anybody has witnessed anything like that or been a part of it, it’s really hard for people to really understand where you’re coming from on that stuff," he adds. "It’s like the kids from the school in Florida, that shooting. I get it, man. I understand how they are feeling."
And he admits he always has the drama of the Route 91 festival shooting on replay in his mind, stating, "You just sit there and relive it a thousand times a day."
