US Rocker at Paris Massacre Wants Guns for Everybody

The lead singer of the California band playing at Paris' Bataclan theater when terrorists stormed the building says everybody should have a gun. In an interview with French TV station iTele, Jesse Hughes of Eagles of Death Metal argues that restrictions on gun ownership in France have helped rather than hindered terrorists. "Did your French gun control stop a single f---ing person from dying at the Bataclan?" he asks of the November massacre, per the Guardian. "I don't think so. I think the only thing that stopped it was some of the bravest men that I've ever seen in my life charging head-first into the face of death with their firearms."

Hughes recounts that he saw one of the Islamic State terrorists backstage, notes NBC News. "I was trying to back up, very sneaky—but he noticed me, and I thought I was dead," he tells Sweden's TV4. He says he managed to escape when the barrel of the shooter's gun hit a door frame. Perhaps "until nobody has guns everybody has to have them," Hughes adds, "because I've never seen anyone that's ever had one dead … and I saw people die that maybe could have lived." Eagles of Death Metal return to Paris on Tuesday to perform for survivors. Hughes says he felt "a sacred responsibility to finish this show." It'll be "intense," he adds, but "I'm not gonna let the bad guys win." (More guns stories.)