The Killers' Brandon Flowers speaks out on "heartbreaking" Texas school shooting
26 May 2022, 14:52 | Updated: 26 May 2022, 15:00
The Killers frontman has talked about the horrific event, which saw an 18-year-old gunman open fire at Robb Elementary School this week.
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Brandon Flowers has opened up about the Texas shooting, calling the event "heartbreaking," but "not shocking".
The United States is still reeling from the horrific event which saw an 18-year-old gunman shoot at least 19 children and two teachers at at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas on Tuesday (24th May).
It marks the nation's deadliest school shooting since the Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting in 2012 and is the third -deadliest school shooting in the United States' history.
Speaking to Rolling Stone UK, The Killers frontman said: "It’s heartbreaking. What’s sad is that we’ve come to expect it. It’s not shocking, it’s just heartbreaking because people should be up in arms and our politicians should be fighting to figure it out and they’re just not."
The rocker, who hails from Nevada continued: "It’s a big part of American culture and when those laws were passed, they couldn’t have foreseen the kind of guns and ammunition that people could go and buy at a local store.
"They had no idea that was going to happen and we need to figure out a way to address it, whether it’s stricter gun laws, background checks and who has access to them.
“I’m not the first person to say this, but the sad thing is that we’ve grown accustomed to these stories. I have three kids that are fourteen, twelve and eleven right now. To imagine them being there just breaks your heart.”
READ MORE: The Killers unveil moving Land Of The Free video
It's not the first time the band and co have made their feelings clear on American gun laws.
Brandon Flowers tackles the subject in their Land of The Free, which was first released in 2019, as a response to recent mass shootings in the US and Trump building a wall between the United States and the Mexican border.
He asks in the song: "How many daughters, tell me, how many sons, do we have to have to put in the ground, before we just break down and face it, we got a problem with guns?"
The Killers - Land Of The Free
Taking to Twitter at the time, Flowers wrote: "On December 14 2012, I woke up, unlocked my phone, and, like so many others, saw the pleas to "Pray for Sandy Hook". The news was devastating.
"If there was a single moment that I mentally began to assemble "Land of the Free," that was it. In the months and years that followed, America would be hit with an onslaught of more mass shootings of innocents and too many examples of racial injustice to ignore."
He concluded: "I love my country. I know that these are complicated issue but whether you stand to the left, right, or straddle the line, you've gotta believe that we can do better.-Brandon Flowers".
