Nikki Sixx has once again called on lawmakers to enact tougher guns laws after back-to-back mass shootings in the United States left at least 29 dead and 53 injured in Texas and Ohio on August 3 and August 4.
In El Paso, a gunman opened fire as customers crowded into a Walmart during the busy back-to-school shopping season, leaving 20 people dead and another 26 wounded. Just hours after the El Paso attack, a mass shooting in Dayton, Ohio, left at least nine people dead and 26 wounded.
On Friday night (August 9), the MÖTLEY CRÜE bassist took to his Facebook page to share the cover of the latest issue of Time magazine, which focuses on the mass shootings that have occurred in the United States, and included the following message: "I AM A GUN OWNER.I WAS RAISED HAVING GUNS LIVING IN THE COUNTRY.THIS IS NOT A PARTY OR A POLITICAL ISSUE ITS A HUMAN ISSUE THAT POLITICIANS CAN FIND SOLUTIONS FOR. THE PURPOSE OF SAVING LIVES. ?? More than 250 mass shootings in America so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive . This week's @TIME cover features the communities forever changed by these horrific acts of violence. NOBODY IS TRYING TO TAKE YOUR GUNS AWAY.LET THE CONVERSATION BE CONSTRUCTIVE. Background checks on Ammunition? It's one of a 100 constructive ideas we can discuss… PS. Please don't show your ignorance here. This is an opportunity to think outside the box. I am trying too."
Right after the El Paso shooting, Sixx accused Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell via Twitter of "enabling these violent acts by obstructing common-sense legislation that would make it more difficult for would-be mass shooters to obtain weapons designed to mass kill human beings." He later added: "I don't know about you, but I'm fucking sick of hearing about innocent people being slaughtered city after city because the politicians chose money over passing stricter gun control laws."
After one of Sixx 's Twitter followers pointed out that "Australia's last mass shooting was in 1996 and nothing since due to harsh gun reforms..America's 'gun toting' attitude needs to change...", Sixx responded: "We refer to this often when talking about change and saving people lives.Imagine how many thousands of lives would have been saved if the politicians ( aka NRA puppets) would of followed suit."
The man accused of carrying out the El Paso shooting explained to authorities that he had been targeting Mexicans.
On Sunday, President Donald Trump said that "hate has no place in our country" and called the mass shootings "a mental illness problem. These are people that are very, very seriously mentally ill," he added.
Democratic presidential candidates Beto O'Rourke and Sen. Cory Booker have both said Trump is partly to blame for the shooting in El Paso due to his anti-immigrant rhetoric.
"This president is encouraging greater racism and not just the racist rhetoric, but the violence that so often follows," O'Rourke told CNN .
Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney dismissed the suggestion that Trump 's rhetoric has in any way contributed to white nationalist violence.
"I blame the people who pulled the trigger," Mulvaney said in an interview on "Meet The Press" .
