John Rich has become a divisive figure online and now a post he has made about guns has gone viral.
The country musician has taken to X (formerly Twitter) to share his thoughts on gun control, referring to JFK when doing so.
“When Kennedy was shot, nobody blamed the gun,” he wrote. At the time of writing, the post had been viewed 761,100 times.
People took to Rich’s post to criticize him for his take, with many disagreeing with what he said.
When Kennedy was shot, nobody blamed the gun.
— John Rich🇺🇸 (@johnrich) February 29, 2024
Newsweek contacted a spokesperson for Rich via email Friday for comment.
“Uh, you should probably just shut up now,” one person wrote.
“Hey genius—when has anyone blamed guns when it’s not a mass shooting?” someone else asked.
“Kennedy couldn’t have been shot if there wasn’t a gun,” another person commented.
A fourth added: “When JFK was shot, everyone and everything was blamed.”
Terry Wyatt/Getty Images for The Kevin Carter Foundation
Others took to the comments to show their support for Rich.
“The good gentleman has a point,” a different X user said.
“Democrats had not been taken over by crazy people yet,” wrote another.
“Good point, but nowadays no one takes the blame, it is always someone else, and this shows in the current leadership as well,” someone else commented.
While Rich didn’t clarify what his post was in response to, it comes amid renewed calls for stricter gun laws after a woman was killed and 22 people were injured in a mass shooting at the end of the February 14 parade to celebrate the Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl win in Kansas City.
Good point, but nowadays no one takes the blame, it is always someone else, and this shows in the current leadership as well
— 🇺🇸RobinZ~ Freedom & abundant life, walk by faith (@22RobinZ22) February 29, 2024
It occurred on the sixth anniversary of the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in which 14 students and three staff members were killed.
Gun violence continues to claim lives at a high rate in the United States. More than 4,800 people have died in shootings so far in 2024, at least 2,100 of them in homicides or accidental incidents, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
On February 17, President Joe Biden noted that there had been more mass shootings in 2024 “than there have been days in the year.”
For the joy of the parade to be turned into tragedy “cuts deep in the American soul,” the president said in a statement.
He called on people to press Congress to ban assault weapons, to limit high-capacity gun magazines, strengthen background checks and “keep guns out of the hands of those who have no business owning them or handling them.”
He added that the shooting “should move us, shock us, shame us into acting. What are we waiting for?” he said. “What else do we need to see? How many more families need to be torn apart? It is time to act.”
The parade shooting isn’t the only one to have made headlines recently.
On February 17, two people were taken to hospital with gunshot wounds after shots were fired at Nobel Drive and Lombard Place in the University City neighborhood at around 8:40 p.m., NBC San Diego reported.
On the same weekend, three people were injured in a shooting at a bar in New York City. The shooting occurred inside Just Lorraine’s Place bar on Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard in Manhattan’s Harlem neighborhood on February 18, a spokesperson for the New York Police Department (NYPD) told Newsweek.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.