Philip Anselmo on Firearms: ‘I’m Not a Gun Guy’
Here we come, reach for your gun... or not. Philip Anselmo, frontman of Pantera, Down and others recently appeared on Rock Talk With Mitch (transcribed by Blabbermouth) where he spoke on a variety of political issues, including gun control.
He spoke about his overall feelings about politics, noting that he doesn't feel connected to either party although his views are still strong. "I think that if I had to be stuck on some political scale, I would be easily on the left, and probably surprisingly so on the left on a lot of topics," he said. "Like gun control or something like that. I loathe guns and I loathe war, and there's many reasons [for that]. It was instilled in me [from when I was] a young boy. Because I grew up with casualties of [the] Vietnam [war] in my house, in my first memories of childhood. So I had the Vietnam war and all of its horrors explained to me as a young child in his earliest memories. So I'm not a gun guy. I realize America's gun problem is impossible to roll back. But would it be better if there were less guns on the street? You're fucking-A right. So, anyway, that's just one little thing."
Despite his views aligning with the left, he still wouldn't consider himself on its side. "To me, if the wings are hard left and hard right, they're the same bird, man — that's the same bird to me. I don't want either one. They're both authoritarian and ridiculous in their outlooks. I guess the point I'm getting at is even the news that we get is partisan — it's leaned towards one way or the other, and it's maddening, man.
"When are we gonna get back to the truth?" Anselmo says. "When are we gonna get back to thicker skin and approaching topics of the truth that might be uncomfortable, but still we can find common ground within this framework called truth instead of tiptoeing on eggshells and shit? I think what the hard left does with trying to put everybody in a box… And so does the hard right — fuck them too, man! If skin color is any graph or any measure of anything, then count me out — count me out of that stupid shit."
Watch the full interview with Anselmo below on Rock Talk With Mitch Lafon.
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