The aging hip-hop star claimed gun owners 'love their guns more than our children' during a performance Sunday night.
Eminem attacked the National Rifle Association (NRA) during a live performance Sunday night, continuing his recent embrace of political activism by suggesting that gun owners “love their guns more than our children.”
The Detroit native, who made headlines in October for an anti-Trump freestyle, was introduced by Parkland student Alex Moscou before taking the stage at the iHeartRadio Music awards in Inglewood, Calif.
“This whole country is going nuts, and the NRA is in our way,” his verse began. “They’re responsible for this whole production. And hold the strings, they control the puppet. And threaten to take donor bucks. So they know the government won’t do nothing and no one’s budging. Gun owners clutching their loaded weapons. They love their guns more than our children.”
Moscou, who was present during the Valentines Day shooting that claimed 17 lives at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, said he and his fellow students were “tired of hearing politicians sending their thoughts and prayers to us, and doing nothing to make the necessary changes to prevent this tragedy from happening again.”
Eminem’s raps are laden with violent imagery and bigoted language. In the past, he has routinely sung of murder, domestic violence, and rape. Yet lately he has jettisoned his long-cultivated persona in favor of a more political image.
Trump “makes my blood boil. . . . I want our country to be great, too, I want it to be the best it can be, but it’s not going to be that with him in charge,” Eminem told Vulture in a December interview before explaining that he’s “matured” in recent years.
“What he’s doing putting people against each other is scary f***ing sh*t. His election was such a disappointment to me about the state of the country,” he concluded.