By: José Niño

Shannon Watts, the founder of Moms Demand Action, had launched an effort to urge the Grand Ole Opry to stop Jason Aldean from headlining a fundraiser slated for August. The fundraiser is designed to help the families and community of Covenant Christian School, where three children and three adults were killed on March 27, 2023.

Watts went public about her efforts to bar Aldean from headlining the fundraiser for the Christian families and community right after Aldean’s music video for “Try That in a Small Town” was taken down by Country Music Television.

In response to CMT’s decision, Watts responded by taking credit for CMT’s decision, declaring in a tweet, “Proud to have had a hand in getting CMT to reject this racist and violent song…”

Watts then went after the plan to have Aldean headline the next fundraiser for the Christian families and community. Watts was quoted in The Daily Mail saying: “The Grand Ole Opry is hosting Jason Aldean at a fundraiser for the Covenant School in Nashville. One would think there are many other country music artists they could invite instead?”

One of Watts’ first reactions to Aldean’s hit song “Try That in a Small Town”, especially the video of it, was her assertion that the song is “about how [Aldean] and his friends will shoot you if you try to take their guns.”

Despite the corporate media’s demonization of the lyrics of Aldean’s songs, the lyrics actually illustrate small town Americans’ peaceful devotion to the right to bear arms:

“GOT A GUN THAT MY GRANDDAD GAVE ME
THEY SAY ONE DAY THEY’RE GONNA ROUND UP
WELL THAT SH*T MIGHT FLY IN THE CITY GOOD LUCK

TRY THAT IN A SMALL TOWN
SEE HOW FAR YOU MAKE IT DOWN THE ROAD
‘ROUND HERE WE TAKE CARE OF OUR OWN
YOU CROSS THAT LINE IT WON’T TAKE LONG
FOR YOU TO FIND OUT
I RECOMMEND YOU DON’T
TRY THAT IN A SMALL TOWN”

Dudley Brown, the president of the National Association for Gun Rights, commented on Watts’ efforts to derail Aldean’s fundraiser:

“Watts is an attention junkie who cares more about headlines than the families impacted by the Covenant School killer. Her efforts to stop Aldean’s fundraiser are ignorant and misinformed.”

There’s clearly a culture war going on against the right to bear arms. The Left understands the nature of political change. When gun controllers can’t win in the political realm, they’ll infiltrate the general culture to mold public opinion and make the public more receptive to gun control.

That will require Second Amendment proponents to be active in all facets of society — business, culture, and politics — to preserve our freedoms. This fight is all-encompassing and the quicker we grasp this, the more effective we’ll be in staving off the Left.

José Niño is a freelance writer based in Austin, Texas. Contact him via Facebook, Twitter, or email him at [email protected]. Get his e-book, The 10 Myths of Gun Control, here.