Billy Currington, the star behind hits like "Hey Girl," "Walk A Little Straighter" and "Don't It" has bailed from his part on Tim McGraw's Shotgun Rider Tour stop in Connecticut later this year after learning that it was going to have all of McGraw's proceeds benefit the Sandy Hook Promise foundation. A foundation, that's PRO 2nd Amendment but also sensible gun ownership, that was founded out of the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary tragedy a few years ago.
The sensationalist "conservative" website Breitbart.com stirred the whole thing into a "controversy" as gun rights advocates decided that McGraw and the Sandy Hook Promise were nothing but left wing Anti-2nd Amendment people looking to take everyone's guns away with the concert may 'ultimately succeed in making it harder for law-abiding citizens to acquire the guns they need for self-defense." The article's writer, Awr Hawkins, even cited his own anti Sandy Hook Promise story from shortly after the two year anniversary of the Sandy Hook tragedy as support for his latest accusations.
Sandy Hook Promise, a Non-Profit Organization, lists mental wellness programs and firearm safety and security as its main areas of focus, not the banning of guns.
Currington tweeted since-deleted angry messages to fans before posting to Facebook that he's "never been one to take on controversial issues" as he's "A singer." He said he felt "strongly about supporting the Sandy Hook community" and pledges support to donate to "a local charity."
McGraw is standing firm with stance on the subject, himself a gun owner and recreational hunter. He's doing the show, after all, for his Fiddle player Dean Brown, who was family friends with one of the 20 children killed in the event from 2012.
"...I saw first hand how the Sandy Hook tragedy affected families and I felt their pain. The concert is meant to do something good for a community that is recovering," McGraw said in a letter to The Washington Post.
The concert will go on without Currington and look for McGraw to add additional special guests to the show with him and Chase Bryant (the original opening act) still performing the gig.
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