It never ceases to amaze me that there are country singers who are quite liberal and support people such as Obama. Faith Hill and her husband, Tim McGraw, came out in his support as did Kelly Clarkson. Don't they know their audience? Or do they just assume they will be overlooked?
I realize that at one time country music was probably the sole realm of actual, rural folks who happened to have musical talent and sang about what they knew. Today, country music is big business.
While attending college in the Boston area some 20 years ago I met, through church, several persons attending one or another of the fine music/performing schools in the area. None of the music students I met happened to come from rural or even highly conservative backgrounds. They were talented musicians attending some very good schools, looking to make a career in the music business.
Where they ended up, what genre they pursued seemed to me to be a combination of personal taste, talent and voice style, along with dumb luck and which opportunity hit first.
I remember one associate doing a performance for our church group that included some country numbers. He had an appropriate costume--and for him, it really was a costume as opposed to normal or working attire--for the numbers and performed very well. Knowing of my more rural upbringing, afterwards he asked me what I thought. I told him his music was great, but that if he was going to do country, he needed to get more comfortable with the cowboy hat and to stop adjusting it so much because it made obvious that he wasn't comfortable in that hat.
Frankly, I'm with WalkingWolf on this one.
I don't care about and don't much care to know about the politics (or even religious views) of entertainers, or clerks in the grocery store, or the guy selling me burgers. If someone wants to sell me a CD, or hamburger, or a gallon of milk or gasoline, then let's have that be the basis of our relationship and leave everything else out of it.
Obviously, everyone has his right to speak his mind. And if entertainers want to get political so be it. Elton John has some great music regardless of what I think of his personal sex life. So I don't give his sex life much thought. Ditto for Tom Cruise's religious beliefs, or a musician's political views. If these things get to the point they distract from the product being sold, it will affect sales.
As for the gun ban itself, I find such bans no more (nor less) offensive than I would a company policy banning blacks, Irish, Catholics, or women. And I think most such bans arise for the same mindset.
Charles