It’s safe to say that in light of recent events in the United States, it’s definitely too soon to start making jokes about mass shootings (especially since it’s always too soon because joking about that sort of thing isn’t funny). In the past couple months, there’s been the Las Vegas shooting, and just this past weekend, “at least” 25 people were killed during a mass shooting at First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas.
Of course, that didn’t stop Marilyn Manson from pulling some questionable stage antics during his set at this weekend’s Ozzfest Meets Knotfest in San Bernardino, California (itself famously the site of a mass shooting in 2015 and another shooting earlier this year). During his performance of “We Know Where You F*cking Live,” Manson, being pushed around in a wheelchair (since he’s in a cast at the moment), wielded a fake rifle with an orange plastic tip and a microphone set up to look like the gun’s sight. As The San Bernardino Sun notes, he pointed the gun at the crowd and sang while the drummer simulated the sound of gunfire.
Manson is almost always saying something controversial — “Well he’s in some sort of sexual religious cult with an Asian version of Dave Navarro, apparently,” he recently said about Justin Bieber — but this is about as insensitive as the shock rocker has been in a while.
Watch video of the performance here.
