One survivor of the ISIS terror attacks in Paris knows what would have come in handy: a firearm. The attack took place while the US band Eagles of Death Metal played the Bataclan, where scores of people died. Band member Jesse Hughes told French television that their tough gun control did nothing but leave people unarmed and vulnerable to attack:

“Did your French gun control stop a single [expletive] person from dying at the Bataclan?” Hughes said. “And if anyone can answer yes, I’d like to hear it, because I don’t think so. I think the only thing that stopped it was some of the bravest men that I’ve ever seen in my life charging head-first into the face of death with their firearms.”

Hughes, who has vigorously advocated for unfettered gun ownership — even waving a gun at a friend in a documentary that was pulled from film festivals after the Nov. 13 attacks — told iTélé that, if anything, his experience had only strengthened his views.

“I know people will disagree with me, but it just seems like God made men and women, and that night guns made them equal,” he said. “I think the only way that my mind has been changed is that maybe that until nobody has guns everybody has to have them.”

Hughes and EoDM are back in Paris for their first show since the attacks three months ago. He admits that it will be “intense,” but that he wants to persevere, lest the terrorists succeed in their mission. Even so, Hughes clearly still suffers to this day from the aftermath of the attack.

Apparently, Hughes didn’t plan on discussing gun control in the interview, but the interviewer asked and Hughes wasn’t afraid to challenge her on her assumptions. That’s nothing new for Hughes, who has been an activist for “unfettered” gun ownership, as NBC News puts it. The experience of watching defenseless people slaughtered by armed maniacs has clearly made his convictions even stronger than before, and it’s not difficult to see why. His point is even more well taken given the failures of the gun-controlling government to take effective steps to keep their citizenry safe from infiltration and attack. Under those circumstances, why should citizens accept an enforced defenselessness from a government that can’t protect them?