Unfortunately SOAD’s Daron Malakian is a guns rights activist

System of a Down guitarist Daron Malakian has, unfortunately, come out as a guns rights activist.

Daron Malakian, who has slipped into the shadows amid the headline-dominating political to and fro between left-leaning frontman Serj Tankian and conservative drummer John Dolmayan, recently came forward with his support for Second Amendment gun rights.

Youtuber ‘GunDrummer’ recently shared a cover of System of a Down’s ‘B.Y.O.B’, performed with, you guessed it, a gun. The Youtuber has carved out his niche covering tracks from the heavy metal canon using firearms as percussion, he’s previously covered tracks by SOAD, Slipknot, Tool, and The Offspring.

Malakian took to social media share the cover, whilst emphasising his pro-gun stance. “Another great performance from GunDrummer,” he wrote. “Guns are essential tools for self defense!!!!!! And they make great percussive instruments as well!!! #2A #2ndAmendment #DefundGunControl #GunsareLoaded #BYOB #SOAD #DMSOB #DaronMalakian #ScarsOnBroadway #SystemOfADown.”

In the wake of the two mass shootings in the US earlier this month, the topic of gun control has, like clockwork, reached a boiling point. The Democratically controlled house recently passed two bills that require more thorough background checks for gun sales. A poll taken after the most recent shooting confirmed that a majority of Americans, 65 per cent, believe gun control should be stricter. Though support for gun control among Republicans dropped to 35 per cent.

The internal dynamic of System of a Down has been plagued by polarising political views Tankian and Dolmayan have been engaged in heated, public, political discourse, which proved to be a hurdle when it came to the band hitting the studio to record new music.

However, last year the band broke their fifteen-year new music silence with the release of two politically fuelled singles ‘Protect the Land’ and ‘Genocidal Humanoidz.’

The music was a way of highlighting the “serious war being perpetrated upon our cultural homelands of Artsakh and Armenia,” the band explained at the time.

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