'American Idol' judge Katy Perry on Las Vegas shooting: 'Prayer without action is powerless'
"No one is saying, ‘Take away your guns,’" she said.
— -- “American Idol” judges Lionel Richie, Katy Perry and Luke Bryan weighed in on the Las Vegas shooting that left 59 people dead, including the shooter, and more than 500 injured.
Perry, who honored the victims at her concert in New York Monday, said people need to remember “prayer without action is powerless.”
“It’s horrible,” she said on “Good Morning America” today. “I think that everybody feels like their heart has just been ripped out of their chest.
“We just don’t know when it’s going to happen again and we’re all trying to figure out the answers. I’m not saying I have the answers, and I pray every day. But the one thing we have to remember is prayer without action is powerless.”
The singer said our society needs to take a “good, hard look” at gun reform laws.
“We have to have some action,” she said. “We have to take an unfortunate, good, hard look at what our rules and our boundaries are with gun reform. No one is saying, ‘Take away your guns,’ but we just don’t necessarily need assault rifles, assault weapons.”
Perry, 32, said she thinks one of the answers to ending such attacks is paying attention to the “hands that these guns are being placed in.
“We have to put our foot down more than just sending our condolences,” she said. “Honestly, I get really sick to my stomach with everyone just sending their condolences, and then going back to selfie-ing and doing their regular stuff. That is not enough.
“When is it going to be enough? I don’t know the answers and I know it’s a touchy subject but I think we have to take a good, hard look at it as a society.”
Richie, who has a residency in Las Vegas, said that for artists, live performances are “the heartbeat” because they “get to the meet the fans.”
“We see the fans. We look at the faces every night on stage. We live for that,” Richie, 68, said on “GMA.” “They blow the kisses, they sing every word to us. To think for a moment we are now getting to a stage where live performances are in jeopardy -- the worst nightmare we ever have in life is something like that would happen.”
Bryan, a country music artist, said he spoke to Jason Aldean, who was performing on stage at Route 91 Harvest Music Festival as the shooting began, “very early” the morning after the massacre.
“Hearing one of your best friends shaken up like that, knowing they’ll never be able to un-see these things, you get lumps and you get nauseated,” Bryan, 41, said. “There’s just got to be something we can do. From the mental health issue to all of the issues that are causing these things.”
The first season of “American Idol” on ABC will premiere in 2018.
