When I was 12-years old, I saw Bon Jovi’s Slippery When Wet tour stop in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. I can’t remember everything about the concert, but I’m pretty sure Jon Bon Jovi didn’t inject a lot of politics into his between-song banter, and the most politically-charged lyric sung that night was probably the line about Tommy being down on his luck because the union’s been on strike in “Livin’ On A Prayer.”

Of course back then Bon Jovi was one of the biggest bands in the world, and Jon Bon Jovi was at the top of his game. A new Bon Jovi album was a big deal in the late 1980s. Today, not so much. Maybe I’m a little cynical, but I can’t help but wonder if that’s one reason why the singer’s making it known that his new album will feature a lot of social commentary, including a song about gun control.

In a press release for Bon Jovi 2020, the band stated that it will address “tough topics such as gun control, veterans’ issues, politics, the meaning of family, and much more.”

Jon Bon Jovi stated, “It encompasses life, love, and loss.”

The band will tour the record this summer, kicking off June 10th in Tacoma, Washington, and ending with a two-night residency at Madison Square Garden in New York on July 27th and 28th. Bryan Adams will open for Bon Jovi on most dates.

Of course this isn’t the first time Bon Jovi has embraced gun control, though I believe it’s the first time he’s ever written a song about it. Back in 2015, the singer hosted a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton, and he’s previously stumped for Democrats John Kerry and Al Gore. While the singer held several fundraisers for Cory Booker before the New Jersey senator ended his presidential campaign, Bon Jovi has also palled around with Michael Bloomberg in the past.

In 2016, the rockstar was one of several celebrities to partner with Bloomberg on a charity event that raised $4-million for 20 different charities. Of course Bloomberg could have easily donated the money to himself, but why would anyone do that when they could get free press for hanging around with famous people in the name of charity instead?

It’s awfully ironic that the 80s rock star who sang about being a “six gun lover” who “never drew first but drew first blood” in Blaze of Glory is now singing about the need for gun control, especially when you consider that the nation’s violent crime rate is a lot lower now than it was in 1990 when the song came out. In fact, even though there are about 80-million more Americans now, there were nearly 7,000 fewer homicides in 2018 than in 1990. That translates to a per capita homicide rate of 9.4 per 100,000 in 1990, compared to 5.0 homicides per 100,000 in 2018.

I suspect none of that would matter to Jon Bon Jovi even if he was cognizant of those facts. Gun control is “in” at the moment, at least until the Left figures out a few things, like replacing the War on Drugs with a War on Guns still results in a disproportionate number of young minority men are locked up for non-violent possessory offenses, or the fact that tens of millions of Americans have no interest in giving up their constitutionally protected rights but will work instead to ensure that as many Americans as possible are able to exercise those rights.

In the meantime, I’ll be skipping the new Bon Jovi album. I’m not really interested in his politics, and honestly, in terms of New Jersey rockers, over the years I became a much bigger fan of The Smithereens’ straight forward rock than Bon Jovi’s hair metal. I left Bon Jovi behind long before I became a gun owner, but I see nothing in the description of his new album that makes me want to give him a second look.