Don't count on an apology from Mark Farner for writing what's becoming an

.

Farner helped start Flint's own Grand Funk Railroad at the height of Flower Power in the late 1960s, but he said this week that he's no pacifist when it comes to guns.

"There's no other way for me to protect my family except that gun," Farner said. "The world is a crazy place. Look what happened to poor John Lennon. There's too many looney-tunes out there."

Farner has noticed the attention that a song he wrote nearly 40 years ago for the final Grand Funk album,

"Don't Let 'Em Take Your Gun," has been getting recently -- and he doesn't mind a bit.

"I think every one of us needs to be packing heat" to help prevent (incidents like school shootings)," Farner said in a telephone interview from his home in northern Michigan.

If more people are armed, he said, would-be killers will "be taken down long before they fire the second shot."

"Don't Let 'Em Take Your Gun" was called the

"most pro-Second Amendment song ever" in a recent

column by the editor-in-chief of "Prepper & Shooter Magazine." A



report on the Web site Examiner.com detailed how backers of Washington state’s Initiative 591 "are warming up" to the song as a type of musical rallying cry for their movement.

Initiative 591 would prevent Washington state from adopting background-check laws stricter than the national standard for gun buyers, according to the Associated Press.

Farner said he finished writing "Don't Let 'Em Take Your Gun" as Grand Funk was recording "Good Singin' Good Playin," which was released in 1976.

In part, the song says, "My daddy told me son, don’t let ’em take your gun!

That’s what they tryin’ to do.

Son, don’t let ’em take your gun.

They’re takin’ your Bill of Rights away from you."

Farner said Frank Zappa, who produced the record, discussed shooting and guns with him before taking target practice with a .44 Magnum and becoming a life member of the National Rifle Association.

"The song's time has come. I'm honored that they caught onto it," Farner said of the recent attention. "The people that know Grand Funk are hip to (the) song. With my solo band, I've done it live, and it speaks to the audience."

Farner said guns have always been a part of his life since his father, a World War II veteran, was an avid hunter.

"If a man don't have the right to protect his family, he ain't free," he said.