When country star Toby Keith was asked to weigh in on the gun debate in our country, he politely declined, saying, “I’m not that guy.”

The question was asked by the Los Angeles Times, during an interview full of “what-if” questions.

First, they asked an open-ended question: “Do you ever have the urge to lay out your views as clearly as you can? To say, ‘Here’s exactly what I think about America or guns or the military?'”

Keith responded, “That’s a losing battle. You’re never gonna reach enough people in any interview to avoid being misrepresented.” He added a personal anecdote to make his point.

The Times then nudged Keith a bit more to feel him out and finally asked what he would say if someone said, “Toby Keith, how do you justify gun rights in a world beset by mass shootings?”

Keith responded:

That’s one of those topics — and I’m not dodging the question — it’s one of those things we live with every day. It’s like one of the biggest struggles that I have on abortion is abortion. In my heart I don’t like it. But in my mind I agree with a lot of the situations where it should be. I understand [the well-being of] the mother. And somebody says, “Hey, a 12-year-old got raped by a convict — you want her to carry that baby?” It’s such a big, gray world, and with those issues like that — I know how I feel inside, but I don’t know how to fix none of them. I’m not that guy.

The Times suggested people are not happy with anything less than a “firm answer,” and Keith explained that those who ask the question are only ready to hear one answer: “Whatever topic they come up with, they know how they want me to answer it. Whether they’re for it or against it or whether they believe like I do, they say, ‘I’m gonna ask this question because I think I know how he’ll answer it.’ And then when you don’t, they’re like, ‘What the hell?'”

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News, the host of the Breitbart podcast Bullets with AWR Hawkins, and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.