Here’s why Pat Benatar won’t be singing ‘Hit Me With Your Best Shot’ on tour

American rock singer Pat Benatar decided not to perform her 1980 hit song Hit Me With Your Best Shot in response to the horrifying mass shootings that have occurred in America this year.

Speaking to USA Today, the Shadows of the Night singer said that she will avoid performing the track during her current tour in “protest” of gun violence.

Instead, the 69-year-old singer will perform her other classics, including Love Is A Battlefield and We Belong.

“We’re not doing ‘Hit Me With Your Best Shot’ and fans are having a heart attack,” Benatar told the outlet. “And I’m like, I’m sorry, in deference to the victims of the families of these mass shootings, I’m not singing it.”

Benatar said if people want to hear the song, they should simply “go home and listen to it.”

She said the song “is tongue in cheek, but you have to draw the line.”

“I can’t say those words out loud with a smile on my face, I just can’t. I’m not going to go on stage and soapbox — I go to my legislators,” she said, adding, “That’s my small contribution to protesting. I’m not going to sing it. Tough.”

For the unversed this year alone, the country suffered high-profile gun-related attacks, in places such as Uvalde, Texas; Buffalo, New York; and Highland Park, Illinois.