Pat Benatar won't sing famed 'Hit Me With Your Best Shot' song anymore in wake of mass shootings: 'I can't say those words out loud with a smile on my face'

• Pat Benatar says she's done singing one of her most famous songs, "Hit Me With Your Best Shot."
• She said it's out of respect for the victims of mass shootings that have been plaguing the US.

Rock legend Pat Benatar says she's done singing one of her most famous songs — "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" — out of respect for the victims of mass shootings that have been plaguing the United States.

"I can't say those words out loud with a smile on my face, I just can't," Benatar, 69, told USA Today in an interview published Thursday while referring to the lyrics of the 1980 smash hit.

Benatar, who is currently on tour around the country, said that "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" is officially out of the rotation of songs to play.

"We're not doing 'Hit Me With Your Best Shot' and fans are having a heart attack 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 told USA Today.

Benatar said that she has told her fans, "If you want to hear the song, go home and listen to it."

The music icon told USA Today that the popular single, whose chorus contains the prominent lyric "fire away," is "tongue-in-cheek, but you have to draw the line."

"I'm not going to go on stage and soapbox – I go to my legislators – but that's my small contribution to protesting. I'm not going to sing it. Tough," Benatar said in the interview.

The United States has recently been rocked by a spate of deadly mass shootings including in Buffalo, New York, Uvalde, Texas, and Highland Park, Illinois.

Data compiled by the Gun Violence Archive shows that the country has had 357 mass shootings so far this year. The nonprofit group defines mass shootings as those with at least four injured or killed, not including the shooter.

Data analysis by the Marshall Project has also shown that US mass shootings are getting deadlier and more common. One expert told Insider that the US is becoming a "traumatized society" amid rampant gun violence.

The "Love Is a Battlefield" hitmaker, who will soon be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, joins a long list of celebrities who have advocated for stricter gun laws, including Ariana Grande, Billie Eilish, Chris Evans, and Matthew McConaughey.

Other stars, including Jane Fonda and Taraji P. Henson, have expressed frustration that gun control is relaxed in the US while bodily autonomy is restricted.

Indeed, Benatar added that she is "worried" about "fundamental autonomy rights" in the wake of the Roe v. Wade reversal, stripping federal protection for abortion rights nationwide.

"This is a slippery slope," she told USA Today. "It's not about abortion for me. I'm concerned that people are not paying attention to what this actually means."