Pat Benatar will no longer perform her song Hit Me With Your Best Shot

Pat Benatar said, ‘I can’t say those words out loud with a smile on my face.’ Photograph: Lora Olive/ZUMA Press Wire/REX/Shutterstock

Singer Pat Benatar said she will stop performing her song Hit Me With Your Best Shot in light of recent mass shootings in the US.

Benatar told USA Today that she has decided to stop playing the song “in deference to the victims [and] the families of these mass shootings”.