Marilyn Manson thinks it is "shocking" that guns are more readily available than his album.

The rocker can't understand the controversy surrounding his new LP 'The High End Of Low' - which features a song called 'Pretty As A Swastika' - and why his record company pushed for censorship.

He said: "It's shocking to me that it's easier to buy a gun at Wal-Mart than it is to buy my record. And it's entertainment, it's music, but that doesn't mean it has no value.

"But it's just ironic that they can sell a CD in a store, and they won't put the title 'Pretty As a Swastika' on the cover, but at the same store they'll have 'Valkyrie', for example, which has a Swastika on the cover. Now, I'm not even using the symbol, I'm using the word, so the record company sort of created a new curse word, by default, for me. "

According to the 'Disposable Teens' star, he threatened to axe the release if label executives continued to ask him to tone down the nature and content of the songs.

He added to Spin magazine: "The fact that the record company says that they can't put that song on the record… crazy. So I say, 'Well OK, don't put the album out.' And they just don't know what to say. And it's great to be able to have that kind of attitude. When someone makes you a product and you're not in control of it anymore, you feel like a whore, like someone who's being beaten up and pushed around."