The day after a gunman walked into the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh with an AR-15-style assault weapon and three handguns and…
The day after a gunman walked into the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh with an AR-15-style assault weapon and three handguns and killed 11 people, Warriors coach Steve Kerr somberly called the country “broken” and again begged for stricter gun control.
“It’s just devastating,” Kerr said before his Warriors faced the Nets on Sunday at Barclays Center. “I just expect it now, and that’s the sad thing. I remember watching an interview with a student after the Santa Fe shooting — a shooting at Texas Santa Fe high school — a 14-year-old girl. And she was asked does this shock you? And she said, ‘No, I kind of expected that this would happen to us at our school at some point.’
“And that’s where we’ve gotten as a country. We’re broken right now. So nothing surprises us anymore, nothing surprises me anymore, whether its shootings at schools, churches, synagogues, malls, movie theaters. We need our leaders to step up, unite the country with the appropriate words, the appropriate actions, and we’re not getting that right now. It’s frustrating, and I don’t know what else to say.”
Kerr — whose father, Malcolm, was assassinated in Beirut by two gunmen in 1984 — has been one of the most outspoken coaches in sports. When asked why others haven’t been quite as vocal, he said some are, but urged others to make their voices heard in the Nov. 6 midterm elections.
“I don’t know. I’m not sure. You have to feel comfortable talking about whatever issue you’re addressing. Not everybody feels comfortable in certain situations and circumstances,” Kerr said. “But more and more you’re seeing people in the sports world, athletes and coaches, speaking out because the times call for it. It’s easy to feel how broken we are right now, our country is. Everybody can have influence, not just our political leaders but people who are well-known figures who have a camera in their face a lot or average citizens just being kind to each other, being nice to one another, not spewing hatred on social media.
“Those are all things we have to think about and try to accomplish to get our country back on track. And we need to vote. I want to urge everybody to get out and vote on Nov. 6. Everybody has their own issues that are important to them. My personal issue is gun safety, gun control. Nobody in this country should have a semi-automatic weapon of war. That’s my personal belief. So I’m going to vote for every candidate that’s willing to stand up to the NRA and say, ‘You know what? This is insane. We’re murdering each other every day.’
“We have to get rid of bump stocks; we have to get rid of high-capacity magazines; we have to get rid of semi-automatic weapons. We just do. Other countries don’t go through this. That’s the issue that’s most important to me, and those are the candidates that I’ll be voting for, the ones who’re willing to stand up and say, ‘You know what? This is wrong. We’ve got to protect our fellow citizens and protect our country.’ ”
