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Steve Kerr, Golden State Warriors coach:
“Not going to talk about basketball.
Nothing happened to our team in the last six hours.
We start in the same formation today.
All basketball questions don't matter.
Steve Kerr, American basketball legend and coach of the Golden State Warriors, declined to speak about sports Tuesday night.
Steve Kerr, Golden State Warriors coach:
“In the last ten days, elderly black people have been shot dead in a Buffalo convenience store.
Asian churchgoers were killed in South Carolina.
And now we have murdered children in a school.
when do we do something
I am tired.
I'm so exhausted coming up here and condoling to the devastated families.
I'm so exhausted from... Sorry!
I'm tired of the minutes of silence.
Enough!"
Kerr responded to the massacre at a Texas elementary school.
An 18-year-old is said to have shot 19 children and two adults there.
The former professional athlete has long been an advocate of tougher gun laws in the United States.
His father was once shot dead by an assassin in Beirut.
Steve Kerr, Golden State Warriors coach:
“Right now there are fifty senators who don't want to vote HR8.
This is a background check on gun buyers legislation that the House of Representatives passed a few years ago.
It's been there for two years.
And there's a reason they don't want to vote for it.
To stay in power.
So I'm asking you, Mitch McConnell, I'm asking all the senators who aren't doing anything about the violence of these school shootings and supermarket shootings -- I'm asking you, do you put your lust for power before the lives of our children, our elders, our churchgoers?
Because that's what it looks like."
The ability to own guns is a fundamental right in the United States.
A constitutional majority in Congress is therefore required for every restriction.
Although there are multiple murders like the one in Texas, parts of the Republicans are blocking stricter gun laws.
Steve Kerr, Golden State Warriors coach:
"I'm fed up.
I have enough.
I will play the game today.
But I want everyone here to know that everyone listening here is thinking about their own children.
Or his grandchildren, or his mother, or his father, or his sister, his brother.
How would you feel if this happened to you?
We mustn't become numb."
The video of his emotional performance went viral on social media.
Steve Kerr:
We can't just sit here and read about it and say, alright, let's have a minute's silence.
Yeah, go dubs!
Let's go Mavs!
Let's go!
Because that's what we do.
We're going to play basketball.
And fifty senators in Washington are holding us hostage.
They don't want to vote on it because they cling to power.
It's pathetic!
I have enough.!""