Steve Kerr again laments lack of response to gun violence: ‘Nothing has been done’

After a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., left at least 17 people dead and 14 others injured, Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr delivered a strong statement, saying the U.S. government isn’t focusing “on the real safety issues.”

“Nothing has been done,” Kerr said ahead of Wednesday’s Warriors-Trail Blazers matchup, via ESPN’s Chris Haynes. “It doesn’t seem to matter to our government that children are being shot to death, day after day in schools. It doesn’t matter that people are being shot at a concert, at a movie theater. It’s not enough, apparently, to move our leadership, our government, the people who are running this country to actually do anything. That’s demoralizing.

“But we can do something about it,” he continued. “We can vote people in who actually have the courage to protect people’s lives, not just bow down to the NRA because they’ve financed their campaign for them. Hopefully we’ll find enough people, first of all to vote, get people in, but hopefully we’ll find enough people to actually help our citizens remain safe and focus on the real safety issues, not building some stupid wall for millions of dollars that has nothing to do with our safety, but actually protecting us from what truly is dangerous, which is maniacs with semi-automatic weapons just slaughtering our children. It’s disgusting.”

On Nov. 5, 2017, 26 people were killed in a church shooting in Sutherland Springs, Texas. A day later, Kerr offered his thoughts and some possible actions to prevent similar incidents from happening in the future.

“To solve it, I think we almost have to look at it like a public health issue,” he said, via USA Today Sports. “Too often we get caught up in political rhetoric, 2nd amendment rights, NRA stuff. We have to look at this as it having nothing to do with partisanship, political parties. It’s got to be a public safety issue, a public health issue.”

Kerr went a little more in depth with his thought process on gun laws in a June 2016 appearance on a San Jose Mercury-News podcast with Tim Kawakami. His appearance came just days after 49 people were shot and killed at a gay nightclub in Orlando, marking the country’s worst terror attack since Sept. 11. Unfortunately, it was only one of 43 shootings nationwide on June 12, 2016 alone.

“I kind of think that our forefathers would not have OK’d automatic weapons to be sold to everybody if they existed back then. Let’s have some checks. It’s easier to get a gun than it is to get a driver’s license. It’s insane. And as somebody who’s had a family member shot and killed, it devastates me every time I read about this stuff — like what happened in Orlando — and then it’s even more devastating to see the government just cowing to the NRA and going to this totally outdated Bill Of Rights, right to bear arms. If you want to own a musket, fine, you know, but come on. The rest of the world thinks we’re insane. We are insane.

“You wonder if any of these Senators and Congressmen and women who are so opposed to even holding a vote on not only the right to buy an automatic weapon but just the background checks and the lists and all the stuff, how would they feel about this if their own child, their own mother, their own father, sister, brother, wife, husband was murdered? Mass murdered. Would that change your mind? I don’t know but how many times do we have to go through this before our government actually does something about it?”

Kerr’s father was a victim of gun violence and terrorism. He was shot twice in the head at the American University of Beirut in 1984. Kerr was still in college when he got the news.