The harrowing images that flooded the media in the hours after the biggest mass shooting in US history which took place in Las Vegas on Sunday would have evoked some difficult emotions for Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr in particular.
Before he started out on his NBA career - where he would win 5 NBA titles with the Chicago Bulls before retiring, becoming a coach, and winning two more with the Warriors - Kerr was a student-athlete at Arizona when he received some truly awful news about his father.
A university professor specialising in the Middle East, Malcom Kerr was shot and killed in Beirut in 1984, leaving a devastated family back home who did not know how to deal with such a horrible occurrence.
Speaking to The Atlantic, Kerr explained that he saw in the families and friends of the Las Vegas victims the same emotions he felt when he lost his father, before asking some very valid questions about the US policy on gun control.
I was watching CNN this morning while working out in the hotel and some of the victim’s families were speaking, getting interviewed, crying. I’ve been there. I know exactly how they feel, having lost my dad to gun violence. You can’t explain the pain that this brings.
So I hope we can do more than just offer victims our thoughts and prayers. We’ve been offering victims thoughts and prayers for three decades. We need to offer them something else. And I know a lot of people have been saying don’t politicize this, don’t disrespect the victims by calling for gun control.
But I’d argue that if we’d had any respect for the victims, we would have done something 20 years ago, 30 years ago, when Columbine happened or Sandy Hook or Aurora. Name any one of these mass shootings that happens pretty much every week in our country.
If we had any respect for our citizens we would’ve had discussions before. So, for people to say don’t have that discussion now, now is not the time. When the hell is the time? That’s what I want to know.
As much sense as he speaks, Kerr is not holding any expectation for change anytime soon.
The Warriors' coach pointed to a lack of compassion in US Congress as a main stumbling block for any such discussion.
Unfortunately that’s my expectation, that nothing will happen. But at some point, as a country, we have to be so disgusted and so vocal that our concerns can override the lack of concern, lack of compassion that exists in Congress. But when 20 5-year-olds can get mowed down in an elementary school and a couple months later Congress votes down the simplest of background check measures, it offers very little hope that they will actually show any concern for the citizens of our country.
Powerful stuff from Kerr, while it may not result in any direct policy changes, hopefully his personal touch on such a difficult subject will get people talking at the very least.
For a public figure such as himself to take this stance at what is a very sensitive time commands respect, and you can read Kerr's interview in full over on The Atlantic.
