Getty/Sean Gardner Steve Kerr questions a call during a game against the New Orleans Pelicans.
The Golden State Warriors have been focused as of late. With just a handful of games left before the regular season ends, the team has started to ramp up play, and hope to go into the postseason with some momentum built.
After a come from behind win against the Utah Jazz on April 2, the Dubs took a short trip across the Golden Gate Bridge to play the Sacramento Kings at Golden 1 Center.
However, just blocks away from the arena in downtown Sacramento, a barrage of gunfire broke out as people were leaving nightclubs around 2 AM on April 3, 2022—just hours after the win against the Jazz. For now, six people were killed, and at least 12 were injured in what is said to be the deadliest mass shooting in Sacramento’s history.
According to Gun Violence Archive, there have already been 120 mass shootings in just these three or so months to this calendar year.
During the April 3 pregame press conference with reporters, head coach Steve Kerr offered his condolences to the victims that suffered from this traumatic event. He then went on a 4-minute soliloquy wondering aloud why politicians have yet to address this problem.
“At some point I would hope that we would actually think about our fellow citizens and do something about it instead of play politics, because that’s all we do.
We have more regulations for driving a car than we do for carrying a weapon.”
Steve Kerr gave a long, thoughtful answer in response to last night’s tragic mass shooting in Sacramento
Kerr Gets Emotional as He Asks Politicians to Use Common Sense
Kerr used the entirety of the pregame press conference with the media to talk about the situation. With how near to the shootings the game took place at, Kerr thought it was inappropriate to talk about basketball until after the game.
“We’ll have a moment of silence before the game. It’s the right thing to do, to have a moment of silence,” Kerr says. “But I’ll be honest, it’s probably the ninth or 10th moment of silence that I will have experienced as coach of the Warriors when we mourn people who have died in mass shootings.
“I don’t think moments of silence are going to do anything. At some point, our government has to decide, are we going to have some common-sense gun laws? It’s not going to solve everything, but it will save lives.”
Kerr is no stranger to asking policymakers to act on gun violence. 10 people were killed in Colorado, and eight died in Atlanta spa shootings in March 2021. With the victims’ names behind Kerr, the head coach mourned the loss of the victims and talked about the inaction of lawmakers.
Steve Kerr addressed the shootings in Boulder and Atlanta with the names of the victims behind him
Almost a year later, Kerr is essentially repeating the same sentiments. This time, he was more direct as he asked if the government even cared.
“You think about all of the common-sense laws we could, and should, put in place if we had any guts, if our government had any guts, if people put others in front of their own career paths, in front of their own reelection campaigns, in front of their own propaganda to manipulate people,” Kerr continues on April 3. “It’s right there in front of us.”
Steve Kerr’s Father Was Victim of Gun Violence
When Kerr was a freshman at Arizona, his father Malcolm Kerr, then the president of American University in Beirut, was assassinated on campus by gunmen in 1984.
Ever seen then, Kerr has been a proponent of policies passed to alleviate gun violence as much as possible. Over the years, as mass shootings have increased, Kerr has been more vocal in calling for action.
“It’s devastating, and again I’m so, so sorry for the victims and their families,” Kerr empathetically says. “My family has gone through the same thing, we know how devastating it is. It’s just life changing, everything. Everything changes here for all of the victims and the families.