Warriors Coach Steve Kerr: ‘Your Guns Need to Be Locked Up’

Warriors Coach Steve Kerr renewed his call for stricter gun laws in wake of the school shooting in Santa Fe, Texas. Specifically, Kerr said laws are needed “in every state,” which require that “your guns need to be locked up.”

“It never surprises me anymore,” Kerr told the Mercury News. “This is a part of our culture now. We need to have laws in place in every state that your guns need to be locked up.”

Kerr reacted particularly strongly to news that the shooter, 17-year-old Dimitrios Pagourtzis, used a shotgun and revolver that belonged to his father. Under Texas law, guns are not required to be kept in a safe in the home.

Kerr said:

The fact that there is no law against that and 10 people were killed and maybe those 10 people wouldn’t be killed if the father had locked up the guns. It’s pretty obvious, let’s make that a law. It’s not infringing on anybody’s Second Amendment rights.

We don’t hand the keys to a car when a kid gets to be 16. We make him go through driver’s [education]; we make him pass a test, we make him get a license, you keep a database on that person, you register the car. We need to do all the same things with guns and if we do that, we’ll save lives and anybody who’s going to argue with that, I would say, ‘Imagine if it was your kid who doesn’t come back from a school shooting.’ Maybe you’ll agree that schools should have more safety laws in place.

Few public figures have been more outspoken on the issue of guns and mass shootings, than Kerr. The issue holds significant personal importance to Kerr. His father, Malcolm Kerr, was killed by terrorists in 1984 while serving as president of the University of Beirut.

In addition to sharing his thoughts on the shooting in Santa Fe, Kerr participated in a town hall discussion on gun violence following the shooting in Parkland, Florida, where 17 people were killed.

The NBA champion player and head coach also spoke out last year after a church shooting near San Antonio, Texas, where Kerr once played for the Spurs.

“Too often, we get caught up in political rhetoric, 2nd Amendment rights, NRA stuff,” Kerr explained. “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.”

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