In a passionate nine-minute monologue, Spurs coach Gregg Popovich ripped politicians for not taking action to stop school shootings Sunday ahead of his team’s regular-season finale in Dallas. The soon-to-be Hall of Fame coach started his commentary by asking reporters if any of them were carrying a firearm.
“I just wondered because we have a governor [Greg Abbott] and lieutenant governor [Dan Patrick] and an attorney general [Ken Paxton] that made it easier to have more guns,” Popovich said in reference to three prominent Texas politicians, per ESPN. “That was a response to our kids getting murdered. I just thought that was a little bit strange decision. It’s just me, though.”
Popovich was referencing a new Texas law where a license is no longer required to openly carry a handgun. The law was enacted following a school shooting in Tennessee where the shooter killed three 9-year-olds and three adults in Nashville, Tenn., on March 27. It also follows the mass shooting that claimed the lives of 19 students and two adults on May 24, 2022, at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas, which is located about 80 miles west of San Antonio.
Popovich then discussed the dismissal of representatives Justin Jones and Justin Pearson from the Tennessee House of Representatives after the two Black Democrats led gun control demonstrations on the chamber floor last week in the wake of the Nashville shooting.
“Well, since you asked, what would it take to budge those people? What would it take?” Popovich said. “I mean, we’ve got two young Black guys in Tennessee who just got railroaded by a bunch of people that I would bet down deep in their soul want to go back to Jim Crow. And what they just did is a good start. It’s beyond comprehension. And what were they guilty of? They actually protested?
“Those [Tennessee Republican] legislators called those kids that were protesting insurrectionists. That’s hard to believe in America,” he continued. “But America ain’t what we thought America was. It’s changed. So if those kids are insurrectionists, what were the people on January 6th? What do we call them? What’s the next step or word or level of violence after insurrectionists? I don’t know what it is. What will it take?”
The Spurs coach then took out a piece of paper and read from notes he made regarding statements about the Nashville shooting by Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R., Tenn.) and Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee.
“I mean, I couldn’t believe it, so I wrote this thing down, but Senator Marsha Blackburn, her comment after was, after the massacre, ‘My office is in contact with federal, state and local officials and we stand ready to assist,’” Popovich read.
“In what?! They’re dead!” Popovich shouted. “What are you going to assist with—cleaning up their brains off the wall, wiping the blood off the schoolroom floor? What are you going to assist with?
“And then there’s Governor Lee. I’m sorry to go on and on, but Bill Lee: ‘I’m closely monitoring the tragic situation. Please join us in prayer.’ What are you monitoring? They’re dead! Children—they’re dead. When I pick up my 6- and 11-year-old grandkids at school, when I’m here at home, on the way it goes through my mind that I hope they’re going to be O.K.”
Popovich then posed a stark question to lawmakers after calling out gun lobbyists and gun manufacturers, calling their greed “obvious.”
“What’s more important to you? If you could vote for some good gun safety laws that most of the public agrees to, would you do that if it saved one kid?” he said. “Or is your job and your money so important to you that you would say, screw the kid? What’s, what’s in your mind?’”
