San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich pleaded for stronger gun control measures on Sunday during his final pregame press conference of the NBA regular season.
The Spurs coach spent roughly nine minutes of the press conference talking to the media about his desire for tougher gun regulations. (RELATED: Prices For NBA Finals Tickets Are Historically High)
During the press conference, the coach called the Second Amendment a “myth.”
“It’s a myth, it’s a game they play,” Popovich said.
The five-time NBA championship coach asked reporters whether it was “freedom” for children to have to fear being killed in a school shooting. He also chided Texas Senator Ted Cruz for his proposal to double the number of police officers in schools.
A thread of Pop’s full, 9-minute speech that followed: pic.twitter.com/U4P8EnhlZZ
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He also addressed the expulsion of Democratic Tennessee state Reps. Justin Jones and Justin Pearson from the legislature after they led a protest on the House floor, claiming that the expulsions were racially motivated.
“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,” Popovich said, “And what they just did is a good start. It’s beyond comprehension. And what were they guilty of? They actually protested?”
Popovich then blamed the lack of stricter gun control measures on lobbyists and gun manufacturers.
“You know, the greed of the gun lobbies and the manufacturers is obvious. We all know that,” Popovich said. “Money talks, but the cowardice and the selfishness of the legislators who are so scared to death of being primaried and losing their job, losing their power, losing their salary — you’d like to get each one of ’em in a room just one by one and say, ‘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? 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?”