Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr belonged to another team before Game 2 of the NBA Finals: One fighting for sensible gun laws.
The activist and former NBA player wore a “Vote For Our Lives” T-shirt to the game on Sunday advocating tighter firearms laws, USA Today reported. A gunman killed 12 people in Virginia Beach, Virginia, just days earlier.
“The shirt has everything to do with the tragedy in Virginia Beach and how devastated so many families are and so many people are,” Kerr told reporters before the Warriors defeated the Raptors in Game 2 (watch the clip above). “The shirt’s a reminder that the only way we can get out of this mess is to actually vote, and to vote for people who are going to be willing to create some change in our gun laws in our country.”
Kerr, who also wore the T-shirt after Sunday’s game, has used his high profile to condemn gun violence ― and lawmakers who shrink from possible solutions.
In November he railed against the inevitable mass shootings after the Borderline Bar massacre in Thousand Oaks, California. In October he called the United States a “broken country” after the killings at a Pittsburgh synagogue. In 2016 he made an impassioned plea for gun control, just days after his team lost Game 7 of the NBA Finals to the Cleveland Cavaliers. He accused the government of “cowing to the NRA.”
The message Kerr supported on Sunday, “Vote for Our Lives,” spotlights the student-led March For Our Lives movement aiming to curb gun violence through legislation, according to The Associated Press.
“The March For Our Lives generation has really inspired me,” Kerr said. He said he hoped “we can create a change where we don’t all have to walk around scared of being shot.”
Kerr’s own family has been shattered by gun violence. His father was shot dead in Beirut in 1984.
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