NBA Finals: Steve Kerr advocates for gun control, urges people to vote after Virginia Beach mass shooting
Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr is one of the most outspoken coaches in the NBA.
Another trip to the NBA Finals isn’t changing that.
Before Kerr and the Warriors took the court for a critical Game 2 matchup against the Toronto Raptors on Sunday — a game they won behind a huge third-quarter rally to even the series 1-1 — he appeared in front of the media wearing an orange and purple “Vote For Our Lives” T-shirt.
Kerr explained he wore the shirt because of the mass shooting in Virginia Beach on Friday afternoon, where a city employee killed 12 people at a municipal office.
The whole point of the shirt, he said, is to urge Americans to vote for leaders who will help create change.
“This shirt has everything to do with the tragedy in Virginia Beach a couple days ago and how devastated so many families are and so many people are,” Kerr said. “The shirt is 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.”
Steve Kerr explains his “Vote for Our Lives” shirt pic.twitter.com/zueyohTVQe
— Mark Medina (@MarkG_Medina) June 2, 2019
The 53-year-old has long been an advocate of gun control in the United States, and has been calling for change for years. He even hosted a town hall about the issue in the Bay Area last year, too. His father, Malcolm, was assassinated in Lebanon in 1984 while Kerr was playing at Arizona, too, something he has said helped spark his passion for the issue.
“Vote For Our Lives” is part of the “March For Our Lives” group, an organization created by students after the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018 that now advocates for gun control. The goal is simply to help Americans around the country register to vote.
“The young generation, the ‘March For Our Lives’ generation, has really inspired me,” Kerr said. “So I offer my support to them and to all young people in hope that we can create a change where we don’t all have to walk around scared we’re going to get shot in our country.”
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