On the heels of the mass shooting in Colorado, Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr ripped gun owners who he says are unmoved by mass murder because they think such crimes are just the “cost of freedom.”
During his comments during a pre-game conference on Tuesday, Kerr accused supporters of the Second Amendment of dehumanizing victims of violence, according to USA Today.
Along with a number of other assertions, Kerr insisted that we should always name the victims of mass shootings, adding, “The reason to do it is to remind people these are human beings.
“It’s important to humanize the victims, and not just count them. Too often, you pick up a story and you just read there were eight victims or 10 victims, whatever the number is,” he said.
Curiously, Kerr has never demanded that the media name the victims of violence in America’s big cities, including Baltimore, New York, and most especially Chicago.
But Kerr went on, saying, “When you see faces and when you see names, it personalizes it, you put it together and you think about how many people are suffering – how many family members and friends and not to mention, of course, how many lives were cut short and how many dreams were shattered.”
Kerr then pushed a strawman claim to attack gun owners: “If we don’t humanize it, it just continues to be a statistic and it makes it much easier for the idiots out there to say, ‘This is the price of freedom in terms of owning guns.”‘ He added that this mythical position is “possibly the dumbest expression I’ve ever heard in my life.”
One has to wonder where Kerr “heard” this “dumbest expression” because no gun owners are excusing mass murder as just “the price of freedom in terms of owning guns.”
Naturally, the media did not ask Kerr to prove his contention that gun owners are going around deploying this “dumbest expression.”
“Can you imagine the price of freedom being a bunch of innocent people being mowed down by a weapon of war?” Kerr added. “But no, ‘That’s the price of freedom; that’s why we’re Americans.’ What are we even talking about?” Kerr said. “We have to protect each other. The best way to do that is to humanize the victims and get people to understand.”
Of course, the gun the killer in Colorado used is not a “weapon of war.” No army in the world uses the Ruger AR-556 pistol that the killer in Colorado used.
Kerr next went on the attack against Texas Senator Ted Cruz.
“Ted Cruz, this could be your family. This could be your friend. This could be somebody very close to you,” Kerr blurted out. “If this happened, would you not want something in place where there is a background check?”
“It’s just mind-boggling to me that we can just continue to cater to the very small minority in this country” Kerr concluded. “Again, 90 percent of Americans, regardless of political affiliation, support background checks. We go through drivers’ school and drivers’ safety. We have to apply for a license to drive a car. Nothing like that with a gun? We can just show up to Walmart, buy an AR15, and murder 10 people, and that’s the price of freedom? Really, we’re going to keep saying that? So, a lot of us are just angry.”
Kerr’s last assertion is also false. No one in America can just “show up at a Walmart” and buy an AR-15 without an FBI background check.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Facebook at: facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston.
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