Warriors head coach Steve Kerr on gun control: ‘Our government is insane, we are insane’

SAN FRANCISCO (Diya TV) — Warriors head coach Steve Kerr, whose father Malcom was assassinated by a gunmen in Lebanon in 1984, on Friday decided to get a little political during a guest appearance on Bay Area sportswriter Tim Kawakami’s TK Show podcast, voicing a strong endorsement of harsher background checks for the purchase of firearms in America.

Kerr called the U.S. government “insane” for failing to adopt stricter measures in ensuring guns don’t get into the hands of the wrong people in the country. Though from the world of sports, Kerr’s intellect outside the world of basketball has been well documented — his non-NBA reading list can be explored more here.

Here’s the full text of Kerr’s comments during the podcast:

“As a basketball coach I don’t often get political, but if you don’t mind, I just want to say, when 90 percent of our country wants background checks on gun purchases, and we’ve got our Senate and our House not only voting it down, but using the Bill of Rights as a reason for people to have rights to carry these automatic weapons, and we’re getting people murdered every day at an alarming rate.

“I just have to get this off my chest. Our government is insane. We are insane. What bugs me is this adherence to the right to bear arms. That was back in 1776. People didn’t own automatic rifles. You had to have a musket in case the Red Coats were coming. The beautiful thing about the Constitution is they left open Amendments to change things because, things change over time.

“I kind of think our forefathers would not have OKed automatic weapons to be sold to everybody if they existed back then.

“Let’s have some checks. It’s easier to get a gun than it is a driver’s license. It’s insane. And as somebody whose had a family member shot and killed, it just devastates me every time I read about this stuff, like what happened in Orlando, and then its even more devastating to see the government just cowing to the NRA and going to this totally outdated Bill of Rights, right to bear arms, if you want to own a musket, fine. But come on.

“The rest of the world thinks we’re insane, and we are insane. Until we vote this senators and congressmen and women out of office, the same thing’ is going to happen.

It’s infuriating and I had to get that off my chest.”

This is hardly the first time Kerr has voiced his opinions of gun control — during the Warriors 2015 championship celebration at the White House, Kerr made it a special point to thank President Barack Obama for his contributions and work on the issue. During his visit to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Kerr said gun control “is an important political issue for me and my family. We believe very strongly there needs to be greater measures, so how often am I going to get the chance to thank the president for something that he’s working on? He seemed very appreciative.”

Malcom Kerr was serving as the president of the American University of Beirut when he was gunned down by Islamic terrorists, who were equipped with silenced revolvers, outside his office. Steve was a freshman at the University of Arizona when his father was murdered by a pro-Iranian group calling itself the Islamic Holy War, who claimed responsibility, according to the New York Times.

“How many times do we have to go through this before our government actually does something about it?” Kerr said during Friday’s podcast. “It’s just incredible.”