Prior to the final game of the the San Antonio Spurs season, Spurs’ head coach, Gregg Popovich, spoke out against lawmakers and their handling of gun control laws in the U.S. Popovich did not mince his words and made it clear that he did not accept the current state of affairs surrounding gun violence.
Specifically, Popovich took aim at Texas Senator Ted Cruz and his proposal to increase police presence at schools as a solution to gun violence. Popovich was adamant that this was not an acceptable answer to the problem and called out politicians for not doing enough to address gun control laws in the country.
In response to Popovich’s criticism, Cruz took to his podcast, Verdict with Ted Cruz, to defend his proposal and voice his opinion on the Second Amendment. While Cruz and Popovich may have differing views on gun control laws, it is clear that the issue remains a hotly debated topic in the U.S.
“We’ve seen for a long time that there are a lot of institutions in sports that don’t really like their fans very much, don’t really like their customers — don’t respect their customers — that look down on them. Popovich is someone who has been a partisan for a long time. He’s a liberal Democrat,” Cruz said.
“You see this in the NBA, you see it in the NFL, these incredibly rich athletes who hypocritically disdain their fans and customers and who lecture them almost inevitably from a point of ignorance,” he added.
“Popovich is surrounded by armed security most of the time. And this is true with so many Hollywood liberals that have armed bodyguards protecting them. And they say, ‘You little people, you don’t have a right to defend your family. You don’t have a right to defend your children but me. I’m gonna be surrounded in perfect safety and take away your rights to defend yourself.'”
Crux wasn’t the only politician Popovich singled out, he also criticized Tennessee’s Sen. Marsha Blackburn and Gov. Bill Lee’s response to the school shooting in Nashville.
