An NBA player used his time at a pregame press conference Tuesday to address the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, that occurred just a few hours earlier—and the nation’s shortage of baby formula.
“It’s sad, the world that we live in,” Golden State Warriors guard Damion Lee said of the shooting, which left 19 children and two teachers dead.
“It’s easier to get a gun than baby formula right now,” he added, referring to a baby formula shortage that has gripped the country since March.
Earlier in the day a gunman entered an elementary school in Uvalde and opened fire, killing 19 children and two adults. The shooting is part of a decades-long scourge of random acts of gun violence in the U.S., and follows recent shootings in a Buffalo, N.Y., grocery store and a Taiwanese church in Southern California.
Lee’s comments echoed those made minutes before by Warriors coach Steve Kerr, who used his time to call out U.S. politicians for failing to pass legislation aimed at ending gun violence. Kerr said he did not want to discuss basketball in light of the day’s events. “Any basketball questions don’t matter,” he said.
Instead, he directly called out legislators, including Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), for preventing bipartisan bill H.R. 8 from passing the Senate. The bill, which passed the House in March of last year, would establish wider background checks during private firearm sales
“Are you going to put your own desire for power ahead of the lives of our children and our elderly and our churchgoers? Because that’s what it looks like,” Kerr said, addressing the senators.
Other prominent public figures have commented on the shooting as well, including Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), whose remarks on the Senate floor have circulated widely on social media, and Daniel Hogg, a student during the 2018 Parkland, Fla., school shooting and cofounder of gun control advocacy group March for Our Lives.
“We need to do something. We know what we disagree on; we need to focus on what we can and do it, even if small. No more debate or thoughts and prayers. We need bipartisan action,” Hogg tweeted shortly after news of the shooting broke Tuesday.
The Uvalde shooter was 18 years old, evidence of the relative ease of acquiring firearms in the U.S.
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