SAN ANTONIO — Ahead of the final San Antonio Spurs' match of the 2022-23 regular season versus the Mavericks, San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich didn't shy away from calling out lawmakers over gun control laws.
He made it clear he didn't accept politicians' handling of gun violence in the U.S.
Specifically, Texas Senator Ted Cruz and his plan to add more police at schools which Popovich did not accept as an answer to gun violence.
"Is it freedom for kids to go to school and try to socialize and try to learn and be scared to death that they might die that day?" he said.
Cruz reacted to Popovich's criticism on his podcast, Verdict with Ted Cruz, as well as reacting to the Spurs head coach's opinion on the Second Amendment.
“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 via MSN Sports.
“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.
Cruz then addressed Popovich's statement that the Second Amendment is a "myth."
“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.'”
Popovich didn't just single out Cruz.
He called out Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn's response to a school shooting in Nashville where he quotes her statement that her office is ready to help.
"In what? They're dead. What are you going to assist with? Cleaning up their brains off the wall? Wiping the blood off the schoolroom floor?" he said.
He also called out Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee for his statement on the recent Nashville shooting.
"What are you monitoring? They're dead," Popovich said. Children! They're dead."
Popovich went on to say how he worries about his grandchildren and how much school violence has impacted his life.
“I thought it was really striking what he went after me at in this little rant, he went after me for proposing that we double the number of police officers in schools. And he says, ‘Do you want that?’ Let me be clear. Yes, I want that. I don’t get this recent conceit of leftists that police officers don’t make us more safe, but like it is a bizarre view,” Cruz said on his podcast.
Twitter: @KENS5, @JeffGSpursZone