During his rant, the outspoken firebrand suggested that freedoms granted by the Second Amendment are a “myth.” He further criticized efforts by legislators to add armed resource officers to school buildings to bolster student safety.
“They’re going to cloak all this stuff, you know, the myth of the Second Amendment, the freedom, you know it’s just a myth, it’s a joke,” he told reporters. “It’s just a game they play, that’s freedom.”
The legendary coach bashed what he called “cowardly, oblivious legislators” for their actions or inactions over the gun control issue. He even declared that U.S. public policy on guns made the country the “laughingstock” of the world.
Popovich singled out Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) for his support of adding armed resource officers in schools. “But Ted Cruz will fix them, because he’s going to double the number of cops in schools. That’s what he wants to do. Well, that will create a great environment. Is that freedom?”
According to ESPN, Coach Popovich also asked the gathering of journalists if any of them were presently armed.
“I just wondered because we have a governor and lieutenant governor and an attorney general that made it easier to have more guns,” he said of Texas government officials. “That was a response to our kids getting murdered. I just thought that was a little bit [of a] strange decision. It’s just me, though.”
He added a question of what it would take “to budge those people.”
Popovich criticized both parties over gun control, saying “they think we’re stupid — Republican and Democratic alike. But they might be right because they get away with that crap.”
Popovich turned his attention to the legislative controversy in Tennessee. Specifically, he took aim at the turmoil over a pair of lawmakers expelled for using a bullhorn on the House floor to lead raucous gun control protests.
“Those legislators called those kids that were protesting insurrectionists. That’s hard to believe in America. But America ain’t what we thought America was. It’s changed.”
The coach clearly does not adhere to the truism of good guys with guns protecting themselves, their loved ones, and many times the innocents around them. He also ignores the obvious fact that it is armed law enforcement and first responders who we call in times of desperate need.
Further, who protected the citizens who attended the matchup between Popovich’s Spurs and the Dallas Mavericks? Armed police officers, that’s who. Not well-intentioned social workers, but good guys with guns.
Like most anti-gun zealots, the outspoken coach does not understand some very basic principles that underpin freedoms we all enjoy as Americans.
The Constitution and Bill of Rights is not a salad bar where individual ingredients may be either chosen or passed over at will. As many civil libertarians note, if one facet of freedom is voided, they are all in danger.
The day leaders may decide through unilateral action outside of the legislative process that one of our precious freedoms is nullified, there is nothing stopping them from going after others as well. The protections of the Second Amendment must be safeguarded just as those of the First. Once our leaders are ready to deal them away, what is there to prevent them from going after speech, or religion, or the press? Nothing.
The First Amendment gives Popovich the right to express his opinions, and his success as a basketball coach affords him the platform. But, just like everyone else, his opinions must be judged on their merit and validity. And calling the Second Amendment a “myth” makes it doubly difficult to put any credence into anything else he said.
