Steve Kerr: Head coach on Atlanta shootings: ‘That doesn’t sound like freedom to me.’

In the wake of the massageparlor shootings in Atlanta, Warriors head coach Steve Kerr used about half of his pregame news conference Wednesday to denounce racially motivated violence and stump for gun control.

Robert Aaron Long is suspected of a shooting spree that killed eight, including six Asian women, Tuesday evening in an series of shootings that came amid an uptick of crimes against Asian Americans.

“A million things went through my mind,” Kerr said about 90 minutes before the Warriors played at Houston. “No. 1: the continued hatred and racism that’s going on in the wake of the pandemic. It’s so frustrating and so disappointing that we would judge each other based on our heritage, our ethnicity, anything like that. But this is the world we live in.”

Kerr’s father, Malcolm, was assassinated when he was serving as president of the American University of Beirut in 1984, and Kerr has used his NBA platform as way to shed light on the need for gun control.

Last week, the House of Representatives approved two guncontrol bills that have yet to be voted on in the Senate. Both measures are aimed at adding background checks to the purchase of guns.

“It’s just disgusting,” Kerr said. “We can do so much better. I hear people talk about the price of freedom. We have no freedom, if people are getting murdered by mentally unstable people with guns that are easily bought. That doesn’t sound like freedom to me. Freedom would be the ability to live without fear of getting murdered. …

“If we could save one life, it would be worth it. And, everyone who cries about freedom is getting the point wrong. Freedom is being able to live without fear.”

Long told investigators that his killing spree was not racially motivated. Instead, the suspect said he has a sexual addiction and saw the massage parlors as temptations.

Former President Donald Trump referred to the coronavirus as the “China Virus” on a Fox interview Tuesday night, the same evening as the shootings.

“Let’s be honest, our ignorant expresident has not helped matters by using derogatory terms for COVID19. As if where we’re from or what we look like should hold us responsible for a virus. I mean, think about that,” said Kerr, who recounted one of his favorite expressions from San Antonio head coach Gregg Popovich: “We’re all just an accident of birth.”

“It’s true,” Kerr said. “None of gets to choose what we look like or what our skin color is. We just come out as we are: ‘an accident of birth.’ We’re all just flesh and blood. To blame people because of the way they look or because of a virus, think how ignorant that is, how stupid that is, and how dangerous that is.

“When that starts at the top, with the expresident, these are the results. If you can’t make that connection, that’s your own problem.”