After another mass shooting, a bewildered and emotional NBA coach spoke for the country
The new horrors are the old horrors.
Mike Brown, coach of the Sacramento Kings, knew this instinctively as he took a seat in his postgame press conference on Wednesday night, a short time after yet another American mass shooting, and following his team’s season-opening win over the Utah Jazz. He sat, looked anguished, and began talking, understanding that the new horrors are the old horrors.
It was a basketball presser but it quickly evolved into a therapy session. Brown looked shaken and anyone who heard the news of over a dozen people being murdered by a shooter in Lewiston, Maine, and others injured, had to feel the same.
Brown was relaying the truth that we all know. This is our nation’s unique nightmare, a bloody and tragic AR-15-inspired Groundhog Day. A school. An arena. A mall. A grocery store. This time it was Maine but it could be any state, anywhere, at any time. America recycles its gun violence the way we do our plastics.
Another mass shooting, another preventable moment, and another instance where the clock simultaneously stops and continues to tick. It stops because we pause as a nation, for a moment, to take in the latest carnage and move our flags yet again to half staff while overflowing with grief. The clock keeps ticking because we know it’s only a matter of time before the next mass shooting occurs. Tick, tock, gunshot. Tick, tock, gunshot.
Brown’s words were instructional and powerful and a reminder of the dangers of acclimating to all of this senseless violence. Maybe it’s too late for that but Brown issued a dire warning that was as important and elegant as the words of any politician who has spoken about what happened in Maine.
This is partly what Brown said: "I don’t even want to talk about basketball. We played a game, it was fun. Obviously, we won but if we can’t do anything to fix this, it’s over. It’s over for our country for this to happen time after time."
"If that doesn’t touch anybody," he said, speaking of the shootings, "then I don’t know. I don’t even know what to say."
"It’s a sad day. It’s a sad day for our country. It’s a sad day in this world," Brown said. "And, until we decide to do something about it, the powers that be, this is going to keep happening. And our kids are not going to be able to enjoy what our kids are about because we don’t know how to fix a problem that’s right in front of us."
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He described the shootings as "absolutely disgusting" and urged lawmakers to take steps to prevent future tragedies like this one.
"We, as a country, have to do something," Brown said. "That is absolutely disgusting. And it’s sad. And it’s sad that we sit here and watch this happen time after time after time after time and no one does anything about it. It’s sad. I feel for the families. I don’t know what else to say."
In many ways, Brown was acting as a spokesperson for the nation.
Stars in the NBA have used their power to try and effect change before. After a mass shooting at an elementary school in Texas last year LeBron James posted, in part, on social media: "Like when is enough enough man!!! These are kids and we keep putting them in harm's way at school. Like seriously ‘AT SCHOOL’ where it’s suppose to be the safest. There simply has to be change! HAS TO BE!! Praying to the heavens above to all with kids these days in schools."
Gregg Popovich, who has spoken repeatedly about the need for more gun control, said in April: "… They’re going to cloak all this stuff (in) the myth of the Second Amendment, the freedom. You know, it's just a myth. It’s a joke. It’s just a game they play. I mean, that's freedom. 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?"
Now, it's Mike Brown's turn to say what needed to be said. Because here we are again. The new horrors are the old horrors.
