Spurs' Gregg Popovich says using the Second Amendment to reject gun control is a 'MYTH'

San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich has slammed, in his view, 'cowardly legislators' for not implementing gun control measures, ostensibly suggesting the Second Amendment's is a 'myth' used to deny restrictions on firearms. 

Popovich's furious pregame speech Sunday is hardly a surprise his long-held and forthright views on gun control, alongside other political and social issues. 

Speaking to reporters ahead of the Spurs' win vs. Dallas, Popovich asked reporters if they were carrying while working at the American Airlines Center in Dallas.

'I just wondered because we have a governor [Greg Abbott] and lieutenant governor [Dan Patrick] and an attorney general that made it easier to have more guns,' Popovich said. 

'That was a response to our kids getting murdered,' he said, referring to the mass murder of six - including three children - at a private Christian school in Nashville by a 28-year-old transgender ex-student. 'I just thought that was a little bit strange decision. It's just me, though.' 

San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich went on a nine-minute rant regarding gun control

'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?'

Popovich, a former Air Force vet who served for five years, then delivered a rebuke of Texas Senator Ted Cruz, who is pushing for better protection of children in schools through armed police officers on the premises.

'But Ted Cruz will fix it because he is going to double the number of cops in the schools. That's what he wants to do. Well, that'll create a great environment. Is that freedom? Or is it freedom to have a congressman who can make a postcard with all his family holding rifles, including an AR-15 or whatever. 

'Is that cool? Is that like street cred for a Republican? That's freedom? That's more important than protecting kids? I don't get it. You know, the greed of the gun lobbies and the manufacturers is obvious. 

'We all know that. Money talks, but the cowardice and the selfishness of the legislators who are so scared to death of being primaried and losing their job, losing their power, losing their salary.

'You'd like to get each one of them in a room just one by one and say, "What's more important to you? If you could vote for some good gun safety laws that most of the public agrees to, would you do that if it saved one kid?" Or is your job and your money so important to you that you would say, "Screw the kid?"' 

The five-time NBA champion coach did not make mention of how often nor how many armed guards and police protect the Spurs and other NBA teams throughout the season. 

Popovich also critiqued the expulsion of Democrat Representatives Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, who were expelled from state legislature last week for their roles in the shocking scenes on the Tennessee House floor -- labeled by some as an insurrection, and a protest by others, following the mass shooting at The Covenant School.

Popovich may have coached his last NBA game in the Spurs' win at Dallas on Sunday afternoon

'We've got two young black guys in Tennessee who just got railroaded by a bunch of people that I would bet down deep in their soul want to go back to Jim Crow. And what they just did is a good start. It's beyond comprehension. And what were they guilty of? They actually protested?'

'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. 

'So, if those kids are insurrectionists, what were the people on January 6th? What do we call them? What's the next step or word or level of violence after insurrectionists? I don't know what it is. What will it take?' 

'You know, these people, they think we're stupid – Republican and Democratic alike. But they might be right because they get away with that crap. They tell us things about prayers and, you know, their offices are monitoring this stuff, like I said. Get away from me. Stop all the bulls***. Stop talking down to us. We're not stupid, but they will do it to keep their jobs.' 

Popovich has long been outspoken on issues around gun control and other societal issues