Following Sunday night's 107-106 victory over the Atlanta Hawks, Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James spoke to members of the media with regards to the recent shooting inside the Borderline Bar and Grill in Thousand Oaks, California, where 12 people were killed.
Prior to Sunday night's game, James, his teammates, and some members of the Hawks decided to wear shirts with the word “ENOUGH” written across the chest. The back of the shirt featured the names of all 12 victims in the Thousand Oaks shooting, including Sgt. Ron Helus, who was one of the first to arrive at the scene. Helus was a 29-year veteran of the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office who was nearly set to retire.
The gunman, who will remain nameless in this post, later took his own life.
#ENOUGH pic.twitter.com/9a2wDw5vBZ
— Los Angeles Lakers (@Lakers) November 12, 2018
During his postgame media availability, James shared his thoughts on the tragedy and the ongoing issue of gun violence in America.
Via Tania Ganguli of the Los Angeles Times:
“Probably the same thing that went through everybody's mind: ‘Not again.' Or: ‘Wow, what the hell?' Probably some more explicit terms that I won't say right here,” James said when asked for his initial response to the shooting. “It's just how do we clean up this?…”
“It all comes back to this gun situation that we have in America and gun violence,” James continued. “I don't want to go into that right now, but I can at a later point. We know that these people are just able to go and buy guns and do things with them and innocent lives are being taken at young ages — young ages.”
“When I was younger, we didn’t really have to worry about gun violence,” James said. “I mean, if you had a problem with somebody, you kind of fist it out and moved on. And now it’s like people are like shooting it out and don’t even have a problem with somebody. They just have a problem with themselves or a problem with the situation they’re in.”
“It’s just very troubling times for everyone,” the Lakers star added. “You know, as parents, how can you be comfortable sending your kids to school or send them to church or send them to the movies or send them to the mall?”
“I think it’s about recognizing what’s going on with society and with us being so close to this situation and not being too far away, and of all my prayers and my condolences to all the families that have lost loved ones,” James said in closing.
Gun violence has affected far too many families in America. According to a report from NPR, the U.S. has the 28th-highest rate in the world: 4.43 deaths due to gun violence per 100,000 people in 2017 — nine times as high as the rate in Canada, which had 0.47 deaths per 100,000 people — and 29 times as high as in Denmark, which had 0.15 deaths per 100,000. Needless to say, some sort of action needs to be taken soon.
Like James, ClutchPoints would like to send condolences to the families of this horrific tragedy.
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