Sen. Ted Cruz fires back at NBA Coach Gregg Popovich

AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

Earlier this week, I wrote about San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich’s anti-gun tirade before his last game of the season. To say that the coach doesn’t really understand the topic is putting it mildly.

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Yet he also targeted several individual lawmakers that he blames.

Sen. Ted Cruz was one of those. It’s not surprising since he’s been a pretty staunch defender of the Second Amendment during his time in the Senate.

But Cruz took the opportunity to talk a bit about Popovich and his comments.

Cruz reacted to Popovich’s criticism on his podcast, Verdict with Ted Cruz, as well as reacting to the Spurs head coach’s opinion on the Second Amendment.

“We’ve seen for a long time that there are a lot of institutions in sports that don’t really like their fans very much, don’t really like their customers — don’t respect their customers — that look down on them. Popovich is someone who has been a partisan for a long time. He’s a liberal Democrat,” Cruz said via MSN Sports.

“You see this in the NBA, you see it in the NFL, these incredibly rich athletes who hypocritically disdain their fans and customers and who lecture them almost inevitably from a point of ignorance,” he added.

Cruz then addressed Popovich’s statement that the Second Amendment is a “myth.”

“Popovich is surrounded by armed security most of the time. And this is true with so many Hollywood liberals that have armed bodyguards protecting them. And they say, ‘You little people, you don’t have a right to defend your family. You don’t have a right to defend your children but me. I’m gonna be surrounded in perfect safety and take away your rights to defend yourself.’”

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Cruz, of course, is right, but it’s not just people in professional sports. Hollywood as well is full of people who themselves are surrounded by private security to keep them nice and safe while advocating for people like you and me to be disarmed.

Their problem isn’t that people shouldn’t be protected, their problem is that you should have to outsource that protection.

Well, most of us can’t.

We need the Second Amendment to preserve our ability to access the tools that facilitate that. We need to be able to buy the guns we use to protect our families while people like Popovich–who has an estimated net worth of around $120 million, more than enough to hire private security–don’t think you should have it.

Cruz isn’t wrong to point out Popovich’s partisanship. His politics are firmly in the Democratic camp, and while some want to pretend he’s just a disinterested observer, he’s not. It’s a partisan hack like so many others in sports and entertainment.

The truth is that he’s knee-deep in partisanship and part of that is the anti-gun narrative.

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It’s also why someone like Cruz was targeted, not just for his pro-gun positions but because he’s not a Democrat.

Popovich is more than entitled to his opinions. I also won’t say that he should be fired because he shared those opinions.

What I will say, though, is that someone should probably have a chat with him about sharing those opinions in a professional setting like he did. I’m sick of these athletes and coaches thinking that people interested in their sport are also interested in their ill-informed opinions.

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