Golden State Warriors NBA coach Steve Kerr has made an impassioned plea for legislators to pass tougher gun-control laws, after a teenager gunman opened fire at a Texas school, killing 21 people.
The 18-year-old suspect, who was killed by police, also shot his own grandmother, before fleeing the scene, then crashing his getaway car and launching a bloody rampage at Robb Elementary School in the town of Uvalde, Texas, about 130km west of San Antonio.
Nineteen children and two adults are believed to have died in the United States' worst school shooting in nearly 10 years.
In Texas for Game Four of the Western Conference finals against Dallas Mavericks, Kerr used his pre-game media conference to demand action to tighten public access to guns - a political hot potato in a nation built on the right to bear arms.
"In the last 10 days, we've had elderly people killed in a supermarket in Buffalo," he said, barely fighting back tears. "We've had Asian churchgoers killed in southern California and now we have children murdered at school.
"When are we going to do something? I'm so tired of getting up here and offering condolences to the devastated families out there - I'm tired of the moments of silence.
"Enough. There are 50 senators right now who refuse to vote on HR8, which is a background-check rule that the House passed a couple of years ago and it's been sitting there for two years.
"There's a reason they won't vote on it - to hold onto power. I ask all you senators who refuse to do anything about the violence, and school shootings and supermarket shootings, are you going to put your own desire for power ahead of the lives of our children?"
Five-time champion as a player and winner of three more rings as a coach, Kerr, 56, has used his standing in the NBA to express his views on political issues, condemning Donald Trump's presidency, backing current President Joe Biden and supporting the Black Lives Matter movement.
Gun control is particularly close to his heart, after father Malcolm Kerr was murdered by Shia Lebanese militia, while serving as president of the American University of Beirut in 1984.
"We're going to play the game tonight, but I want every person here, every person listening to this to think about your own child or grandchild or mother or father or sister or brother," he said. "How would you feel if this happened to you today?
"We can't get numb to this."
