Former UConn women’s basketball star Paige Bueckers spoke out after a deadly shooting at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis near her hometown Hopkins, Minnesota.
Two children, ages 8 and 10, were killed, and 17 other people were wounded when a shooter opened fire at the school’s morning Mass on Wednesday during the first week of the new school year. It was the 44th school shooting in the United States this year according to a CNN analysis.
“You hope that there’s stricter gun laws put in place so that parents don’t have to worry about sending their kids to school, people don’t have to worry about attending church and all these places are safe,” Bueckers said ahead of Wednesday’s game between her Dallas Wings and the Connecticut Sun. “It’s just really unfortunate that gun violence continues to be an issue, and there really is nothing being done about it. I’m just hoping and praying for a future where stricter laws are put in place, and you just pray for people in the world who are going through stuff like that, for the families involved.”
Bueckers wasn’t the only one calling for change in the WNBA. Minnesota Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve also called the shooting “an indictment of our society,” and the Lynx shared a joint statement with the Minnesota Timberwolves which said, “No child should ever feel unsafe in a place of learning or worship, and no family should endure such unimaginable loss.” Several Lynx players also took to social media to share the statement and other messages in support of gun control.
“When (I) would go to school, we trained for tornadoes. Kids today train for active shooters,” Reeve said after the Lynx’s practice Wednesday. “There are things that we can do about it, and we know them, but for some reason as Americans, we value something different. It’s sickening. It’s sad for the kids to grow up like this. It’s sad for the kids to walk through the door and not know what’s going to happen. … The sad thing is that we can’t sit here and tell them that help is on the way, because we’re not going to do a damn thing about it.”
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