New Orleans Saints Coach Gives Anti-Gun Sermon as Politics Continue Pollution of NFL
Clearly not content with simply pissing off conservative NFL fans by having his team disrespect America by kneeling on foreign soil over the weekend, New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton has now gone off on a rant against the Second Amendment.
This is hardly likely to please many of the good old boys in Louisiana, a state where one of the nicknames is “sportsman’s paradise” and where hunting and fishing are right up there with football as preferred choices of recreation.
Payton provided plenty of material to the media on Tuesday after his team returned from London and ripped existing gun laws as being inadequate “It’s very clear. And, look, if that pisses people off, it’s tough” said the man whose team continues to piss people off every time that his players drop to one knee.
"It's time": Saints coach Sean Payton renews call for better gun control after Las Vegas tragedy https://t.co/QtQ4LtVa5F pic.twitter.com/YOqCFg5tgf
— Yahoo Sports (@YahooSports) October 3, 2017
Via Yahoo News “Saints’ Sean Payton renews call for better gun control after Las Vegas mass shooting”:
There aren’t many tweets that come from the official account of New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton as he had only two in September.
But like so many Americans, the massacre in Las Vegas has affected Payton, and on Tuesday, he posted some statistics, attributed to The New York Times (and affirmed elsewhere), showing the number of Americans killed on all battlefields in all wars in history vs. the number of Americans killed by firearms since 1968. The firearms deaths have exceeded the battlefield deaths.
Payton and the rest of the Saints got news of the tragedy when they returned to New Orleans after their flight home from London, where they had shutout the Miami Dolphins.
“The current protocol is not working,” Payton told reporters on Tuesday. “The current system is not working, and the madness is when you go years and years and years, and say, well, [things don’t need to change] … The current policies and thoughts are flawed.”
This is not the first time Payton has spoken out about gun control – he first did so last year, after former Saints standout Will Smith was shot and killed, and at the time, Payton indicated he’d like to see guns banned altogether.
He told USA Today then that the right for citizens to bear arms should not mean they can easily assemble an arsenal. He understands using guns for hunting, but when he sees the statistics on gun violence, including in the city he’s called home for over a decade, he questions whether having guns for self-defense is that vital.
Stephen Paddock, the terrorist who carried out the shooting in Las Vegas, reportedly had nearly two dozen firearms in his room at the Mandalay Bay Resort, where he carried out the shooting.
And Payton isn’t worried about others being upset at his stance.
“Look, if that pisses people off, that’s tough,” he said.
Payton also took to Twitter to post a statistic that he seems to believe justifies quashing the Second Amendment:
Crazy statistic!!
It's time. #CommonSense pic.twitter.com/ve9CJNJx5D— Sean Payton (@SeanPayton) October 3, 2017
A convenient bye week will spare Payton and his team from the boos of thousands raining down on them from the crowd in the Mercedes Benz Superdome but his comments may increase the number of Saints jersey bonfire parties thrown by fans who like their sports and politics served up separately.
