Toronto FC coach Bob Bradley adds voice to gun control debate, says change is needed

Toronto FC coach Bob Bradley added his voice Friday to the chorus wondering about America's inability to enact stricter gun laws in the wake of Tuesday's Texas elementary school shooting.

Nineteen children and two teachers were killed inside their school in Uvalde by a gunman wielding two AR-style rifles, bought legally just after his 18th birthday. The slaughter has reignited the debate over U.S. gun laws.

Bradley said he has met Kerr several times and called his words "passionate, real and in most cases I agree with everything he says."

The Democratic-led House of Representatives passed a bill requiring background checks on practically all firearm purchases. But Republicans in the Senate have resisted the legislation.

"We're being held hostage by 50 senators in Washington who refuse to even put it to a vote, despite what we, the American people, want," an emotional Kerr said before Tuesday's playoff game against the Dallas Mavericks.

"They won't vote on it, because they want to hold on to their own power. It's pathetic."

"I don't know for sure but I think that the majority of people in the U.S., regardless of some of the politics, are absolutely in favour of some change with the way this all works," he added. "It can't keep happening over and over. It's too sad."

"On a human level, people in every country realize how important the safety and the education and the upbringing of young people are. That's the future of every country," Bradley added.

Kerr's father Malcolm, was shot and killed by two gunmen in 1984 in Lebanon while president of the American University of Beirut.

Toronto FC captain Michael Bradley, Bob's son, has spoken his mind in the past. In June 2020, the former U.S. skipper lambasted Donald Trump, lamenting the "zero leadership" south of the border as the U.S. was ravaged by racial unrest.

"We have a president who is completely empty. There isn't a moral bone in his body," Michael Bradley said.