OL Reign defeated the Kansas City Current 1-0 on Wednesday night but after the game, the team’s coach and most well-known player had no interest in talking about soccer.
Instead, Laura Harvey and Megan Rapinoe wanted to address another horrific mass shooting at a school in the United States, and what can be done to avoid more tragedies in the future.
On Tuesday in Uvalde, Texas, a gunman opened fire at Robb Elementary School in an attack that left 19 children and two teachers dead.
Harvey, who is from England, said she has a hard time believing such events can occur with such regularity in the U.S.
“Yeah, I think, you know, we needed [the win], but in light of what happened yesterday in Texas, I think that — as much as we’re really happy that we got the win and we know that that’s our job to do — we all came here with a heavy heart and wanting things to change,” Harvey told the media after the game. “I’ve lived in this country now for nearly 10 years. And it’s mind-blowing to me that this continues to happen.”
The shooting in Uvalde happened just 10 days after a gunman opened fire in a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, killing 10 people.
“We’re living in an insane country when it comes to gun control and gun laws. There’s literally a mass shooting every day. It actually struck me when we went to do a moment of silence today, because we just did one three f–––– days ago for a different mass shooting,” Rapinoe said.
“It’s literally the definition of insanity. The entire country is being completely held hostage, as Steve Kerr said last night. And I mean quite literally hostage, in a hostile environment — where you can go to church, you can go to the grocery store, you can go to school and end up dead — by whatever it is, 50 senators or 49 senators, whatever the number is, it’s just completely insane.”
OL Reign call for gun control
Prior to Wednesday’s game, OL Reign posted a statement on their Twitter page calling for legislation to require background checks on all gun sales in the U.S.
We believe it is important to reflect on how we, as a country, can make a change.
We urge you to act immediately by sending your U.S. Representatives an email advising them to support legislation to require background checks on all gun sales.
➡️ https://t.co/6RYReD8YCX pic.twitter.com/az3TJqN71T
— OL Reign (@OLReign) May 25, 2022
Rapinoe echoed those words, saying: “It [gun control] is just something that the vast majority of the country wants. I think it’s like every single mass shooting now, it’s just an AR-15. It’s just f––––– insane. Obviously, nothing’s going to change immediately, but I urge people to use their voice and vote or to call their representatives, or to badger their representatives, or to vote them out if they don’t change this.
“Because we’re just quite literally being held hostage in this country for no reason whatsoever. The only reason that an AR-15 exists is to murder human beings. It’s not used for anything else. And it’s obviously very effective and it’s just heartbreaking.”