'At least make it harder': Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow supports stricter gun control
Amid the backdrop of a surge in mass shootings, Cincinnati Bengals star quarterback Joe Burrow said Tuesday he was in favor of stricter gun control reform and urged politicians to pass legislation that makes it more challenging to acquire semi-automatic rifles.
"With everything that's going on, if you're not going to outlaw everything, you've got to at least make it harder to get those crazy guns that everybody's using," Burrow said during a press conference.
"I don't think you should be able to walk in and buy one. You've got to go through a rigorous process to be able to buy something like that, I think. Hopefully the people that get paid to make those decisions figure that out. My job is to play football but hopefully the politicians can figure that one out."
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Burrow's comments come as a bipartisan group of senators said Sunday that it has an agreement in principle on gun control legislation. The group said its plan "increases needed mental health resources, improves school safety and support for students, and helps ensure dangerous criminals and those who are adjudicated as mentally ill can’t purchase weapons."
His comments also come after a series of deadly shootings last month made national headlines. On May 24, an 18-year-old gunman entered an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, with an AR-15 style rifle and killed 19 students and two teachers after opening fire. That came just 10 days after 10 people were killed and three were injured in a racially motivated attack at a Tops Friendly Market in a predominantly Black neighborhood in Buffalo, New York.
Burrow, 25, is in his third season in the NFL and is coming off of a successful 2021 season in which he helped lead the Bengals to Super Bowl LVI, where they lost to the Los Angeles Rams, 23-20. In the regular season, Burrow completed a league-high 70.4% of his passes for 4,611 yards with 34 touchdowns versus 14 interceptions.
Contributing: David Jackson, Jordan Mendoza