08/16/2019
The stick to sports crowd just ate a Stunner.
While promoting his new talk show Straight Up Steve Austin, Stone Cold was asked a topical and politically divisive question by Sports Illustrated. Citing a 2013 interview Austin did with Larry King, SI Now’s Amy Campbell asked him about his views on gun control.
With recent mass shootings in Gilory, California, El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, Austin took a deep breath and dived into a tricky answer about a complicated question.
“Just as far as gun laws go, that’s such a complex subject. I believe in background checks should be way more extensive than they are now. I’m an avid outdoors man. Everybody knows that I’m an avid hunter. I like to shoot targets, but I’m extremely safe with all of my firearms and I think that maybe it should be mandatory that people are taught just from a respect standpoint of what these things can do. I don’t know. Stricter gun control laws? I don’t want to get into that. Deeper background checks? Certainly. I mean, they crawl up, when you’re just trying to apply for a mortgage, for a loan, so by the same token, they should do a real extensive background check on who and what they’re selling a firearm to.”
Austin also added:
“It just seems like people don’t understand the value of a life, with everyone I don’t know just becoming dehumanized or whatever the deal is. I don’t understand it because back in the day when I was a kid, you just never thought of things like this. “I can’t go off the rails because if you ask me what I think should happen to the people who are doing these type of things, I’ll plead the fifth because what I would say would not be very kind to very many, many people out there. I would have very harsh sentencing for people like that, and that is the bottom line.”
No matter your feelings on gun control, it’s unlikely Stone Cold’s opinion on the issue will sway your stance.
Good on Sports Illustrated for asking a tough question and good on Steve Austin for answering it.