Gabe Kapler: ‘I don’t plan on coming out for the anthem going forward till I feel higher in regards to the course of our nation’

Speaking within the dugout of the Nice American Ballpark in Cincinnati, Ohio, Kapler said, "I don't plan on popping out for the anthem going ahead until I feel higher concerning the course of our country."

"We weren't given bravery, and we aren't free. The police on the scene put a mother in handcuffs as she begged them to go in and save her kids. They blocked parents attempting to organize to cost in to cease the shooter, together with a father who discovered his daughter was murdered whereas he argued with the cops. We aren't free when politicians decide that the lobbyist and gun industries are extra essential than our children's freedom to go to high school without needing bulletproof backpacks and active shooter drills," Kapler wrote.

Later, Kapler wrote about his disillusionment with what he called "the shortage of supply of the promise of what our nationwide anthem represents."

"I'm not okay with the state of this country. I wish I hadn't let my discomfort compromise my integrity. I wish that I might have demonstrated what I realized from my dad, that if you're dissatisfied together with your country, you let it be known through protest. The house of the brave should encourage this."

Kerr refused to talk about basketball forward of Game 4 of the Warriors' sequence against the Dallas Mavericks, as a substitute raising his voice as he railed against gun violence in the wake of Tuesday's shooting.

"Within the final 10 days, we've had elderly Black individuals killed in a supermarket in Buffalo, we've had Asian churchgoers killed in Southern California, now we've children murdered at school," Kerr instructed reporters at first of the press conference.

"When are we going to do something? I am drained. I'm so bored with getting up here and providing condolences to the devastated families which might be out there ... I'm tired of the moments of silence. Enough."