Former NBA star-turned-ESPN analyst Shaquille O'Neal is not calling for more gun control after the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, which left 17 students and faculty members dead last month. Instead, O'Neal wants to see law enforcement provided with more resources.
"The government should give law enforcement more money," he said on WABC Radio on Wednesday, via ESPN. "Give more money, you recruit more people, and the guys that are not ready to go on the streets, you put them in front of the schools. You put 'em in front of the schools, you put 'em behind the schools, you put 'em inside the schools, and we need to pass information. ... I would like to see police officers in schools, inner cities, private schools." (CBS Sports)
O'Neal was sworn in as a sheriff's deputy in 2016 and indicated that he plans to run for sheriff one day soon. So, clearly, defending law enforcement is a pretty personal matter to him.
The effort to ban guns, he explained, would likely create the following scenario.
"There's a lot of those weapons already on the streets," O'Neal said. "So it's not like, if you say, 'OK, these weapons are banned,' people are gonna go, 'Oh man, let me turn it in.' That's definitely not going to happen. [Because] once you ban 'em, now they're going to become a collector's item and you're going to have people underground, and they were $2,000. ... I'll give you $9,000 for that gun. So, you know, we just need to keep our eyes open."
O'Neal does, however, support the March For Our Lives rally organized by several Marjory Stoneman students who are protesting gun violence and rallying Congress to act. He "wishes" he could join them.