'It makes no sense': What Nashville SC's Gary Smith said after Nashville school shooting
Nashville SC coach Gary Smith spoke openly on Thursday about the mass school shooting on Monday at The Covenant School in Nashville's Green Hills neighborhood.
A 28-year-old former student at The Covenant School, Audrey Hale, killed six students and school staff during the shooting. Hale, possessing two assault rifles and a handgun, was fatally shot by police officers at the scene.
"With being a parent with three children, personally — and I'm sure there's plenty of other people in the same situation — your heart goes out to the people that have been affected by this, the families and the friends of people close to what has gone on," Smith said. "I'm no politician and I come from a society and a country (in England) that doesn't carry guns. So, I can't speak about any of those things, whether you should or shouldn't have guns, but what I do know is, that it makes absolutely no sense to me that people can be walking around with machine guns anywhere in society. I don't understand why anyone needs that.
"I get, having lived here for a long time, that there is a part of the Constitution that enables people to carry guns and to look after themselves, so I get that and I understand that. But it would seem to me there is a huge difference between having a handgun or something that's going to be a protection for you, and a machine gun that can do the sort of damage that we've not only seen here this week — that's destroyed lives, obviously. People have lost their lives and it's destroyed many others. It's affected a huge amount of other people that are wrapped around that. And we've seen it so many times and for the people that are in power not to do anything about that, I truly don't understand. I don't."
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How Nashville SC will honor victims
Smith and defender Jack Maher fielded questions Thursday about the school shooting, ahead of Nashville's build-up to its sixth game of the MLS season at Orlando City SC on Saturday at Exploria Stadium. Nashville leader and midfielder Dax McCarty said Monday he was "devastated," hearing of the shooting.
Prior to the media availability session, Nashville announced its players at the game will wear black armbands against Orlando "to honor the lives lost at The Covenant School."
Nashville trains in Brentwood at Currey Ingram Academy, which is located around 6.5 miles from The Covenant School campus. The team had just finished training when the school shooting news broke, and as players trickled off the field, Smith said there was chatter. Smith said he hasn't formally addressed the team, but team chaplain Greg Joiner, as well as sports psychologists Stephen James and Brad Stevenson, have been in contact with players.
Jack Maher describes locker room
This weekend, we travel to Orlando with our hearts heavy for our city.
We will wear black armbands on our sleeves this Saturday to honor the lives lost at The Covenant School.— Nashville SC (@NashvilleSC) March 30, 2023
Maher described the collective reaction inside the locker room as the tragic story developed.
"It's an event that should never happen," Maher said. "Right whenever we ended up hearing and sort of broke news around our locker room and stuff like that, guys were constantly texting their family members, making sure everything was all right. We're lucky that it was nobody on our team that was necessarily affected in that way, but it's just the whole community.
"I think that that's what Nashville has been so strong with … everyone rallies together," he added. "And I think that these tough events that we've had over the course of my four years here — whenever we have COVID, whenever we have the tornadoes, whenever we have these difficult, difficult things that happened to our community — I think everyone always rallies together and we come out stronger on the other end."
For stories about Nashville SC or Soccer in Tennessee, contact Drake Hills at DHills@gannett.com. Follow Drake on Twitter at @LiveLifeDrake. Connect with Drake on Instagram at @drakehillssoccer and on Facebook.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Nashville SC's Gary Smith, Jack Maher on Tennessee school shooting
