Barkley, Gayle King on Chiefs Parade Mass Shooting: ‘It Should Be Hard to Get a Gun;’ ‘You Don’t Feel Safe Anywhere’

KING: “Welcome, welcome to King Charles. We were so excited for the show tonight, weren’t we?”
BARKLEY: “Yes.”
KING: “Because we were off last week because of the Super Bowl. We were both in Vegas, and there was so much to talk about. But right before the show started, you heard the news that we’ve heard, and we’re going to pivot to that because we cannot start the way we wanted to. It’s also Valentine’s Day, by the way, happy Valentine’s Day to all of you. Because of something that has become increasingly a common occurrence here in this country. No other country has the problem that we have when it comes to gun violence in this country. It’s happened again. This time, a joyful gathering ended with shots fired and people fleeing for their lives, frantically calling loved ones. This was in Kansas City, guys, today as they were celebrating the Super Bowl parade. And I’m curious, what was your initial reaction because this happened as we were planning for the show this afternoon?”
BARKLEY: “Yes, just sadness. You wake up, we’re going to celebrate the Chiefs winning the Super Bowl, and that person is not going to get home. Then you factor in all the injuries, and apparently most of them were kids. And I just feel sadness because you got the greatest country in the world, any fool can go out and buy a gun anytime. They don’t do great background checks. And you would think like everything else in our country has become divided between Democrats and Republicans, and that makes it even worse. I’m like, wait, the Republicans don’t want gun control?”
KING: “But this is such a human issue. And as we sit here today, we have to say the story is still in flux. At last count, there were at least 20 people. They were saying, many of them children. But, again, we have to say that this story is still changing and we don’t have the exact numbers.”
BARKLEY: “Yes, but the story, just as always, you go back and the lady shot at Joel Osteen church over the weekend.”
KING: “Yes.”
BARKLEY: “Gayle, it should be hard to get guns. Like —“
KING: “You’re a gun owner.”
BARKLEY: “I’m a gun owner and I’m a gun guy, but it should be hard to get a gun with the technology we have today. As far as learning everything you did in your life, you should not be able to go in a store and get a gun in 15, 20 minutes. You should not order those ghost guns on the internet.”
KING: “But you believe, though, Charles, in the right for people to own guns?”
BARKLEY: “I do, but it should be hard to get them.”
KING: “To get it, yes.”
BARKLEY: “Gayle, let me ask you a question. Well, this is not a fair question to you, but if a normal person went into, let’s say, hypothetically, a Mercedes-Benz dealership, they wouldn’t let them say, hey, I’ll just take whatever you tell me, I can afford it, they would do a comprehensive background check on a car. You don’t think we should do that with guns? We should do — and I’m not trying to simplify it. I’m not trying to be flippant, but I can’t walk in a Mercedes-Benz dealership and say, I’ll take the best one you got. They’re like, well, we need to see some bank records of what kind of job you got and everything. It should at least be that on guns.”
KING: “But you know what scares me about this is that you’re at a parade, I really do feel in this country, you really don’t feel safe anywhere. I feel that we are a walking roulette that it could happen at any time to anybody, anywhere. Here we are at the Chiefs celebration. This is the sixth anniversary of the school shooting at Parkland High School. Nothing has changed in this country. And I find it so frustrating that I don’t want us to become desensitized to this. That’s what concerns me. I don’t want us to think that this is just no big deal, because this is still a very big deal in this country. And I don’t want us to just think this is how we have to live. But, Charles, this is how we’re living in this country.”
BARKLEY: “Yes, but that’s because we don’t put enough pressure on our politicians. We don’t hold them accountable for anything. We don’t hold them accountable for the immigration mess we have going on. But immigration is obviously really important. But this gun thing, like I say, you can never get desensitized.”
KING: “Right.”
BARKLEY: “But we’re used to it now. I mean, we’re used to it. And they ruined such a joyous occasion. Those guys, men — football, I’d really admire football players, what they put their bodies through. And this is supposed to be a joyous occasion, but somebody is not going home and some people’s lives probably going to be changed forever because they got shot or something.”
KING: “I want to bring in somebody who spent a huge part of his career trying to figure out, trying to figure this out, how to solve the gun violence issue here in this country.”