Bengals star quarterback Joe Burrow has expressed his support for tighter gun control and called on politicians to pass legislation that would make it more difficult to buy assault rifles.
Burrow was asked by a reporter during a news conference whether he and his teammates had discussed the recent mass shootings in Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo, N.Y., that left 31 people dead combined, including 19 children.
In both incidents, the assailants wielded AR-15-style assault rifles.
Burrowing, entering his third-year in the NFL after he was the first overall pick in 2020, said the process for buying "those crazy guns" should be "rigorous," per USA Today.
"With everything that's going on, if you're not going to outlaw everything, you've got to at least make it harder to get those crazy guns that everybody's using," Burrow said.
"I don't think you should be able to walk in and buy one. You've got to go through a rigorous process to be able to buy something like that, I think. Hopefully the people that get paid to make those decisions figure that out. My job is to play football but hopefully the politicians can figure that one out."
The press conference came as part of Bengals mandatory offseason workouts.
Burrow's remarks came just two days after a group of Senators had reportedly agreed in principle on the broad outline of new gun control legislation that would mark the first of its kind in years.
Among the measures reportedly agreed upon was an expanded federal background-check system, according to ABC News.
Burrow, 25, is emerging as one of the football's best and most popular quarterbacks following his meteoric rise at LSU and early success in the NFL, including an appearance in last season's Super Bowl.
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