Dan Lanning Gives Passionate Statement On Gun Violence, Mental Health Following Oregon's Win Over Utah

Oregon put on a dominating performance against Utah on Saturday afternoon, positioning the Ducks in a solid spot in the Pac-12. After the impressive outing against the Utes, the Ducks have a clear road ahead of them to the conference title game behind head coach Dan Lanning.

But it was following the win over Utah where Dan Lanning decided to use his platform at Oregon to ask questions regarding gun violence in America.

After the mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine, this week that left 18 dead and many others injured, Dan Lanning felt like it was time to ask questions.

Dan Lanning Discusses Gun Violence, Mental Health

"I want to take a quick second to say something that is important to our players," Dan Lanning said postgame. "And I wouldn't normally hop into this, and I want everybody to understand this is not political in anyway. But as a dad of three kids - a 13-year-old, a 12-year-old and a ten-year-old - you know, I see at times what's going on in this country and I think that I have a platform that is worth saying something about it. What I'Il say right now is, where is the respect for human life? You know I think there's a lot more to this. I mean people could say, 'let's make it about guns and let's make it about mental health. You know, why can't we use a commonsense approach and make it about everything? And this doesn't mean taking a stance, but our players told me this spring that gun violence was
really important to them."

The Oregon coach wasn't done.

"I just want to ask everybody, what are we doing about it? We can't continue to sit around and
expect different results," Lanning continued. Don't think I'm sitting here talking about gun control, don't think I'm talking about mental health, I'm talking about all of it."

Lanning didn't propose any solutions of his own, but asked for others to step up.

"We've got a lot of smart people in this country, how about we do something to fix it?"

Dan Lanning understands that this is just football. He continued to discuss folks struggling with mental health problems, while also pointing out that there should be enough support out there to solve some of these issues.

He's certainly right about the fact that this is just a game, and the world is dealing with bigger problems at the moment.

We'll see if Lanning speaks on the topic again, but he clearly had his mind on other things this week in preparation for Utah.