NBA joins campaign to end gun violence

Call it a blocked shot.

The NBA is teaming up with gun control activists over the holidays in a campaign to end gun violence.

{mosads}Basketball stars like Stephen Curry, Carmelo Anthony and Chris Paul call for an end to gun violence in a television commercial sponsored by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s group Everytown for Gun Safety.

“All over America people are tired of daily gun violence,” New York Knicks forward Anthony said in a statement. “Basketball brought me to a different route in my life, but every kid should have an outlet to reach his or her full potential.”

The NBA’s gun violence prevention campaign comes amid growing concerns over high-profile mass shootings, from the Sandy Hook Elementary School and Charleston church shootings, to the more recent shootings in San Bernardino, Calif., and Colorado Springs.

The shootings hit close to home for some pro basketball players.

“I heard over the summer about a shooting that killed a three-year-old girl, and I immediately thought of my three-year-old daughter Riley,” Curry, a Golden State Warriors point guard, says in the video. “Then I learned the horrible statistic that every day 88 Americans are killed with guns and hundreds more are injured.”

“I’ll never forget playing basketball in a park with some kids, and a young woman approached me in tears, and told me that her brother had been shot and killed on that same court a year earlier,” Chicago Bulls forward Joakim Noah said. “There’s just no room for gun violence.”