By now you’ve probably heard what happened in Kansas City on Saturday. Chiefs player Jovan Belcher committed murder-suicide, ending his own life (on the team’s stadium parking lot) and the life of his girlfriend, Kassandra Perkins. The two leave behind a three-month-old daughter.
The Chiefs have handled the tragic events with dignity and grace. NBC and Bob Costas have revealed yet again how evil that network and its on-air personalities have become.
During half-time of the Cowboys-Eagles game tonight, Costas took a moment to acknowledge the tragedy and note that if it takes such an event to “bring sports into perspective” as is always said after a tragedy, then one may never reach the right perspective. Then, Costas offered up his perspective by paraphrasing columnist Jason Whitlock. Whitlock wrote, in reaction to the tragedy:
Our current gun culture simply ensures that more and more domestic disputes will end in the ultimate tragedy, and that more convenience-store confrontations over loud music coming from a car will leave more teenage boys bloodied and dead.
In the coming days, Belcher’s actions will be analyzed through the lens of concussions and head injuries. Who knows? Maybe brain damage triggered his violent overreaction to a fight with his girlfriend. What I believe is, if he didn’t possess/own a gun, he and Kasandra Perkins would both be alive today.
That is the message I wish Chiefs players, professional athletes and all of us would focus on Sunday and moving forward. Handguns do not enhance our safety. They exacerbate our flaws, tempt us to escalate arguments, and bait us into embracing confrontation rather than avoiding it.
How was the “gun culture” to blame for the violent actions of a grown man? Was a gun the only means by which a professional athlete might have killed himself and someone else? Of course not.
Costas’ remarks constitute exploitation of a tragedy in order to push a political point that Whitlock, Costas, and NBC no doubt already believed, and only used the moment to forward. They all should be ashamed of themselves. But our current media culture is one in which shame does not exist. Neither does the truth.
What Costas and Whitlock and NBC offered is not “perspective.” It is a lie. It is also a broadside attack on the rights of responsible citizens to equip ourselves to defend ourselves and our loved ones. Will Bob Costas, NBC, and Jason Whitlock assume personal responsibility for every American who would be alive today if they had possessed the means to defend themselves from violent criminals? Of course not. To them, such victims do not even exist.
As for the game, this lifelong Cowboys fan turned it off after Costas’ political assault on my rights. I will not watch another game on NBC as long as Bob Costas has a job on that network.
See updates and video on next page.
More: Belcher was a troubled man trying to cure his soul with alcohol and painkillers.
Update: Lou Dobbs reacts on Twitter:
The Media Left at Halftime: Bob Costas pushing gun control, quoting…who else?..a sports writer on ridding the country of the 2nd Amendment
— lou dobbs (@loudobbsnews) December 3, 2012
Update: For those who missed it, here is video of Costas’ remarks.
h/t Tom for the video clip
Update: Earlier today, here’s how Whitlock reacted to reaction to his column, which blamed a gun for the evil acts of a grown man.
My column on Jovan Belcher that has gun nuts pissed: extreme.mobile.msn.com/sports/NFL/art…
— Jason Whitlock (@WhitlockJason) December 2, 2012
If gun owners were actually “nuts” as Mr. Whitlock alleges, how likely would he be to go out of his way to “piss” millions of them off?
Update (From Ed): Newsbusters has an embeddable version of the video of Costas’ rant:
Incidentally, this isn’t the first Cowboys-Eagles game on Sunday Night Football that Costas has politicized with liberal talking points.
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