BOB COSTAS: It’s not about that I’m afraid to go into that zone, but if you’re going to you need more time and you to be able to get into some nuance. What I was talking about here, and I’m sorry if that wasn’t clear to everybody, was a gun culture. I never mentioned the Second Amendment. I never used the words gun control. People inferred that.
Now, why would people infer that? Just because he parroted a columnist who said exactly that? Crazy talk.
For a refresher, here’s some of what Costas said at halftime during the Cowboys-Eagles game Sunday night.
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.
Why, how could anyone get the idea that Bob Costas was implying support for gun control by openly stating support for gun control? It’s clearly all our fault that we just are not smart enough to understand what Bob Costas was not saying when he was in fact saying it.
Costas still does not understand the outrage he keeps stirring up when he insists on blaming millions of innocent people with two magic words: “Gun culture.” Those two words indict millions of people who never sent their fist through a window hard enough to nearly sever their thumb, and those two words indict millions of Americans who did not spend the night with another woman and then shoot the mother of their child nine times, depriving their child of a mother forever.
Indict the killer, Costas, not millions of innocent people. How hard is that?
Evidently it’s too hard for Costas to wrap his blow-dried brain around. Continuing from where the first quote above left off:
Now do I believe we need more comprehensive and more sensible gun control legislation? Yes, I do. That doesn’t mean repeal the Second Amendment. That doesn’t mean a prohibition on somebody having a gun to protect their home and their family. It means sensible and more comprehensive gun control legislation.
Costas, kindly shut your mouth on an issue about which you know nothing until you obtain and discern some facts. Such as, where gun-control laws are strictest, violent crime rates tend to be highest. Why might that be? Conversely, where gun-control laws are least restrictive, violent crime rates tend to be lower. Why might that be? What gun law would have stopped Jovan Belcher, who had no criminal record, from obtaining a firearm? Would such a law have also stopped other Americans who would never pose a threat to anyone from obtaining a firearm? Show your work.
Think, Bob. Think before you speak. It’ll save you a world of trouble.
Oh, who am I kidding. Costas now apparently agrees with Jason Whitlock that the NRA is the new KKK.
It also plays itself out, and Jason Whitlock had some insight into this. It plays itself out in the inner cities where teenage kids are somehow armed to the hilt. And it plays itself out, and this I know the whys and wherefores of, in the sports world, where young athletes are disproportionately armed.
What is Jason Whitlock’s insight, here? That an organization advocating self-defense for everyone regardless of color is the same as a racist terrorist organization that helped elect more than a few Democrat politicians in their heyday? Whitlock is a fool, but at least his thoughts are his own. Costas remains a lazy, ill-informed TV muppet. No offense intended to muppets.
And then Costas displayed even more ignorance.
Tony Dungy, one of the most respected in all of sports, on our program on Sunday night said that one year when he coached the Colts, he had 80 players before they cut the roster down. 80 players in training camp. He said, “How many of you guys own a gun?” And roughly 65 hands went up. Even if all those guns were obtained legally, you can’t have 65 guys in their 20s and 30s, aggressive young men, subject to impulses without something bad happening.
Ever heard of the military, Bob? In that group you have hundreds of thousands of young aggressive men who are also heavily armed. Do they always end up doing something bad? I humbly submit that they do not, that in fact, they routinely show restraint in battle that most people would find extremely difficult to duplicate.
What’s behind their restraint, Bob? And what happened with those 65 Colts who raised their hands? Did they all go out and murder their girlfriends before killing themselves?
And why did Dungy even ask his players about their firearms ownership?
And I posed this question. I didn’t have time to pose it Sunday night but I’ll pose it here. Give me one example of an athlete. I know it has happened in society. But give me one example of a professional athlete who by virtue of his having a gun took a dangerous situation and turned it around for the better. I can’t think of a single one. But sadly, I can think of dozens whereby virtue of having a gun, a professional athlete wound up in a tragic situation.
Are you calling for a ban on NFL athletes owning firearms, Bob? Given the demographics of professional sports, that’ll get you a one-way ticket to Racism City. Be careful.
By the way, when was the last time you spoke with your former colleague, Orenthal James Simpson? How’s his ex-wife, Nicole?
Bob Costas could save himself a lot of trouble and get himself closer to the truth by swapping one term with another. Instead of indicting the “gun culture,” which is composed of law-abiding citizens who respect the Constitution, observe firearms safety, obey the law, and want firearms for entirely legitimate reasons, he should instead indict the “thug culture.” In that culture, there is no respect for the law, there is an entitlement mentality, and aggression is seen as manliness while taking adult responsibility is despised and viewed as weak. Jovan Belcher was not a member of the “gun culture.” I don’t know if he was a member of the “thug culture.” But if you’re going to target a culture to blame for the actions of one man, blame one that thrives on flouting the law rather than one that cherishes the law.
One problem, though, is that Costas can’t really do that, can he? Not in his current position as a national sportscaster working for the most left-wing network in America. The “thug culture” powers much of professional sports now, has made Bob Costas very rich, brings billions of dollars to his employer, and has a fan in the White House who recently hosted a known pro-thug athlete for a fundraiser.
Taking on the “thug culture” would require that Bob Costas show two things that have not shown up anywhere in his current behavior: courage, and the ability to think for himself.
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