Bob Costas. The ageless, eloquent, diminutive Bob Costas. I’ve always respected him. I’ve always liked him. I enjoy his points-of-view. I like his interviewing style. He taught me how to ask tough questions and not make the interviewee hate you. “So commissioner, some would say your interest in young boys is impure and possibly criminal. How long have you been molesting young boys?“ The interviewee is at once incensed but compelled to answer the question. Since Bob posed the question as if if were coming from someone else, the interviewee instantly lashes out at this mysterious “other” who posed such an preposterous bit of slander. “Well, that’s entirely untrue! Here’s what I’d say to that so-and-so!“ Costas can continue the interview unscathed. The interviewee is mad at someone else, not him. It’s genius. Now Bob needs to shut his cake hole.
Recently, after the Javon Belcher murder/suicide tragedy, Bob made his weekly editorial during halftime of NBC’s Sunday Night Football. For those unfamiliar with the incident, Javon Belcher, a former linebacker for the Kansas City Chiefs shot and killed his girlfriend Kasandra Perkins that weekend then drove to Arrowhead Stadium to meet his head coach and summarily shot and killed himself. Sad story but misinterpreted by media types like Costas.
In his editorial, Costas was up to his old tricks attempting to throw a smoke screen in front of his own pro-gun control bias. Live, on air, Costas read a line from an article by Kansas City based writer Jason Whitlock that concluded “If Javon Belcher didn’t possess a gun, he and Kasandra Perkins would both be alive today.” Costas smugly distanced himself from Whitlock by stating earlier in the editorial that he sometimes disagrees with Whitlock. But Costas was speaking loud and clear here. He thinks guns kill.
By this rationale, forks make people fat and automobiles should be outlawed because of their potential for high speed crashes. Maybe we should outlaw steak knives, screwdrivers, sewing needles, baseball bats, scissors, and pencils because, in the right (or wrong) hands, all of these could be used to kill.
I’ll fully admit that, in the hands of an immature individual a gun can be a very dangerous thing. Particularly a millionaire immature individual surrounded by a posse of enablers with unlimited resources to acquire drugs and other things from which they’d best stay away. I’m not a Ted Nugent 4,000 miles to the right fanatic, ready to start a compound in Idaho who sleeps, eats, and bathes with a gun. But I do believe that any law-abiding citizen has a constitutional right to own one, protect their home, and hunt with to their heart’s content. Even NFL players. Just don’t shoot people with them. And if you feel like you want to shoot someone with a gun, put it down and get some serious professional help immediately. Go directly to a church, call a hospital, ask someone how to spell psychiatrist and look one up in the yellow pages. Make the call. Whatever act of aggression you are considering that may have a gun involved, just don’t do it.
Gun control just takes guns out of the hands of people who know how to use them legally and honestly. We need more intelligence, not legislation, litigation, and gun control. Bad guys will always be able to find a gun. Let’s steer the conversation back to the heart of the matter. Unstable people kill people, not guns.
