Bob Costas uses Jovan Belcher tragedy to advocate for gun control

[WestVirginiaRebel]

 

Los Angeles Times:

 

Bob Costas used his halftime segment on NBC's "Sunday Night Football" to advocate for gun control after Saturday's murder-suicide involving Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher. Costas said: "In the coming days, Jovan Belcher's actions and their possible connection to football will be analyzed. Who knows? ..... If Jovan Belcher didn't possess a gun, he and Kasandra Perkins would both be alive today." Belcher shot and killed Perkins, the mother of his 3-month-old daughter, on Saturday morning, then drove to Arrowhead Stadium and committed suicide at the team's practice facility. What Costas said: "You knew it was coming. In the aftermath of the nearly unfathomable events in Kansas City, that most mindless of sports clichés was heard yet again, 'Something like this really puts it all in perspective.' Well if so, that sort of perspective has a very short shelf life since we will inevitably hear about the perspective we have supposedly again regained the next time ugly reality intrudes upon our games. Please. Those who need tragedies to continually recalibrate their sense of proportion about sports, would seem to have little hope of ever truly achieving perspective. "You want some actual perspective on this? Well a bit of it comes from the Kansas City-based writer Jason Whitlock, with whom I do not always agree but who today, said it so well that we may as well just quote or paraphrase from the end of his article. "Our current gun culture," Whitlock wrote, "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. 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. In the coming days, Jovan Belcher's actions, and its possible connection to football, will be analyzed. Who knows? But here is what I believe, If Jovan Belcher didn't possess a gun, he and Kasandra Perkins would both be alive today."

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Video:

 

[SrWoodchuck]

An open letter to Bob Costas and Jason Whitlock

 

http://doubleplusundead.com/2012/12/03/an-open-letter-to-bob-costas-and-jason-whitlock/

 

Gentlemen: I see that you have chosen to use the horrific crime of the murder of Kasandra Perkins to express your belief that guns are the problem, not the men who wield them. I am utterly certain that you believe that you have the moral high ground on this matter. I am equally certain that such a belief is appallingly wrong, not to mention terribly misogynistic. Why do I say this? Because had your desires on gun control been in place, I would not be alive to be writing this now.

I have an Ex. I have an Ex who, in the process of becoming my Ex, made credible threats to kill me. Why did I believe these threats were credible? Because among the primary reasons why I left him were that he had anger control issues, that he was a problem drinker well on his way to full blown alcoholism and that the things he was throwing at me were getting ever closer to my head. I decided to leave before finally snapped and actually hit me. He was displeased by this and made such displeasure known.

Do you know what kept me safe? Not some piece of paper. Not a judge tut tutting at him and shaking his/her finger and telling him to leave me alone. Not the police, who, after all, would only be able to respond once he had caused me harm. No, what kept me safe was my Glock. What kept me safe was my Glock and the fact that he knew I had both the ability and the will to empty a clip into his chest if he made good on his statements that if I did not come back, I would not see the next week. He never tried to do any of the things he screamed he would because he knew that not only would I defend myself but that I could.

Let us not beat around the bush, you want to sacrifice my life on the altar of your political beliefs. How dare you? Honestly, who do the two of you think you are to demand that my blood be shed so that you may preen about what wonderful people you are? Why, precisely, are you removing the responsibility for Kasandra Perkins’ murder from Jovan Belcher and placing it on an inanimate object?

[Valin]

Could some kind soul please remind me why I'm supposed to give a damn about what Bob Costas says about anything.

 

SQUIRREL!