Last night, Bob Costas offered a mealy-mouthed apology to anyone who misunderstood his now-infamous NFL-halftime anti-gun rant and then launched into yet another illogical and nonsensical assault against gun-ownership. The most outrageous and bizarre point he makes, though, involves his being thankful that no one in that Aurora movie theatre was armed and able to defend themselves against a madman earlier this year.
According to Costas, because he only had 90 seconds with which to make his halftime point, we all misunderstood, because he didn’t have the time necessary to make the overall point he wanted to make.
I look at it in the exact opposite way. Knowing he had only 90 seconds means that Costas was forced to be very careful, precise, and selective in what he had to say — and what he had to say was not only insulting to those of us who believe football should be a politics-free zone, but also to the memory of a murdered young woman.
Yes, Costas was quoting someone else — columnist Jason Whitlock — when he said, “If Jovan Belcher didn‘t possess a gun, he and Kassandra Perkins would both be alive today.” But he prefaced that quote by telling his captive me audience that this was something with which he agreed.
You want some actual perspective on this? Well, a bit of it comes from the Kansas City writer Jason Whitlock, with whom I do not always agree, but today said it so well that we may as well just quote or paraphrase from the end of his article.
So Costas was obviously endorsing and wholeheartedly agreeing with Whitlock’s absurd belief that Belcher and Kassandra Perkins would be alive were it not for a gun. This of course lays the responsibility for a murder on the gun, not the murderer. Last night, though, Costas backtracked on that, agreeing that there are other ways to commit murder besides a firearm.
Well, duh.
The most bizarre part the Costas‘ interview, though, was when he seemed to advocate stripping athletes of their Second Amendment rights:
Give me one example of an athlete-I know it’s 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 where by virtue of having a gun, a professional athlete wound up in a tragic situation.
The stupidity of this thinking must be a genetic thing.
Does Costas honestly believe that, if we outlawed guns among young athletes, that that would solve the violence problem — that these gajillionares wouldn’t get them anyway or transfer their aggressions to knives, automobiles, rocks, or broken bottles? Guns don’t create violent people. How difficult is that to wrap your head around?
Regardless, the basis for Costas’ entire line of thinking is a complete fabrication. He claims we have a “gun culture’ in America when everyone knows that what we really have is a “violence culture.”
What’s almost as destructive as our violence culture, however, is the culture Costas apparently belongs to that’s desperate to blame violence on anything other than the individual who commits the violence.
Gee, and what a mind-blowing coincidence that (just like Global Warming) every left-wing solution to our violence problem fulfills every left-wing wet dream for more welfare spending, public education spending, government control, and a violation of the Second Amendment.
Finally, when Costas brings up the Colorado movie theatre shooting to push his gun control point, it truly betrays his intellectual dishonesty and cold disregard for the victims of violence:
[America’s gun culture] demonstrates itself in the Wild West, Dirty Harry mentality of people who actually believe that if a number of people were armed in the theater in Aurora, they would have been able to take down this nutjob in body armor and military style artillery. When in fact almost every policeman in the country would tell you that that would have only increased the tragedy and added to the carnage.
Point 1: My guess is that if that “nutjob” thought for a moment a few people in that movie theatre might be armed, there’s a good chance he never would’ve committed the crime.
Point 2: Costas is apparently okay with the fact that everyone in that theatre was a sitting duck; that no one was armed and able to defend himself. By his way of thinking, that’s one of the pluses to come out of that tragedy.
Point 3: You think if Costas had been in that theatre, he would’ve been thinking, “Thank God only the madman is armed!”?
We pay a price for liberty in this country, with the idea being there’s no higher human virtue than individual freedom. Sure, we can wrap everyone in gauze, but that’s no way to live your life. It also violates that whole “pursuit of happiness” thing.
Like free speech, guns are also used as tools of the wicked to commit awful acts. But the price of outlawing free speech is our liberty, and the price of outlawing guns is our ability to protect our liberty.
It’s an imperfect choice to be sure, but it’s also an easy choice.
Stop digging, Costas. Your heartless ignorance is destroying your brand.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC