It’s hard for celebrity induced tragedies like this to register very high on my give-a-shit-o-meter. I hate this impulse to blame the gun, as if it’s so hard to suggest that maybe Belcher was just an asshole, because, you know, that’s what we call murderers who leave their kid an orphan. PJ Media had this to say about 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.
NBC is part owned by Comcast Corporation, who’s CEO is a major Democratic donor. I feel better about cutting the cord every day. The gun control advocacy groups are rank amateurs when it comes to exploiting tragedy, though they are usually not more than a few rungs above ambulance chasing lawyers on the tragedy exploitation totem pole. But they have nothing on the media. Tragedy is their bread and butter, because it makes a good story and gets eyeballs on the glowing box and clears the dead tree matter off the shelves.