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.
Leaving aside the issue of “gun-control”, making any type of political rant during half-time at any sporting event is inappropriate for an announcer.
6 dead in Chicago, but does Costas care or perhaps even know? Where has he been on this subject before?
What a mangina.
I think the thing to do here is not to forget Bob Costas, et al, and to light them up over this and every other issue that may come up in the future.
But — I don’t think this incident, tragic as it is, will have any profound impact. We are pretty used to sports figures shooting each other up (or at least getting busted on weapons charges) at nightspots, for some years now. That one used a gun to shoot himself is not likely to ignite much broadbased outrage.
I’ve seen people mention that the NFL really stands for National Felon’s League.
Also Costa’s blather is classic “Flog the Peasants to punish the Princes.”
But that’s the core of the anti-gun argument. Collective punishment and privilage.
Someone else did a crime and *you* have to be punished. Meanwhile the important and connected would still get to carry guns and hire security.
Whenever I hear one of these so called celebrities spouting off about gun control, I always wonder if they themselves have a gun, or even use armed security. Guns for me but not for thee. I recall there used to be some commentary guy here in Chicago who was very anti-gun, who used a gun in his home to shoot and kill a home invader. No charges were ever brought, but at least we never heard from him again. I wish I could remember his name….
Alpha Dog, you might be referring to Carl Rowan. He wrote numerous op-ed screeds against legal handgun ownership, all of which were printed in both the Chicago Sun-Times and the Washington Times from the early to the mid 1980’s.
Despite his years of public screeching against handguns for us “little people” to possess legally, Carl Rowan apparently felt differently about handguns in his own private life. In 1988, Carl Rowan shot a teenage-boy with a .22 handgun. This shooting happened on Carl Rowan’s property in Washington, DC.
The kid who was shot by Carl Rowan, along with some of the kid’s friends, were all using Carl Rowan’s backyard swimming pool for a beer-and-pot party one summer night. These kids were all uninvited “pool hoppers” however, and according to Carl Rowan, this same kid lunged at Carl Rowan when he went to confront them. So, Carl Rowan shot this kid in the wrist. This same kid suffered only minor injuries and was treated without further complications. The handgun used in this shooting was originally owned by Carl Rowan’s adult-aged, former FBI agent son.
Carl Rowan actually was put on trial in Washington, DC for illegally possessing the .22 handgun which he shot this kid with. At trial, Carl Rowan himself argued that he was within his rights to use whatever means necessary to defend himself, his family, and his property. His trial jury deadlocked in deliberation. So, the judge then declared a mistrial and Carl Rowan was never again retried on the charge.
Carl Rowan passed away in 2000. Due to the timing of his passing, Carl Rowan never had to endure years and years of ridicule from anybody over his outright hypocrisy on gun-rights-issues.
Despite his hypocrisy, I have to say I’m glad for the precedent that a gun owner more or less skated on what was a very legitimate self-defense claim. Of course the expense of the defense and a jury trial doesn’t exactly qualify as “skating.”
I think once someone has an experience themselves, their “education” on the issue becomes very authentic. I doubt much would have been heard out of Rowan after that, that would have been worthy of ridicule.
I showed up in the D.C. area not long after that event and the general impression I got, and one reason the NRA didn’t include him in an “Armed Citizen” page, is that it was very unclear he was justified in using lethal force.
One other impression I got in the dozen years I stayed there was that D.C. juries were relatively accepting of genuine self-defense cases, even though all the ones I read or heard about were illegal due to D.C.’s insane gun laws at the time (e.g. even if you had a grandfathered gun, it had to be kept disassembled).
That would be it. Although I swear I thought he killed the kid. Ah my aging memory….
I have long suspected that Bob Costas is a libtard. I am now convinced that he is. This is all the more reason for me to stop watching sports on NBC.
Of course, he didn’t say anything about more bow & arrow, and knife registration because of the Wyoming guy. But that’s totally different of course. Its not like Belcher could have done the exact same thing with a knife or anything.
Wasn’t there a former NFL player/actor that was once accused of murdering his ex-wife and her male friend with a knife in Los Angeles?
Oh, how silly of me to forget. I was referring to O.J. Simpson there. Gee, I wonder if Bob Costas had much of anything to say about California’s knife laws back then.