A Response to Bob Costas' Anti-Gun Rant

Most everyone has heard, or at least heard about, Bob Costas and his little anti-gun rant on Sunday Night Football last night. Granted, he was simply quoting from an article by Jason Whitlock, but he was doing so in full agreement, saying that the tragedy in Kansas City where a player killed his girlfriend and himself was the result of the “gun culture” in which we live.  Had he not had a gun, Costas/Whitlock said, they would both still be alive.

It should be obvious to any thinking person that this is a ridiculous statement.  If someone is angry enough to kill, a knife or a bat or any other instrument would do the job nicely as well.  But as usual, liberals want to move the conversation away from any real issues that might be here and point at the gun.

The reason I say any thinking person would see this argument as ridiculous is simply a matter of statistics.  A Forbes article back in February sated that “As much as gun control advocates might wish otherwise, their attacks are running out of ammo. With private firearm ownership at an all-time high and violent crime rates plunging, none of the scary scenarios they advanced have materialized. Abuse of responsibility by armed citizens is rare, while successful defensive interventions against assaults on their lives and property are relatively commonplace.”

Gun ownership doesn’t lead to more crime, it leads to less crime.  A study done recently in Virginia shows the same thing.  Wayne LaPierre of the NRA posted just last week (before this latest tragedy) that “Virginia Commonwealth University Professor Thomas Baker has crunched the numbers in the state of Virginia, and has determined that gun sales in the state have climbed 73% since 2006, while the number of violent crimes involving guns has declined by more than 27%.”

The statistics are consistent.  States and cities which allow concealed carry permits have lower crime rates than those that don’t.  People act like disarming law abiding citizens will make the criminal element stop committing crimes, when the reverse is actually true.  Criminals are less likely to attack targets who may be able to defend themselves.

But I digress.  The issues we should be looking at are the ones that led this poor young man to take the action he took.  It’s not about the guns.  It’s about his mental makeup at the time, which no one knows at this point; maybe will ever know.  

Did it have something to do with the pressures of the NFL, the celebrity culture that is built around it, the pressure cooker of fan expectation in a city where the team had only one win and the fans cheered when the starting QB was injured? Were there personal issues, family issues, financial issues?   We may never know, but there are all kinds of issues to consider.  Blaming the gun is a cheap shot and more than a little uninformed. 

As sports authorities, I have a lot of respect for both Mr. Costas and Mr. Whitlock.  I’ve enjoyed both of their insights into the world of sports, and even when I’ve disagreed, I’ve still been entertained.  But they both should stick to sports, because when it comes to the issue of gun control, they both have proved that they have no common sense whatsoever. 

Read here for a nice little commentary on the issue.  

Here's Where Bob Costas and Jason Whitlock are So Wrong