Bob Costas, renowned sports broadcaster, is under fire from outraged conservatives for daring to speak out on NBC’s Sunday Night Football, mostly using the words of Kansas City sports writer Jason Whitlock, about the easy availability of guns in our culture, following the murder and suicide involving a Kansas City Chiefs football player.
And, you know, conservatives must be right. Who really cares that another black kid will grow up without parents? Who really cares that an athlete, for whatever reason, chose to solve his problems with NRA-sponsored warfare?
Antonin Scalia has spoken for the Supreme Court; no, he has apparently spoken for America, and told all who will listen that a laissez-faire reading of the Second Amendment trumps common sense, at least 21st-century common sense.
Conservatives must be right because the NFL and the Kansas City Chiefs chose to play a football game the day after an elite athlete killed his girlfriend and himself, the latter act done in full view of his coach and the general manager of the Chiefs, who were about a first down away from the killer.
Yes, Bob Costas was wrong to speak up. He was wrong to make people think that the game, a simple NFL football game, was less important than a family tragedy, and a larger all-American family tragedy.
Just who does he think he is reminding us how primitive we are? Especially before a football game. Doesn’t he know that Americans watch football to escape reality? And there he was, in front of the camera telling us,
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.
Yet, we know that handguns do enhance our safety. We know that because conservatives, with the NRA’s moral and financial blessing, tell us that. Republican politicians, married to and constantly getting banged by the gun lobby, won’t dare tell us anything else, lest the NRA turn its guns on them and end their political careers.
Now, there is an effort to boycott NBC until Costas is gone. Good. That will do the trick. Get rid of him. We don’t need anyone reminding us, especially before a head-banging football game, how goddamned much we love violence.
The Erstwhile Conservative: A Blog of Repentance 
Troy
/ December 3, 2012BRAVO! Right on point! The game should have been postponed. But I guess making a buck trumped the death of two black people. And cudos to Costas for stepping up.
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R. Duane Graham
/ December 4, 2012High-profile sports guys on TV rarely show such courage. But if I had to pick one who might, it would be Bob Costas.
While I know there was exactly zero chance of that meaningless game getting cancelled, I would have thought it appropriate to, as you say, postpone it for a couple of days. I mean, this happened on Saturday morning. But nope, the game went on like nothing had happened.
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JDHightjdhight01
/ December 4, 2012The fascist-style NRA, with its Goebbels clown Wayne LePierre, has such an influence on this country and its politicians that it dwarfs Grover Norquist in comparison. To listen to them, almost every Democrat, especially Obama, will use the next four years to round up everyone’s firearms, and all of this is stated with no evidence at all except LePerre’s baseless lies. When will the simple-minded finally realize that this organization uses elections to scare people into buying more firearms?
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R. Duane Graham
/ December 4, 2012Jim,
I understand your point about LePierre, one of the most disgusting public figures in America. His NRA propaganda machine does do great damage to the country, in my opinion. But I think it is a little too much to compare him to Joseph Goebbels, and I know in your better moments you would agree with that.
After all, we have not (yet) had our NRA-sponsored Kristallnacht involving attacks against gun-control advocates. If we ever do, and if LePierre initiates it, I will second your Goebbels reference.
Duane
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Patricia Minute
/ December 5, 2012Bob Costas is too intelligent for that crowd. They probably had to look up the words in his comments. They’re a bunch of dittoheads.
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Anonymous
/ December 9, 2012Idiot. I didnt have to look it either.
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Max
/ December 8, 2012After the latest NFL tragedy, involving a drunk player killing a teammate in a traffic accident, I suppose Costas will say that we need to ban cars and alcohol. The guy that he was quoting said that the NRA is the new KKK and should be ashamed for putting guns in the hands of young blacks. Will personal responsibility ever come back in America?
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R. Duane Graham
/ December 10, 2012Max,
You will notice that Costas did not quote all of Whitlock’s column, and he specifically said he didn’t always agree with his opinions.
But to your point about banning cars and alcohol. I would ask you this: Should people be able to drive while they are drunk? Or should we make it harder for people who have a drinking problem, or who have a problem judging their own sobriety, to get behind the wheel of a car? That is the appropriate analogy to make here.
All Costas, or most objectors to our current gun policy are saying, is that it shouldn’t be so damned easy for anyone, young blacks or old whites, to get their hands on a handgun, that’s all. In states like Arizona, all you have to do is have a pulse to get a weapon.
I don’t know one liberal who is in favor of banning guns. Your response here exhibits what is wrong with the debate around this issue. Anyone who even so much as expresses some concern about the easy access to guns in our culture is somehow an extremist who is going after all guns.
As for your personal responsibility question, I agree. The responsibility is finally with the killer, but some of us believe we have a social responsibility to make the nation as safe as we can within the constraints of the Constitution, within at least what used to be a common-sense understanding of the Constitution. Conservatives, particularly those on the Supreme Court, have stood that kind of understanding on its head, at least when it comes to the Second Amendment.
Duane
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King Beauregard
/ December 10, 2012“I don’t know one liberal who is in favor of banning guns.”
I know a few, but then again I live in Kucinich territory. The important thing to remember about those people, though, is that they are utterly marginalized. They are simply not represented in our political system. However, their opposite number (“no restrictions on gun ownership whatsoever”) ARE found in alarming numbers.
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