Bob Costas’ commentary on the murder-suicide involving Kansas City Chiefs player Jevon Belcher is receiving a lot of attention.
I understand the points, via Ed Morrissey, that people don’t tune in to a football game for gun control proselytizing, and that Costas focused on the gun control issue rather than the core issue of domestic violence.
If Jevon Belcher didn’t possess a gun, he and Kasandra Perkins would both be alive today.
Is it true, though, that if Belcher did not have a gun they both would be alive?
If he so wanted to hurt his girlfriend — the domestic violence point — couldn’t and wouldn’t he have stabbed her or killed her in the many ways of domestic violence? Use of a knife rather than a gun would not have saved her, although it would have made it more difficult to commit the suicide part of the murder-suicide.
Or maybe he would have used other means, “Bow and Arrow” used in WY campus murder/suicide:
A man killed a woman near a community college in Casper, Wyoming, before killing a male teacher and himself in front of a class full of students, according to police.
The ABC news affiliate in Casper reports that police say the attack at Casper College occurred while class was in session.
“What we can find is that the individual that committed the violent acts was not a student at the college, but that there was a known relationship between [the victims],” said Casper Police Chief Chris Walsh at a press conference on Friday afternoon.
The Police Chief later clarified that all three had known each other. Police say the killer was not a current student at Casper College. Walsh could not confirm that the suspect was a former student, either. Walsh added that there were no records that could have tipped off authorities to any kind of threat. Walsh said no firearms were used during the homicides, and rather said that “edged weapons” were involved.
However, multiple students told K2 News that some kind of a bow-and-arrow weapon was used.
Isn’t it really the domestic violence? Sometimes it doesn’t take a gun or a knife:
Police say Clayton Whittemore, a New York college student accused of killing his girlfriend, told them he “just snapped” and killed Alexandra Kogut with his fists and a curling iron while visiting her college dorm last month.
A Monroe County Sheriff’s Office report released Wednesday says Whittemore, 21, detailed the killing to an officer on Sept. 29, after his arrest earlier that day.
According to the report, Whittemore said he and 18-year-old Kogut got into a shoving match while arguing over “stupid stuff” in her room at the State University of New York College at Brockport. According to CBS affiliate WROC, Whittemore said Kogut was continuously rude to him earlier while they were at a friend’s house.
After the fight turned physical, Whittemore said he snapped and started to hit her “over and over with my fists,” WROC reports. He told the officer Kogut began to have breathing problems, so he began hitting her with a curling iron.
“I didn’t want the girl I loved to suffer, so I started beating her with the curling iron until the noise stopped,” Whittemore reportedly said.
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Comments
If he had run her over with a SUV, would Costas be calling for banning SUV’s?
If he had killed her by throwing a football at her head, would Costas be calling for banning footballs?
Costas is just another stupid, liberal idiot. His mama should be ashamed.
I’m just glad he didn’t drown her in a toilet.
That’s true. Water in sufficient concentration is toxic. People cannot be trusted to moderate their water intake. We need water control laws.
I remember after the OKC bombing my friends agreeing that if there needs to be a five day waiting period to buy a gun, then then need a five day waiting period to rent a Ryder truck.
Another way of looking at it: Is what Costas really saying is that we should keep guns out of the hands of Blacks because they are too irresponsible to own one?
To be fair, Costas was quoting the Black guy who was saying that we should keep guns outta the hands of Black guys!
Jason Whitlock, the sportswriter he was quoting, is typical of his craft. He needs an angle, something to sell his sponsors’ soap and baked beans. As a writer, he tends to go over the top a lot, often resorting to emotional and visceral arguments.
Thank God “OJ” didn’t have a gun that fateful night….
Thank God Ted Kennedy didn’t have a gun that fateful night…
Thank God those islamic mules in OKC didn’t have a gun that fateful day…
A Lexus and a bridge abutment make a crackerjack murder/suicide weapon.
But Costas is an idiot with an agenda. Or a Collectivist.
He’s on NBC, for Pete’s sake, an arm of the DNC. Is anyone really surprised?
Go to hell Costas.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjHh4O5UR7k&feature=player_detailpage#t=422s
Costas left out the Tea Party.
Let’s look at it from another angle. If she had been armed, perhaps she would still be alive today. These speculations are stupid, but the progressives love them because it pushes their narrative.
The only way the woman would have had a shot at defending herself was if she were to have a gun.
Even if she had a kitchen knife, my money’s on the NFL linebacker in a fight.
I can’t, however, speculate whether he would still be alive if he didn’t have access to a gun. Frankly, I don’t care too much whether murderers kill themselves.
Frankly, I don’t care too much whether murderers kill themselves.
Personally, I would prefer that murderers kill themselves. Stick’em in the ground, and move on.
25 year old NFL linebacker (6’2″, 228 lbs) is gonna kill girlfriend if he wants to! Thank God he had a gun to save us the time, effort and money to lock his ass up!
“that people don’t tune in to a football game for gun control proselytizing,”
But to leftists,and Costas is undeniably a leftist, any and every opportunity is ripe for promoting the Total State,
“Tutto nello Stato, niente al di fuori dello Stato, nulla contro lo Stato” (“Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State”)
If the people don’t know their Constitution, and that unquestionably is an aim of the Democratic Party in particular, of government in general, then the people will have little complaint as the Constitution and the rights it’s suppose to protect are removed.
Maybe we should ask OJ?
Well I agree. If he didn’t have a car, his girlfriend would be alive today. Ban all cars.
Belcher was totally helpless once he got a gun. The gun controlled his mind.
So that’s what they mean by gun control!
(Football) concussions can be debilitating and life threatening. They may also alter your personality so that you may easily become enraged.
In any case let’s start the discussion where the rage starts and not from where the bullet comes out.
Sounds like an argument for anyone who every played contact sports to be banned from owning, purchasing, or otherwise handling a gun…….
Liberal logic. O.o
If we didn’t have food, we wouldn’t have obesity!
If we didn’t have casinos, booze, porn, sports, etc., … we wouldn’t have addiction!
Dumbass!
Costas is a smug little liberal automaton. With his perpetually boyish face, preppie smirk and glib as*-kissing patter, he thinks he’s the bomb. He’s been spewing cliches forever but now feels emboldened to launch cliche-spewing sermons about society. He’s just one more of the relentless assault getting bolder by the hour.
Like most sportswriters and sportscasters, he’s a frustrated little twerp who always hung around the edges of athletics but couldn’t or wouldn’t play. So many of them adopt this arrogance and attitude as a way of compensating for the fact that they couldn’t cut it as an athlete. In an offhanded, probably unconscious, way, they treat the people they are paid to cover with a certain disdain. That’s why they can ask some of the stupid questions they do and why they can assume some of the positions they do. They never played the game.
It’s refreshing to see more former athletes taking over this profession.
The bigger argument is the retort: “How many law abiding citizens would be dead today, from thugs and random acts of unkindness, if they were not allowed to own guns?”
The much more frequent occurrence of guns preventing death (by their mere possession, visible or not), is never so sensationalized. In Aurora, Colorado “Batman” was free to shoot because the theater was made a “gun free zone”. Trained military men died shielding their girlfriends with their body.
With Obama and company apparently aiding the global jihad from Cairo to Benghazi, it seems we need to keep the constitutional rights intact. Why is the left so eager to surrender our freedoms? (and certainly Costas had network approval for his rant)
In Sweden there have long been reports of Muslim on Swede violence, though the left leaning gun control government hides the facts and continues to “diversify”.
But the Swedish media are obsessed with defaming, destroying and smearing the counter jihad work of my colleagues and myself.
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2012/09/sweden-muslims-arrested-after-pouring-lighter-fluid-on-a-torched-attack-victim.html
Assume if Belcher didn’t have a gun Kasandra would still be alive today. And assume that being a battered and bruised girlfriend of an NFL linebacker is preferrable to being dead.
One thing is definately certain. If Belcher didn’t have a gun Costas would be talking about his prowess on the field and wouldn’t give two flips about Ms. Perkins
Pretty much everything worth saying about Costas’ ill informed and biased comments has been said, but how about his actions?
Costas made his comments while hiding like a coward in a broadcast booth using a feed that was not seen by the spectators in the stadium. Outside of the remote control – he was able to deliver his smug judgement without facing direct rebuttal. If he truly believed he was on the side of the angels, he would have picked up one of the very good in house microphones, walked down to the 50 yard line of Texas Stadium without any security and given his remarks to the crowd via that huge jumbotron.
In the meantime:
http://abcnews.go.com/US/okla-woman-shoots-kills-intruder911-operators-shoot
Murder has been a prohibited act since Cain murdered his brother (and he didn’t use a gun). People who want to commit murder and suicide will commit murder and suicide.
Vermont has some of the least restrictive gun laws of any state. It also has among the lowest rates of violent crime. Cities like Chicago have laws severely restricting gun ownership and some of the highest incidents of violent crime.
There is no empirical evidence that demonstrates a statistical correlation between restricting gun ownership and less violent crime.
Facts and empirical evidence don’t matter. It’s all about more state control. Costas is a dupe. An unwitting tool for state tyranny over individual liberty.
Not a big Costas fan….never have been. He takes himself much too seriously.
That said, I don’t begrudge him his position on guns, ill-informed though it may be.
I do begrudge him his 60 seconds of national TV time to spout his views. It was neither the time nor the place, and he came off looking like an even bigger nancy-boy than he already was.
Guess we shouldn’be be too surprised. This was an NBC braodcast. Think it would have happened if the game was on FOX?
“…he came off looking like an even bigger nancy-boy than he already was
The silver lining.
Well, that was easy. Murder weapons data via Department of Justice website:
http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/homicide/tables/weaponstab.cfm
Homicides by Weapon Type
Handgun Other
gun Knife Blunt
object Other
weapon
1976 8,651 3,328 3,343 912 2,546
1977 8,563 3,391 3,648 900 2,618
1978 8,879 3,569 3,685 937 2,490
1979 9,858 3,732 4,121 1,039 2,710
1980 10,552 3,834 4,439 1,153 3,061
1981 10,324 3,740 4,364 1,166 2,927
1982 9,137 3,501 4,383 1,032 2,957
1983 8,472 2,794 4,214 1,098 2,731
1984 8,183 2,835 3,956 1,090 2,626
1985 8,165 2,973 3,996 1,051 2,794
1986 9,054 3,126 4,235 1,176 3,018
1987 8,781 3,094 4,076 1,169 2,980
1988 9,375 3,162 3,978 1,296 2,869
1989 10,225 3,197 3,923 1,279 2,877
1990 11,677 3,395 4,077 1,254 3,037
1991 13,101 3,277 3,909 1,252 3,161
1992 13,158 3,043 3,447 1,088 3,024
1993 13,981 3,094 3,140 1,082 3,233
1994 13,496 2,840 2,960 963 3,071
1995 12,050 2,679 2,731 981 3,169
1996 10,731 2,533 2,691 917 2,777
1997 9,705 2,631 2,363 833 2,678
1998 8,844 2,168 2,257 896 2,805
1999 7,943 2,174 2,042 902 2,461
2000 7,985 2,218 2,099 727 2,556
2001 7,900 2,239 2,090 776 3,032
2002 8,286 2,538 2,018 773 2,588
2003 8,830 2,223 2,085 745 2,645
2004 8,304 2,357 2,133 759 2,595
2005 8,478 2,868 2,147 671 2,528
Sorry, the data didn’t display properly, but you can still make it out. Five columns: Handguns, Other Guns, Knife, Blunt Object, Other Weapon.
Latest year of 2005, 8,478 handgun murders compared to 8,214 other weapons. Maybe Costas could educate us and make his recommendations on how to deal with those?
Good chart on murder rates around the world. It doesn’t look to me like it’s guns. More like culture and race. Brazil (high homicide rate) has far more restrictive gun laws than the U.S. Most everyone in Switzerland is armed (low homicide rate). Ditto Northern Ireland. Israel (low) actually distributes military assault weapons to families living in the West Bank. Gun laws are very restrictive in Mexico but it has a high homicide rate. Guns are heavily regulated in India (and much of the population can’t afford them), yet its homicide rate is comparable to the U.S. In the U.S., California has the most restrictive gun laws, and yet it consistently ranks high in per capita homicides. Pennsylvania has far more restrictive gun laws than Florida, yet the two states are comparable in homicides. Etc.
If Costas had a brain that he could actually use, would he be so beloved by the left? But then again, if he had a brain he wouldn’t be carrying the water for a bunch of mentally challenged special interest groups or employers (NBC).
The NFL has been permeated with the hip-hop culture of misogyny, violence and glorification of the thug life-style. Then, we throw millions of dollars and unconditional adulation at people who probably had zero institutional controls on their behavior through their prep and college career and expect them to always play nice. In the Division I program where I played, the amount of sh!t you could get away with off the field was in direct proportion to your contributions on the field. Trust me, it was bad then, and with the mega-money out there now, it has only gotten worse. Look for more of the same same down the road, and it has zero to do with the availability of handguns.
It happens. Mark Sanchez, famous GQ Quarteback of the New York Jets, committed a rape in college.
That went away….
….but that doesn’t make him any less of a rapist.
Part of the problem is jealousy: “sports” journalists are jealous of “real” journalists, so the sporty ones try to out liberal-progressive-socialist the real ones, to gain street cred. Instead, he lost what little credibility he had with people who do care about sports, and were willing to respect him for his ability as a sports reporter.
As for gun control laws, consider this article The Strange Birth of NY Gun Laws. In this article by Michael A. Walsh we find this paragraph:
“Ordinary citizens, on the other hand, were disarmed, which solved another problem: Gangsters had been bitterly complaining to Tammany that their victims sometimes shot back at them.”
Get it? Gangsters already disobey the law, that’s what gangsters do. Law abiding people follow the law, so when guns were outlawed, only the outlaws had guns. (That has a ring to it.)
Albert and Franz to Signor Pastrini while in Rome…commenting on the fact that there were relieved of their weapons upon entering the country:
“Well, there now! My dear host, do you realize how convenient this regulation is for thieves – so much so that I suspect it was introduced in collusion with them?”
From the Count of Monte Cristo
Traditional knowledge has been largely lost in the age of progress.
Only authorized individuals and criminals should have the right and ability to be armed.
I am authorized to be armed by the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. Colorado has open carry. Laws made in the name of safety, requiring passing a safety class and some level of training, are infringements on that right.
I was born in the United States of America to American citizens and have the Birth Certificate and Passport to prove it.
I’m not certain about your intent, but I would like to emphasize “authorized individuals and criminals” as a precedent. In the context of Costas’s remark, you are not authorized, and I presume you are not a criminal.
[…] So this idiot thinks both people would still be alive if only the murderer didn’t own a gun? […]
I’m sure Costas is feeling much better about his decision to elevate insanity spewing black “sports writer” Jason Whitlock, who has used his moment in the spotlight to put forth that the NRA is the new KKK, and they ensure crime rates will remain high by arming black youth.
I have always maintained that a responsible press doesn’t stick a microphone in front of any wacko who’ll spew just for the sake of ratings, but now I think that practice is a genuine danger to civilized society.
Thus, the need for still MORE firearms…..