Bobbing for Answers

By: Stephen Caronia

Bob Costas created a furor recently with his comments during Monday night football, waxing poetic about his views on “gun culture” after the awful incident involving Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher. Costas’ remarks where ill-received by conservative groups highly sensitive to anything that can be construed as infringing on the second amendment. Although Costas never used the term “gun control,” his comments were certainly anti-gun. Their placement during halftime of a football game were seen as many as ill-timed and merely an attempt at exploiting an event as a platform for his political views.

This is hardly the forum to initiate a debate on guns and the abuse of the second amendment.  However, I think Costas’ comments and the events surrounding Jovan Belcher raise a different point that is not being discussed: player accountability.  While I don’t completely disagree with Costas’ stance, I think some of his ideology is misguided and diverts attention from where it needs to be.  For example, Costas stated, quoting Jason Whitlock, “If Jovan Belcher didn’t possess a gun, he and Kassandra Perkins would both be alive today.” Such a statement may or may not be true (if you don’t think a professional football player is capable of killing a woman with something other than a gun, think again), but it points away from what we know to be true: that a 25 year old man was mentally ill enough to kill the mother of his 3 month old baby and then kill himself.

This is the real question at hand here – why was Javon Belcher in a state of mind to perform such an act?  Aren’t there many people who own guns and never once choose to use it in an unlawful way?  The responsible use and dissemination of guns is not related to the anger, desperation, isolation, or mental illness that often causes a human being to harm one another.  As the great Ted Nugent said eloquently this week, “Hey Bob Costas we all kno (sic) that obesity is a direct result of the proliferation of spoons and forks.” The author of Wango Tango has a point.

This diversion of attention from personal responsibility is a disturbing trend in how we treat athletes, celebrities, and really people in general in this country.  Costas seems to be alluding to the idea that belcher was a perfectly normal guy who peered into the mesmerizing barrel of a gun and became possessed to kill.  I bet the same thing happened to Donte’ Stallworth when, instead of a gun, he used a blood alcohol level of .12 and a 2005 Bentley Coupe to kill a 59 year old man in 2009 .  Was there an outcry against booze and cars after this incident? Of course not, because the real problem in that incident is not merely alcohol or driving. It is hubris: the stunning arrogance of a wealthy young man speeding drunk on a highway and “flashing his lights to warn” the victim.  The same principle applies to Belcher – what was going on in his mind that day, or perhaps in days or weeks leading up to it, that allowed him to take another person and his lives? Moreover, should we put stock into the fact that he is the fifth NFL player to take his own life since 2011?  Shouldn’t this be more on Costas’ mind at the moment?

Again, this is not to say that I completely disagree with Costas.  His points about gun culture, which were better elucidated later in the week, have some merit.  It is unfortunate that he has been the topic of conversation while two people under 26 are dead and a three month old baby has no parents.  But until we start asking questions about people’s behavior and stop using red herring arguments, we may never understand horrible tragedies such as this to their full depth.

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