Last Saturday December
1, 2012 Kansas City Chief’s linebacker Jovan Belcher shot and killed his girl
friend, Kasandra Perkins. He then drove to the Chiefs facilities where after
talking with coach Romeo Crennel, general manager Scott Pioli, and linebacker’s
coach Gary Gibbs Belcher walked away from them, turned the gun on himself and
took his own life.
On December 2,
2012 Bob Costas, during the halftime of the Sunday night football game paraphrased
sports columnist Jason Whitlock and said’ “that Belcher and his wife would not have died had he not possessed a gun.”
Really, Bob? You know that for a fact, do you?
You know for a fact that had he not had a gun he would have walked away from
that argument without striking out in rage? You know for a fact Bob that he
would not have grabbed something and bashed her head in, or maybe beat her to
death with his fists? Wow Bob, could you give me the Powerball numbers for next
week’s drawing too?
It was not the fact that Jovan Belcher own
a gun that caused him to responded with violence. Just like it wasn’t the ability
to own a hand gun that made Charles Whitman climb the bell tower at the
University of Texas on August 1, 1966 and kill 21 people. And it wasn’t lax gun
control laws that made James Huberty walk in to a McDonalds in San Ysidro,
Califonia on July 18, 1984 and open fire and kill 21 people. Nor is that what
prompted Eric Harr and Dylan Klebold murdered to open fire at Columbine High
School on April 20, 1999 and kill 12 of their classmates.
These acts of violence and destruction, and
many others, were committed by people with deep psychological problems. These
people were broken, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. How these people
got broke we will never know. Were they neglected by their parents, making them
feel invisible, ignored or bullied by classmates? Was undue pressure put on
them, by their parents, society, themselves, to be successful? Did they feel
like failures for not living up to their own expectations causing them to act
out in violence? But one thing I am pretty sure of is this; it wasn’t the
ability to own fire arms.
Man has been killing man since the dawn of
time. Long before we had guns, long before we had knives, swords or spears. As
a matter of fact the first murder weapon in history was a rock. If people feel
the need to act out in violence they will find a means.
And yet every time one of these acts of violence
occurs there is a politician somewhere willing to step up to a microphone and
point a finger at gun laws. Or video games, movies, TV, or music. Why? Why do
we feel the need to find something to blame? Something concrete, something we
can see, and maybe think we have a solution? Humans like to feel in control. It
makes us feel safe to think we can identify the cause and solve it. So
politicians give us these things to blame and tell us they can fix it, with
more laws. Actually I think they do it mostly to get their names in the paper
and their face on TV, because I think they know what we already know but are
afraid to admit to ourselves. We just cannot control these things.
There are a lot of people in the world with
deep psychological problems, and these problems, Bob, cannot be fixed with gun
control.
