Bob Costas always bugged me. He has that kind of snide delivery that makes me not care that he knows a lot more about sports than anybody else, (except my nephew, Alex, that is), and as a result I usually tune him out. Then he goes and uses his platform and his intellect to take a risky and very public stand against the absolutely indefensible gun culture in our country, (being slammed by NRA nitwits in the process), and now…I’m his biggest fan.
Bob’s, (I considered using Mr. Costas’, but he feels like Bob to me now), opinions played out over a week before Friday’s horror in Newtown, CT. but certainly post countless other gun rampages like Aurora and Columbine and Virginia Tech. The now standard response of national sorrow and outrage at the perpetrator(s), while pouring our collective hearts out to the families and friends of the victims, followed by a muted call to move toward saner, safer gun control laws, only to be trumped by the spin of the all-powerful gun lobby, is the cycle to which we have become accustomed and too accepting. We can no longer allow a misinterpretation of the 2nd Amendment to be the salve that soothes the loss of innocent men, women and CHILDREN. There are no legitimate arguments against strict registration, regulation and background checks for anyone to own any firearm. There are no sane arguments for the right of any private citizen to own assault weapons whose only purpose is mass killing. The ridiculous notion that citizens have the right to fully arm themselves against the advent of an oppressive government…really? Let’s just say that’s anybody’s reason for stockpiling weapons and ammunition. Has anybody run a simulation of the outcome of a ragtag band of weekend warriors against the might of the US Armed Forces or, for that matter, a handful of Navy Seals? I do agree that guns alone do not kill people, (unless a four-year-old drops a loaded one that goes off and kills his two-year-old sister), but deranged people who can easily get guns do! There is no empirical evidence that gun ownership deters crime or bolsters personal safety to any measurable degree, but there is a tragic and growing mountain of data underlining the senseless loss of life as a result of unrestricted gun violence.
Enough!