Monday, December 3, 2012

Where Do We Go From Here?

We all know what happened this weekend in Kansas City.  The question is what are WE going to do about it? 

Kansas City Sports writer Jason Whitlock tackled this issue in his column(emphasis mine): 


How many young people have to die senselessly? How many lives have to be ruined before we realize the right to bear arms doesn’t protect us from a government equipped with stealth bombers, predator drones, tanks and nuclear weapons?

Our current gun culture simply ensures that more and more domestic disputes will end in the ultimate tragedy, and that more convenience-store confrontations over loud music coming from a car will leave more teenage boys bloodied and dead.

In the coming days, Belcher’s actions will be analyzed through the lens of concussions and head injuries. Who knows? Maybe brain damage triggered his violent overreaction to a fight with his girlfriend. What I believe is, if he didn’t possess/own a gun, he and Kasandra Perkins would both be alive today.


That is the message I wish Chiefs players, professional athletes and all of us would focus on Sunday and moving forward. 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.

But we won’t. We’ll watch Sunday’s game and comfort ourselves with the false belief we’re incapable of the wickedness that exploded inside Jovan Belcher Saturday morning.
Whitlock's column also inspired Bob Costas to use his platform to send a message:


Seriously though, when will we have enough of these senseless shootings?  


When is ENOUGH Enough? 


12 comments:

  1. The Kansas City Chiefs seem to be overly sensitive about the number of concussions Belcher may have received. A friend states that he was having short term memory problems after taking multiple blows to the head in the previous game and was dependent on pain killers as well, which is not uncommon among NFL players, who typically live with varying levels of pain throughout the season.

    I'm getting a little sick of seeing players lying on the field unconscious or being carried off on carts. I'm starting to question why I even watch this brutal spectacle. If animals were treated like this I would be campaigning to have the sport banned.

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  2. As fas as the gun control issue.If you outlaw guns,only outlaws will will have them!

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    1. First thing is that is BS, the second thing is NO ONE wants to "outlaw guns". However i think most sane people would agree there needs to be reasonable regulations on them.

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  3. Head injuries, could be. Roid rage is another could be. And just a tormented mind that crossed the very fine line between sane and insane. And we may never really know what happened. And this is a horrible happening. Maybe we should drop it and let the families deal and heal with out our voyeurism.

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  4. which is what everyone says everytime we have crazy gun violence. thus allowing the issue to pass for a couple weeks until it happens again!

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  5. Hilarious that football venues-- where America celebrates mind-numbing brute violence on a daily basis-- are being used to attack the right to bear arms.

    Thugs and sociopaths can get easily get guns illegally if they want to.

    Perhaps the problem isn't really the guns. Jeff_simpson7 (above) is right: once again, we are aiming at the wrong target.

    This is just another one of the posts on this cite that misses the point. Like the blow-by-blow sports coverage of Obama and Romney for the past few months.

    Missed again.

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  6. Who is attacking "the right to bear arms"?

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  7. “As fas as the gun control issue.If you outlaw guns,only outlaws will will have them!”
    “Thugs and sociopaths can get easily get guns illegally if they want to.”
    These are the kind of statements that make for great bumper stickers, but even a moment of honest, logical assessment reveals how unbelievably stupid they are. Nearly all guns start out as the lawful property of someone. How is it you think criminals get guns? Do you think they fabricate them in their garages? Criminals obtain their guns via theft, straw purchases, private sellers, or FFL’s (Federal Firearms Licensees) that sell them illegally. If legislation is passed that prevents anyone other than law enforcement or military from possessing firearms, and prevents sales to anyone other than those entities, it prevents the methods by which criminals obtain guns. I’m not advocating eliminating the 2nd amendment, but it is impossible to have an honest conversation about solutions to an obvious problem if people can’t even base their arguments in reality. Save the inane slogans for your T-shirts.

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  8. The most ludicrous part is when he says if there were no guns they'd still be alive. Because people never get beaten or stabbed to death right?

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  9. I'm trying to figure out how Belcher might have beaten himself to death in front of KC coaches.

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    1. He would have used a bow and arrow on himself. Or an axe.

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