This Week in the Mercury
Monday, December 3, 2012
Sports / Crime Fox Sports Speaks the Truth on Handguns
Posted by Goldy on Mon, Dec 3, 2012 at 9:59 AM
On the tragic murder/suicide committed Saturday by Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher, Fox Sports writer Jason Whitlock says what most politicians are too cowardly to admit:
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.
Guns don't make us safer. They just don't.
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