Bob Costas is a idiot (Page 2)

As I said, we can certainly try to do both......but the focus needs to be on helping women who are in abusive relationships.  Getting help for the abusers (control-freaks) hasn't worked very well, if at all.  Modifying their behavior is mostly a lesson in futility from what I've witnessed.

No not at all.  No conspiracy.

However I believe it's in everyone's best interest involved with the NFL to not bring up the alcohol, pain killers and head injuries.  By blaming the gun it allows them to name the boogeyman.

You really think Costas would continue to have a career in football broadcasting if he had brought up all these issues?  He's protecting his livelihood.

Yes, just as it always is.  Which I think is the main point the writer (Whitlock) was trying to make.

Can we please start with the Eagles?

If this guy didn't have a gun he would have used a knife. If he didn't have a knife he would have used his fists or strangled her. Or run her over, or any one of a hundred different things. Sad for their child and families, but the gun is not the cause for her death, he is.

I'm not sure that any amount of gun control (that doesn't go against the constitution) would have prevented this.  It's easy to say no guns = no gun deaths, but that is not the constitutional rights under which our government operates.

This appears to me to be plain and simple poor judgement.  From what's being reported, there seems to be multiple reasons and foundations for his poor judgement.  I wonder if one of those poor decisions was to have the gun loaded and readily available for spur of moment decisions you don't really mean 5 minutes later.

Do you really think that is an apples to apples comparison, Hank Jr's comments compared to Costas'?

I am an anti-gun kind of guy. I do not want a gun ban, but strongly feel we need more constraints on who can purchase  a gun, and what guns can be purchase. i do think that it is too easy to get a gun. And it drives me crazy when the NRA opposes new common-sense restrictions.

You know what else drives me crazy? When people try to introduce anti-gun rants in situations that where caused by other factors. As stated, this is a case of extreme domestic violence. And the guy had no recorded criminal or mental illness past. A gun, a knife, a screwdriver, or his own hands would have suffice to drive this sad event to the same conclusion.

The use of gun control rants in this situation diminishes the believability of gun control discussions for those cases in which gun access is a real part of the problem. Same as claiming racial discrimination, or claiming sexual abuse, when it did not happen. When everybody is screaming "racial discrimination", "rape", "gun control", "profiling" left and right without taking into account all the facts, especially people with high profile media jobs, the "here we go again" syndrome by the general population can make actual cases of these events less credible.

And the opportunity to address domestic violence in general, and in the NFL in particular, gets loss in all the screaming.

I'm glad to read your bottom part of your post.  However I must ask... what common-sense restrictions do the NRA oppose?

In general they oppose ANY restriction. I remember a few years ago (I don't remember the state), they were trying to place the same restrictions you have when buying a gun from a gun shop onto gun shows (2 day waiting period, criminal background check, etc). NRA acted as if they were trying to get rid of guns in general.

It would appear that if you look at statistics that yes it is true.

If you look at the same statistics you could also conclude that there are fewer rapes and less violent crime for the same reason.  For example Canada has doulbe the #'s of rape per capita than the USA.

Who wants to see more women raped? Not I.

I don't know that the assumption that "she would be dead by some other means" if he didn't own a gun are necessarily true.  I agree it's definitely likely, but it takes a while to choke someone out.  It's different feeling the resistance of a blade going to into someone's chest or head as the blade hits bone and sticks and you can't get it out.  You can't typically beat someone to death with your bare hands in a few seconds.  These are acts where you look someone in the eye and watch them die.  It isn't quite as clinical as pulling a trigger.  There is a greater possibility that she would be alive had a gun not been present.  Admittedly he shot her 7 or 8 times.  It seems obvious he meant it.  But I don't think the carte blanche assumption that she would be dead is necessarily a given.

Regardless, it seems more a domestic violence issue than a gun issue.

I didn't see anyone but you mention a conspiracy, it's remarks none the less have turned this away from a women's violence/abuse conversation to a I want to take your guns away conversation. I know how he feels though I think we should take his right of free speech away.

Correlation does not equal causation.

Keri,

Reasonable people can disagree on certain issues, but some of the worst mass shootings have occurred in countries where strict gun control exists.  In fact, 4 of the top 5 worst shootings are from such places. (http://www.top5ofanything.com/index.php?h=db8a4490) -- interesting that there's a top 5 for this, but there it is.

And 5 of 9 in recent history occur in places with much stricter gun control (http://gettoptens.com/top-10-worst-gun-massacres/)

There is some overlap in the two lists, but you get the point.

Gun bans don't prevent these kinds of things from happening.

There's a book by an economist - "More Guns, Less Crime" by John Lott that will provide a lot of hard numbers that at the worst, there is no correlation between more guns and higher crime rates, and at best, they help a great deal.

One quick example:  In Canada and in Britain, 50% of all burglaries occur with the resident at home while in the US, only 13% of the residents are home - not all of that can be contributed to the possibility that residents may be armed, but if the "cost" of coming into a home without a gun vs. one with a gun is too high, criminals will make the cost-effective decision.

If you want gun-control, this is certainly not going to change anyone's mind, but I would contend that there is evidence that gun-control has little to do with the amount of violence inflicted upon innocents.

Just my .02

twomarks

Again... one of the reasons its easier to get a gun than a drivers license (it actually isn't but OK I'll use your facts) is because there is no constitutionally protected right to drive a car.  Over and over again Courts have said that there is no "right" to a drivers license, you have a "privelege" to drive, not a right. (The right to travel does not equate with an inherent right to drive an automobile)

And your statement "just because it is a right does not mean you should be allowed" is troubling.  Because the opposite is actually the truth. 

The FACT that it is a right means exactly that you are allowed, unless there is some valid reason to prevent it.  A right means just that, you have a legitimate right free from encumbrance unless there is some compelling governmental interest.  you do not need to demonstrate anything to show you are entitled to the right.  (You don't have to show you have knowledge of an issue to render an opinion, Costas as an example; you don't have to show it's in your best interest to be part of a group of people to invoke your right of freedom of association, you don't have to be "qualified" to exercise your freedom of speech on a matter.  You don't have to demonstrate that you are knowledgable about politics to express your frustration with the government, you don't have to demonstrate knowledge of the issues to vote, these are rights, they are inherent)

So how many more constraints on all your other rights are you willing to submit to? Do you think you should have to register, prove worthiness, and ask permission from the government everytime you want to exercise your RIGHT to free speech?

If you do not want to exercise your right, that is your choice. But I do not need my constrained.

Quite a bit of research for and against that book.  Just be careful to not take too much from it.  That being said, it is worthy to use to get the discussion going by actually doing it with data and not from emotion.

Exactly.

No.  When you buy from a vendor at a gun show (in most states) they already have these restrictions.  They were trying to make it such that a private sale from me to you (these take place at gun shows on the floor) would have to have the 2 day waiting period and background check.  The so called "gun show loophole" (which is not a loophole at all). 

Everyone knew that this was unenforceable.  The two parties would just meet in a parking lot and do the deal w/o all the paperwork.

They "opposed it" because it was an unenforceable law and it restricted the sale between two private parties.

Are you saying that more guns does not equate to more deaths?