Those crazy Americans are at it again about their guns and their right to have them.
The debate over gun control in the United States wasn't reignited on Saturday, with the news that Kansas City Chief linebacker Jovan Belcher killed himself in the parking lot of the team's practice facility after shooting the mother of his his three-month-old daughter to death.
Nope, that wasn't enough to get American wondering whether it's a good idea if every adult can have a gun in their home if they choose.
It's not enough when the Violence Policy Center points out to statistics showing that in 2010, more people died in gun-related incidents in Washington, D.C. and the neighbouring states of Maryland and Virginia (1,512) than in car accidents (1,280). Nationally, there were 31,672 deaths by firearms in 2010, compared to 35,498 car accident deaths. In other words, it's long past being about violence or safety, gun deaths in America are a public health issue.
But what does it take for Americans to talk seriously about gun control?
It takes Bob Costas, the thinking man's sportscaster, commenting 36 hours after the Belcher incident on Sunday Night Football on NBC, to get the debate going.
Costas has never been afraid to link sports to politics.
Earlier this year, he publicly called out the International Olympic Committee (but not on the air since NBC has the Olympic rights in the U.S.) for not holding a moment of silence during the London Games to honour the 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team assassinated 40 years earlier at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich.
In his regular halftime commentary Sunday night, Costas made a similar argument about the Belcher shooting that he used about the lack of a Munich memorial tribute. The murder-suicide by a football player and the Munich tragedy are not isolated from sports in the same way that sports are not isolated from the broader popular culture.
Costas, paraphrasing a sports columnist's words, said he believed Belcher and the mother of his infant daughter would still be alive if Belcher hadn't owned a gun.
It's a debatable statement since little Switzerland has one of the highest concentrations of gun ownership in the world but a homicide rate a fraction of what the United States has. The difference is there is a culture in Switzerland of owning guns, but there is a culture in the United States of using guns to settle disputes with other people.
When she saw his gun, a mistress asked Tony Soprano if it was loaded and he looked at her as if she was the stupidest person alive.
"Honey, there ain't much point in having a gun if it ain't loaded," he answered, leaving the rest of the sentence unstated but obvious - there ain't much point in having a loaded gun if you aren't prepared to use it.
If Costas should be criticized, it's for not going far enough, for not saying more.
Why didn't he ask why it's OK to pay tribute to the victims of 9/11, the members of the armed forces and so on during games but it's not OK to talk about the deaths of athletes and why they occurred and what that might mean for the broader community after the game is over?
Why didn't he ask why Belcher's teammates and athletes in other professional sports only speak out on political issues when it involves a collective bargaining agreement and their next cheque?
Why didn't he give sports fans, always lovers of statistics, some of the stats quoted at the top of this editorial?
Our American cousins are sick when it comes to their unhealthy allegiance to their guns.
We'll be back with the kickoff to the second half right after these messages.
