12/03/2012

Newest piece at Fox News: The truth about Costas, Belcher and guns

My newest Fox News piece starts this way:
Belcher apparently killed Perkins, the 22-year-old mother of his 3-month-old daughter, at home. The horrible tragedy occurred in front of Perkins’ mom. He then drove to the Chiefs' practice facility where he committed suicide. 
Guns can make it easier to kill people, but that isn’t relevant here. Even if no weapon existed, the strength differential is so large that Belcher could have easily killed Perkins in any number of ways. The same is true, sadly, about suicide. There are so many ways that Belcher could have killed himself, including crashing his car at a high rate of speed into a wall or even another car as he drove to Arrowhead Stadium.  
Unfortunately, pointing to two deaths here does nothing to advance the case for gun control. Costas’ rant falls under the category of if gun control could save just one life it would be worth it. The argument makes as much sense as saying we shouldn’t have gun control if guns can save one life.  
The question is the net effect of guns, and what Costas ignores is that guns save a lot more lives than they cost each year. And that's not even mentioning the roughly 2 million times a year that people use guns defensively. 
Whether people like Costas like it or not the facts speak for themselves . . .

Labels: ,

3 Comments:

Blogger Unknown said...

Hi John

I enjoyed your piece of writing. However, I believe that you forgot to mention Costas was mostly paraphrasing an article by Fox Sports columnist Jason Whitlock.

Further more, As a US citizen, I believe everyone, whether in the media or elsewhere, has the constitutional right to freedom of speech and Costas can say what he wants. US Citizens also have a constitutional right to own guns and other weapons.

If opponents of the second amendment fear guns because they kill people, we should also look at banning freedom of speech. It has been proven that bullying can lead to suicide and other violence in teenagers. If we take away the freedom of speech, then we take away the voice of bullies. This allows for bullies to be convicted of their speech and can hopefully help the victims to overcome the discomfort of having been bullied.

Now, I'm not saying that we should change the constitution in either scenario. Rather, I'm saying this argument of gun control is anti american and needs to stop because there is no winning the argument. People who kill people will do so whether they have a gun or not and they will get a gun legally or illegally. It does not matter what the law is, they will find a way to get the job done.

12/03/2012 2:40 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Ditto to Mr. Sears comment. The truth is that you, Mr. Lott, jumped to a conclusion, hopped on that bandwagon and clearly didn't carefully listen to Mr. Costas comments. It's likely you did not even read Mr. Whitlock's article. It's shameful that your article then becomes a top trending article on Fox News and I hope those reading it will research the facts themselves and recognize your narrow and incomplete perspective on this situation.

12/04/2012 2:11 AM  
Blogger John Lott said...

Dear Erik and Angela:
I didn't forget anything here. I said simply that Mr. Costas "believes" the statement and I gave a link so that people could listen to or read Mr. Costas' entire statement. Is there anything inaccurate in saying that he "believes" that statement? English wise for a first paragraph it just gets to complicated to go through saying that he agrees with a statement that someone else wrote. But if you think that I got it wrong saying that was what Costas believes, please let me know.
Thanks for the notes.

12/04/2012 4:16 AM  

Post a Comment

<< Home