Opinion

Costas misses the point: guns are not the problem

The Issue: Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher, who killed his girlfriend and then himself.

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Bob Costas should stick to football (“The NFL & the Jovan Belcher Horror,” Rich Lowry, PostOpinion, Dec. 4).

If fans want a disquisition about the Second Amendment, let us read about it in law journals. Get off your high horse.

Tommy DeJulio

New Rochelle

Costas, like so many, is turning a senseless murder into a political issue.

Once again, the left is using the victims of this crime to advance its agenda to deny us our rights as citizens of this great country.

Just like making drugs illegal doesn’t eliminate the drug problem, making guns illegal wouldn’t necessarily solve the “illegal” gun problem either.

A young mother was not murdered because of the availability of a gun, but because her boyfriend was a coward who couldn’t control his anger, and who, instead of walking away, left his newborn child an orphan.

The problem in Kansas City was not guns, but a selfish murderer.

Seth Sklar

Woodmere

We, as a country, have definitely lost our moral compass.

An innocent woman, a loving mother of her 3-month-old baby, was brutally murdered by her football-playing boyfriend.

Yet, because he was an athlete, he has been eulogized with moments of silence both off and on the field, for what seems an act of premeditated murder-suicide.

His gun-waving mea culpa in front of his coach and general manager before taking his own life somehow suggests we should feel sorry and even forgive Belcher for such a heartless, unforgivable act.

Given Belcher’s overwhelming coverage by the media, the grief expressed by his coach, teammates and fans and the debate over whether the game should have been canceled, the overlooked tragedy is a murdered mother and an orphaned 3-month-old baby. Ransel Potter

Manhattan

I think that Costas was right on the money when he said if Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher didn’t have a gun, he wouldn’t have used it.

It doesn’t matter if it was due to prior head injuries, an underlying mental illness or addiction or current circumstances — if it wasn’t easily available, he might not have used the gun.

People who are aware get help for their brain illnesses.

They probably have already learned not to keep guns or old medications around, and certainly not to mix them with alcohol or street drugs, because they know that in the throes of a deep depression or in a moment when they’ve snapped, like Belcher may have, they are going to use what is available.

I think those who understand this agree with Costas. Once again, more education on mental illness is needed. And let’s get rid of the guns.

Jane E. McCarty

Harrison

Costas should know that viewers of “Sunday Night Football” are already struggling to stay in the game, as NBC shows 30 to 45 seconds of the game and four to five minutes of commercials. And now he thinks we need to hear his opinion on gun control?

Now that I know he subscribes to the “If the bank wasn’t there, I wouldn’t have robbed it” theory, I’ll be wary of any future opinion pieces and instead go channel-surfing. Beth Snyder

Traverse City, Mich.

Belcher was an NFL linebacker, but that was not enough to bring him happiness. Nor was a beautiful daughter, who now must go through life with no parents.

Belcher was no hero, role model or sympathetic figure — he was a heartless murderer who created more destruction and pain on an otherwise quiet evening in Missouri than he ever did on a football field as a linebacker for the Chiefs.

He deserves not honor and sympathy but revulsion and disgust.

Even after the transgressions of disgraced sports icons like O.J. Simpson and Jerry Sandusky, there is plenty of disgust to go around.

Vin Morabito

Scranton, Pa.