Newscaster Bob Costas is known for offering his unvarnished take on any issue, but the NBC anchor likely shocked everyone with his direct appeal for gun control during halftime of Sunday's football game between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Dallas Cowboys.
The longtime NBC sportscaster unexpectedly threw himself headfirst into the gun control debate during the game's halftime show, invoking the recent death of Jovan Belcher in am impassioned, poignant speech.
Belcher, a linebacker for the Kansas City Chiefs, fatally shot his girlfriend Kasandra Perkins and then turned a gun on himself early the morning of Saturday, Dec. 1, committing suicide in front of his coach and general manager at Arrowhead Stadium, local police said.
Police spokesman Darin Snapp confirmed it was Belcher, a fourth-year player from West Babylon, who played college ball at Maine. Police say there is currently no known motive, although did mention that the couple had been arguing a lot lately. The 25-year-old professional football player, and 22-year-old Perkins leave behind an infant child.
Costas began his 90-second speech by noting the "mindless ... sports clichés" which would invariably be brought up in the wake of the tragedy, such as how "this really puts it all in perspective."
"If so, that sort of perspective has a very short shelf life, since we will inevitably hear about the perspective we have supposedly again regained the next time ugly reality intrudes upon our games," Costas said. "Please, those who need tragedies to recalibrate their sense of proportion about sports seem to have little hope of ever truly achieving perspective."
The sportscaster then quoted extensively from a piece by Fox Sports columnist Jason Whitlock to drive home his point.
"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," said Costas quoting Whitlock's article.
"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."
"In the coming days, Belcher's actions will be analyzed through the lens of concussions and head injuries. Who knows? What I believe is, if he didn't possess/own a gun, he and Kasandra Perkins would both be alive today."
Unsurprisingly, Costas' comments have already invoked the ire of conservative fanatics on Twitter; the NBC announcer is being savaged by conservatives and gun-control opponents for taking a stand. "#Bob Costas has clearly lost his mind. Inanimate objects are the problem not murderers. Brilliant," said Ted Nugent.
"Bob Costas hijacks Sunday Night Football to give anti-gun lecture," Michelle Malkin tweeted.
Of course, not everyone agreed Costas was totally out of line inserting the gun control issue into the story of the Belcher tragedy.
"If there was something more important for Costas to talk about, it doesn't immediately come to mind," wrote The Daily Beast's Howard Kurtz.
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