Dear Mr. Costas,
I am writing this letter to you in regards to the comments you made last weekend during the broadcast of an NFL game in which you said that Jovan Belcher "would be alive today if he had not had a gun."
First and foremost, let me say that I absolutely respect your right to voice your opinion. This right is guaranteed to us in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, and while I may disagree with what you say I will defend to the death your right to say it.
Having said that, now let me say this: you're an idiot.
I say this for several reasons, the first being the obvious: you placed the blame for Jovan Belcher's death squarely on a tool, an inanimate object that is incapable of doing anything unless someone picks it up and uses it. Jovan Belcher made the concious decision to pick up a tool - in this case a pistol - and use it to commit murder and then take his own life. Rather than place the blame on the man committing the act, as any reasonable and semi-educated man would do, you chose to blame the tool. What if that tool had been a knife instead of a gun? Would you have made the same statement? I think not.
You also chose to use your position and fame as a broadcaster for personal reasons, that being to broadcast your personal opinion on gun control. This is an insulting and abhorrent abuse of your position, and if I were the president of your broadcasting company you would have been unemployed before the game was over. You were on the air to narrate a football game, not give your personal, bigoted, and semi-informed opinions on gun control.
Your comment tells me that you're one of those folks who believe our nation would be better off without the Second Amendment, that we'd be better off if no one in this country had guns. On this point, Mr. Costas, you are either sadly misinformed or intentionally uneducated and ignorant. Our founding fathers were wise enough to list the rights that we all have simply by existing, and they drafted the Bill of Rights to protect those rights, not give them to us. They were also smart enough to arrange them in order of importance, with the right of free speech you exercised being first.
Immediately after that one is the right to defend it, that right being the right to "keep and bear arms." Our founding fathers knew that our right to free speech and all the other rights as listed in the Bill of Rights were meaningless unless we had - and exercised - the right to defend them and ourselves. That's why it's the Second Amendment and not the Eighth, Ninth, or Tenth. Take away our right to defend ourselves and our rights and freedoms, and we cease to be citizens and become subjects. And if you think this is hogwash, then all you have to do is look at what history tells us. Every dictator who ever lived and lives today all have done the same thing first, that being to outlaw private ownership of firearms and thereby take away the public's means to resist.
Whether you and the others of your opinion like to admit it or not, there is evil in the world. There are those out there who live to do us harm, to take advantage of us, to rob, maime, and kill us at their whim and leisure. They do it on the streets and they do it in our own homes. The police cannot stop them for the simple reason that they cannot be everywhere at once; there are also many more "bad guys" than there are police officers. Additionally, the Supreme Court of the United States has stated that it is not the job of the police to act as our bodyguards, and that the responsibility of our defense lies with us and not the police.
Guns give us this defense. The old saying of "God created man, but Colonel Colt made them equal" is right on the mark. Guns give us the means to defend ourselves, to protect ourselves from the evil people in the world no matter what. Guns give the mother who is home alone with her infant child the means to protect herself and that child from the man who kicks in the door to her home with the intent of robbing, raping and killing all those inside. It gives the woman on the street the means to resist the rapist who assaults her without warning or cause. It gives the man walking out to his car in the parking garage late at night the means to protect his life when the robber steps out of the shadows in front of him brandishing a knife.
Simply put, guns give us the means to survive.
The time of blaming tools for the actions of others is long past. The time for holding people accountable for the acts they commit is upon us, and the sooner you and others of your opinion realize this the sooner we make this nation a safer place in which to live. Statistics have shown that in every state where concealed carry has been legalized, violent crime has dropped. The reason for this is simple: the bad guys don't want to die, either. Statistics have also shown that where private ownership of firearms has been banned, violent crimes have increased. Don't believe me? Just ask the citizens of England and Australia.
You most certainly have the right to your own opinion and beliefs, and I respect those rights. All that I and the others like me ask is that we be given the same respect.
Sincerely,
IHC
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