Perhaps even more predictable than the sun rising in the east yesterday, some left-leaning sports media figures like Bob Costas and Jason Whitlock immediately blamed the "gun culture" and lack of gun control laws for Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher whacking out his old lady baby mama and then offing himself. How original!
Because, of course, anytime someone's killed with a gun in the United States,
don't ever look to blame the slimeball perp,
but instead look for an opportunity to try to fit the tragedy into the cliched, left-wing, agenda-driven, "gun control" talking point. It's opportunistic, for sure, and it's also boring, tired, and exhibits all the original and independent thought of a first grader bathroom joke.
Not to mention, there was a report this week from Deadspin.com and the
New York Post that Belcher's alleged struggles with "head injuries, alcohol and painkillers" may have played a role in his crazed, deranged behavior (link below)...
Now
there, you might actually have something interesting, something worth pursuing from a journalistic perspective (leastways, I would, if I was still a journalist). But let's not let completely fresh, cutting-edge issues (such as the expectation that NFL players play with incredible amounts of pain and lingering head and other injuries lest they wish to be released -- the "1000-pound gorilla in the room") get in the way of the same old stale talking points (e.g., "Gun Control, Baby!) that we hear every single time there's a gun-related murder.
After all, that would take a bit of effort. A bit of individual thought. An eschewing of the regurgitation of the typical ideology-driven talking points like so many mindless, group-thinking, Zombie-like creatures that we see in the partisan world. But alas, that sort of thing is rarely an easy task for any person on the left or right, even if they hail from outside the political world.
In the sports realm, mind you, I would never call either the left-leaning Whitlock or Costas (both of whom I've always generally liked as sports talking heads) any sort of ideologue, but they still both disappoint here. Whitlock usually seems to strive for original takes, even when they strain credulity -- but he utterly fails in this instance to even "sport" an ounce of originality.
And I'm disappointed in Costas too, who actually parroted a bunch of Whitlock's words instead of even coming up with his own. You can do much better, guys, than simply sounding like everybody who's out there in the partisan hack universe. Maybe stick to the sports next time.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/girlfriend_running_friends_belcher_OGIdPQMQWl3vKf4Jasj5EP
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