NBC Sports anchor Bob Costas used the halftime show of Sunday night’s NFL game to speak out against gun violence in the United States.
During his commentary, Costas referenced a piece written by sportswriter Jason Whitlock in the wake of Saturday’s murder-suicide involving Kansas City Chief player Jovan Belcher and Belcher’s girlfriend Kasandra Perkins.
Police said Belcher shot and killed Perkins Saturday before he drove to Arrowhead Stadium, where the Chiefs play football, and took his own life.
In his piece, Whitlock wrote, “How many young people have to die senselessly? How many lives have to be ruined before we realize the right to bear arms doesn’t protect us from a government equipped with stealth bombers, predator drones, tanks and nuclear weapons?”
During the NBC broadcast, Costas quoted Whitlock’s piece, “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,” he said. “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.”
