NFL player's murder-suicide is a tragedy -- in more ways than one

It's no coincidence that every time a high-profile gun crime hits news headlines, so too do all of the recycled liberal talking points about how America needs to embrace her inner-Europe and adopt stricter gun control laws. The case of NFL linebacker Jovan Belcher is no exception.

NBC Sports' Bob Costas wasted no breath during last night's broadcast in expounding his (and I'd wager his networks') views on guns and gun control. As TheBlaze reported, Costas cited an article by Fox sportswriter Jason Whitlock which argued that America's "gun culture" promotes homicide, or something.

What Costas and Belcher never bothered researching, however, are the million other reasons why a crazy man would kill himself and his girlfriend in cold blood. While a gun might arguably make it easier for someone to kill, it ultimately does not drive one to kill.  The real questions we as a society should be considering are what kind of circumstances, conditions or psychological break down led Belcher to choose suicide and murder as bookends to his life and career.  I'm not a criminal profiler or a psychoanalyst, but it doesn't take an expert to note that shooting someone nine times is not an accident or a rash consequence in the heat of the moment -- it is a crime of passion with a history behind it.

What that history is should be the focus on commentary going forward.  It can serve as a warning to men and women who find themselves in a state of mind similar to Belcher's.  It can serve as a warning to men and women who notice similar behavioral patterns in others.  But pursuing this line of inquiry is not as easy as blaming America's faceless/raceless/nameless "gun culture."  No, instead liberals shutter a potential window of introspection, opting instead for a petty political battle meant only to divide people in a time when they should be coming together to mourn this loss of life and the significant ramifications for all those involved, including Belcher's now-orphaned child.

I imagine it's also no coincidence that Whitlock's name appears in news stories today almost as much as Belcher's.  It seems Mr. Whitlock is soaking in the limelight and using this tragedy to advance his own stature in the political arena.  Take, for instance, his Newsbusters):

WHITLOCK: Sports gets so much attention, and people tune out the real world, that I try to take advantage of the opportunity to talk about the real world when sports lends itself to that and try to open people’s eyes. You know, I did not go as far as I’d like to go because my thoughts on the NRA and America’s gun culture – I believe the NRA is the new KKK. And that the arming of so many black youths, uh, and loading up our community with drugs, and then just having an open shooting gallery, is the work of people who obviously don’t have our best interests [at heart].

I think it’s obvious if you’ve traveled abroad, and traveled to countries where they have legitimate gun laws, that we don’t have to have what we have in America, where people somehow think a gun enhances their liberty, and that people somehow think a gun makes them safer. It just doesn’t. A gun turns some kids listening to music into a murder scene. And uh, you know, if you don’t have a gun, you drive home. You know, kids listening to some loud music, you don’t like it, you go home and complain to your wife. But when you have a gun, you open fire, potentially, and take the life of a child.

This doesn't sound like a man concerned with the plight of black youth; it sounds like a guy who has an axe to grind with the NRA.  Whitlock's "NRA is the new KKK" soundbite is like red meat to liberals, marrying two of their very favorite topics: gun control and racism.  (Speaking of getting political, I wonder what Whitlock's views are on Fast and Furious and Planned Parenthood's invasion of urban neighborhoods?)

But what does any of this have to do with Belcher?  The answer is absolutely nothing... that is, unless Whitlock is trying to blame Belcher's murder-suicide on "loud music."

Here's hoping the media might soon wake up to the reality that gun owners are not all predestined murderers, and that a psychopath determined to kill will succeed in doing so, with or without a firearm.  So, is it a better use of our time to debate how guns "kill" people, or how things like moral decay in our society mold and shape ruthless criminals?