Bob Costas Was Right About Gun Control

Bob Costas has been heavily criticized for responding to Jovan Belcher's murder-suicide with a call for better gun control during halftime of Sunday's Eagles-Cowboys game. But in a culture awash in gun violence, Costas was clearly in the right, writes Amy Davidson in the New Yorker. She debunks a number of the arguments presented by Costas' critics, among them, that Kasandra Perkins could have survived had she too had a gun. "As if she didn’t already live in a house full of weapons," writes Davidson.

The "pathologies" of gun violence and domestic violence are deeply entwined in America, writes Davidson. She notes that one Justice Department study showed that 92% of murder-suicides happen with a gun, and another showed that in homes with guns, domestic violence incidents are six times more likely to escalate into murder. "Costas performed a service by bringing the issue up," she asserts. "What is so radical, so wrong, about imagining Kasandra Perkins, safe, or at least alive, without a gun in sight?" Click for her full column. (More Bob Costas stories.)