Newest piece at Fox News: The truth about Costas, Belcher and guns

My newest Fox News piece starts this way:

Did Jovan Belcher, the 6’2” 228 pound linebacker for the Kansas City Chiefs, need a gun to kill his girlfriend Kasandra Perkins? How about to commit suicide? Apparently some think that Saturday's murder-suicide tragedy in Kansas City wouldn't have happened if he hadn't had a firearm. Amazingly, during halftime on NBC’s "Sunday Night Football," Bob Costas told viewers he believed: “If Jovan Belcher didn’t possess a gun, he and Kasandra Perkins would both be alive today.” 

Belcher apparently killed Perkins, the 22-year-old mother of his 3-month-old daughter, at home. The horrible tragedy occurred in front of Perkins’ mom. He then drove to the Chiefs' practice facility where he committed suicide. 

Guns can make it easier to kill people, but that isn’t relevant here. Even if no weapon existed, the strength differential is so large that Belcher could have easily killed Perkins in any number of ways. The same is true, sadly, about suicide. There are so many ways that Belcher could have killed himself, including crashing his car at a high rate of speed into a wall or even another car as he drove to Arrowhead Stadium.  

Unfortunately, pointing to two deaths here does nothing to advance the case for gun control. Costas’ rant falls under the category of if gun control could save just one life it would be worth it. The argument makes as much sense as saying we shouldn’t have gun control if guns can save one life.  

The question is the net effect of guns, and what Costas ignores is that guns save a lot more lives than they cost each year. And that's not even mentioning the roughly 2 million times a year that people use guns defensively. 

Whether people like Costas like it or not the facts speak for themselves . . .