On Saturday, December 1st, the same day as the Middleburg Christmas Parade, Jovan Belcher, a linebacker for the Kansas City Chiefs, shot and killed Kasandra Perkins, his longtime girlfriend and the mother of his 3-month-old daughter, before driving to the Chiefs' practice facility and killing himself in front of his general manager and head coach.

To be clear, Belcher shot Perkins nine times in the head and torso, knelt beside her barely breathing body, gently stroked her head, whispered, "I'm sorry," then drove to his place of work, thanked his employers for the opportunities they'd given him, and shot himself in the head.

The following evening, during halftime of the nationally televised Sunday night matchup between the Eagles and the Cowboys, Bob Costas stepped on the uniquely American third rail that is the right to bear arms.

Costas, with whom I do not always agree, had the temerity to offer 90 seconds of halftime commentary (which is, technically, his job) on the predominant NFL news story of the day, namely that a professional football player had chosen to murder another human being, kill himself, and leave a newborn child parentless for the rest of her life.

Costas quoted and paraphrased from a column written the night before by Jason Whitlock of Fox Sports, the conclusion of which took to task this nation's "gun culture" and "how numb we are in this society to gun violence and murder."

"What I believe is, if [Belcher] didn't possess/own a gun, he and Kasandra Perkins would both be alive today.... 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," Costas read.

The world of social media exploded.

Not at Whitlock, mind you, the actual author of the words that so incensed the easily incensed. At Costas.

(Quick side note. Given that nobody I've spoken with or whose venom directed at Costas I've read seems to have actually read Whitlock's column, here's a link to it: http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/jovan-belcher-kansas-city-chiefs-murder-suicide-tragedy-girlfriendself-leave-orphan-daughter-whystill-playing-sunday-120112 If you do take the time to read it, you'll learn that Whitlock's first barrage was not leveled at guns and gun-ownership in the United States, but rather at the tone-deaf nature of a league that decided to carry on with the football game as if nothing at all had happened.)

Guns are a sensitive subject in this country. People like them. Movies like them. Toy makers like them.

Many claim they are Constitutionally guaranteed the right to own as many firearms as they damn well please. The second amendment to the Constitution says so, after all.

But what does the second amendment actually state?

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

I'm not a lawyer, a legal scholar, a clerk, or a legal secretary. My legal training amounts to reruns of Law and Order (the original, not the hundreds of Tribble-like spinoffs that followed.)

But it seems to me that the second amendment makes the case, murkily and in as a round-the-back-way a manner as possible, that since a well regulated militia is necessary for national security, and since you can't have a well regulated militia without well armed people, the right of those to keep and bear those arms shall not be infringed.

Fine.

How many militias are we currently depending upon to protect our "free State"?

How many militias did Jovan Belcher belong to?

(For the record, the Supreme Court disagrees with me on this. In 2008, in District of Columbia v. Heller, the Court ruled that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to possess a firearm, unconnected to service in a militia.)

What on earth did Jovan Belcher need EIGHT guns for?!

People point out that if Belcher had really wanted Perkins dead, he didn't need to use a gun. He could have used a knife. Or a car. Or a bow and arrow. (Seriously.) Or his bare hands.

And they're all right.

But Whitlock's point, and the point of many people who feel the gun culture in this country has far exceeded anything ever intended by the second amendment, is that guns, cheap, all too easily accessible handguns in particular, make snap, life altering, life ending decisions all too easy.

Too many times, and certainly with growing frequency, intelligent, valuable, civil debate in this country is trumped by volume and filibuster.

For Bob Costas to be ridiculed and excoriated for presenting an argument, rationally, intelligently and openly, for him to be lambasted for using his bully pulpit to make a rational presentation, by the people who use every soapbox and opportunity available to them to shout that gun-ownership is an inalienable right, inviolate and unimpeachable, is ludicrous and insane.

Flamers online and gun rights activists make the case every day that guns don't kill people, people do.

The sad thing is, they're right.

Jovan Belcher did kill Kasandra Perkins and then himself.

The gun he used just made it that much easier.

Alex can be reached at cuda24@yahoo.com