[A]s powerful and popular as the NFL is – and with a record 123.7 million television viewers for the Super Bowl the popularity might be at an all-time high – it does not have the ability to exercise control over city streets across the land. What it can do is lobby for gun-control laws and fund gun-control initiatives.
The NFL could take the same approach to guns that the Players Coalition it funds has taken to racial justice and police reform, which is to seek legislative changes at local levels. Among the achievements the coalition claims are helping to pass a Kentucky state law that partially bans no-knock search warrants, such as the kind that ended in the police shooting of Breonna Taylor, and advocating for a Florida amendment that restored voting rights for 1.4 million citizens with past criminal convictions.
Over the past few years, the NFL has painted “End Racism” on the edges of the end zone on the fields. A nice gesture, albeit short on an explanation of how to do so. Next season the mission should read “End Gun Violence.” It’s more tangible, because the problem is physical, not a mentality.
To do nothing, is to accept the possibility that any future championship celebration will carry the same possibility of gun violence. Surely the NFL doesn’t want its brand associated with this mayhem.
— J.A. Adande in The NFL Needs a Collective Response on Gun Control
13 Responses
“….seek legislative changes at local levels.”
Because it is a well-established Constitutional principal that counties, towns, villages, and boroughs can, at will, nullify, void, and over-rule the Bill of Rights and the Constitution in general.
Heck, if it were not for Taylor and her Swities, the NFL would likely have had much more disappointing viewership.
“[A]s powerful and popular as the NFL is –…”
Was, not is.
That might have had an impact 30 years or so ago, but today? Fat fvcking chance.
The NFL, NBA, and MLB, heck, pro sports in general, have lost *all* credibility ever since they drank the Kool-Aide (yeah, yeah, yeah, I *know* it was really Wyler’s ‘Flavor-Aide’) of cultural poison, ‘Woke-ism’.
That would actually be funny if it wasn’t so sad… 😉
In the 80s and 90’s one of the more common excuses warring yoots had for killing each other was the Starter jacket.
Team branding identified different groups and taking the jacket was a trophy. Occasionally the violence would spill over and some white kid from the burbs would be targeted for that coveted garment.
An argument could be made that the NFL and all major league sports contribute greatly to the type of violence we saw at the parade. Between pumping up manufactured rivalries to tolerating ghetto shenanigans from their players to marketing their swag garbage as status or “flex” symbols.
Even though the ratings are still high I think the NFL knows it’s heyday is just about over. The boomers who follow it are dying and the young people only care about highlights and gambling not the actual sport.
I got some official Redskins merch before the change. I also kept a Land O’Lakes butter tub before they scrubbed the Indian/Native from existence. I’m going to show my future grandchildren that we used to think Indians/Natives were cool.
They tried pulling that crap on the Florida State University Seminoles.
Guess what happened? The chief of the tribe put out a statement they were honored to be the team mascot. (It helped that the ‘Noles were a football powerhouse at the time…)
I have an Uncle Ben’s box…
No, they should fix the inner city problems. Figure a way to get these kids working and loving it rather than going to easy route of selling drugs, stealing and beefing over turf…. Show them how weak criminals actually are!
Never before have I seen so many “help wanted” or “we are hiring” signs/billboards and yet so many show no interest in getting a job.
The jobs are available and there is no excuse for anyone not having a job. Now the job may not be a career, but any job will put some money in the pocket until a better opportunity arises. Doing nothing, as is the manner of many, is not the solution.
I made my son get a job at the age of 16 so he wouldn’t be sitting around on the computer all day (Covid lockdown era). I gave him some time to do it on his own. When that was moving too slowly, I chose a place, helped him fill out the application, and he got hired immediately. Fast forward a few years, and he’s ready to pay cash for a $20k vehicle (his third) while he’s still in college. There’s the “fast/easy” way, and there’s the legal way.
Children need involved parents. Boys especially need fathers to help keep them in line. Then they need good women to help “tame” them.
You can still “get there” fast in a legal way, but it requires hard work.
The NFL is un-American trash and has been for years. There’s no reason to pay any attention to it at all.
Considering the “news” so often surrounding so many professional athletes, the LAST people in the world I would turn to for moral guidance are “sports stars” – if I need a criminal thug as a role model, there are ‘hoods near enough to me. And, yes, there ARE exceptions – every year the NFL hands out the “Walter Payton” award, and many of those men are deserving of our respect. But the ones who abuse drugs, or their significant others, or shoot themselves in the @$$ at their favorite club, or get in a bar fight at their favorite club? Yeah, I think I can get by fine without their example, if it’s all the same to you.
The leagues themselves are become caricatures of woke. I haven’t watched an NFL game in years, and I don’t miss them.
Because…the minority men who couldn’t control themselves and shot up the Kansas City parade wouldn’t have done it if only there had been yet another useless law for them to disregard.