Here we go again. A high-profile shooting prompts ignorant people to blame guns for murder. When are we going to learn?

After Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher shot his girlfriend to death and then killed himself, NBC Sports commentator Bob Costas read on-air during a Sunday football game portions of a column by sportswriter Jason Whitlock, who wrote, "If Jovan Belcher didn't possess a gun, he and Kasandra Perkins would both be alive today."

Right, because 228-pound linebackers cannot possibly kill women without using firearms. Also, if "the real killer" didn't possess a knife, Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman would be alive today.

Costas made things worse by explaining his comments. On MSNBC he said, "What I was talking about here - and I'm sorry if that wasn't clear to everybody - was a gun culture. It demonstrates itself in the Wild West, Dirty Harry mentality of people who actually believe that if a number of people were armed in the theater in Aurora, they would have been able to take down this nutjob in body armor and military-style artillery."

About the "gun culture," since 2006, gun sales in Virginia rose by 73 percent, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported last month. In the same period, crime dropped by 25 percent. The "gun culture" does not kill people. Crazy, disturbed and evil people who are better armed than their victims do.