Time for Leagues to Do Something About Players With Guns

Two days after Burress's shooting, the Washington Redskins staged yet another maudlin tribute to the late Sean Taylor, who was shot and killed in his own home a year ago by young men carrying guns they apparently had no trouble getting their hands on. The re-writing of Taylor's life story since his death has been remarkable -- Nelson Mandela and Jackie Robinson had nothing on him if you watch, listen to and read media reports in Washington -- but that's a separate issue.

One year ago it was written here that if Dan Snyder and Joe Gibbs really wanted to see some good come from the tragedy, they would use their money and influence to lobby for stricter gun laws. Of course, that never happened. Gibbs went into a series of evangelical rants about how Taylor's death was saving souls on the Redskins and Snyder simply staged one ceremony after another -- all the while inviting the likes of Rush Limbaugh to sit in his box.

So let's forget about anyone connected with the Redskins doing anything about guns. What about the NFL? Mara noted that the league is aware of the issue and has discussed it with the player's union. With the owners re-opening the collective bargaining agreement, maybe now is the time to make guns an issue the same way Major League Baseball owners made drug testing an issue in the wake of the embarrassing Congressional hearings on the subject three years ago.

The owners and players should agree that players can't own handguns. That won't prevent players who like to hunt from hunting. If a player feels unsafe for any reason, he can ask his team to provide security -- all NFL teams have good-sized security forces, most of them retired law enforcement officials -- or they can hire their own security guards.

Now, let's not start screaming about the Second Amendment. To begin with, the amendment should be abolished -- a sensible interpretation of the amendment is that it was written to allow the people to raise a militia for protection and to hunt for food. Clearly no one needs to raise a militia these days, and those who hunt for a living can be licensed to do so.

It would be nice if President-elect Obama had the time to focus his energies on repeal of the Second Amendment, but he first has to deal with a broken economy and the incredibly wrong-headed war started by his predecessor. What's more, the issue of gun rights causes almost as much screaming from the right as abortion rights, the irony being that those yelling the loudest about the right to life are usually those yelling almost as loud about their right to carry weapons that kill.

The Second Amendment isn't going to be abolished any time soon. That should not prevent the NFL -- and all sports leagues -- from taking handguns away from their players. It is no more unconstitutional to say players can't own guns than it is to say they must be subjected to drug testing when there is no evidence they have used drugs, or saying they can be fined for speaking their mind about officiating.

So let's not use the constitution as an excuse. If the NFL owners are concerned about guns -- and they should be -- they need to make the union understand why it is important that it be concerned, too. Baseball, basketball and hockey should do the same thing. The leagues need to do something about their players and their guns.

In all likelihood though, nothing will happen. People will scream about the Second Amendment and safety. Neither of which has anything to do with what happened to Plaxico Burress last Friday night.