Keep It Pithy by Bill O'Reilly Page A

what he called the gun culture in America. Some folks got angry because they felt the sportscaster was attacking the Second Amendment. He came to visit.…
            O ’ REILLY : So first up, how do you feel about the right to bear arms?
            COSTAS : Obviously, Americans have a right to bear arms. I’m not looking to repeal the Second Amendment. I haven’t immersed myself in the issue throughout my life. I’m aware of it, as many Americans are. I didn’t call for any specific prohibition on guns. I never used thewords “gun control.” I quoted from a column by Jason Whitlock, who was in Kansas City for a long time, now is on the Fox Sports website, in which he mentioned, I think credibly, a gun culture in this country. Now, it plays itself out in many ways, but it’s a mentality about and toward guns that almost always leads to tragedy rather than safety.
            O ’ REILLY : All right. And we’ll get to that in a moment. But I think I want to clear this gun control thing up, because that’s … that’s why you got in trouble, because some people felt—
            COSTAS : Yes.
            O ’ REILLY : And this is a very emotional issue—
            COSTAS : Of course it is.
            O ’ REILLY : And the second thing, Mr. Whitlock is really, really far out there.
            COSTAS : Well, I—I am not agreeing with—
    [After some cross talk, we got back on track.]
            COSTAS : In any case, I was unaware of [Whitlock’s remarks comparing the NRA and the Ku Klux Klan]. And obviously, I would disagree with that 100 percent.
            O ’ REILLY : Not scolding you, just—
            COSTAS : I get it.
            O ’ REILLY : I’m not scolding, I was trying to—
            COSTAS : That’s a mild scolding compared to what I’ve—
            O ’ REILLY : Yes, I mean—okay.
            COSTAS : — received over the last seventy-two hours.
            O ’ REILLY : As long as you call a Christmas tree a Christmas tree, you’re okay here.
            COSTAS : Yes. Merry Christmas to you, too, Bill.
            O ’ REILLY : All right. There you go. So let’s advance the story a little bit. Gun control in America is an emotional issue because it is clear that the Founding Fathers gave the right to bear arms for two reasons.… Number one, because they felt that the government might devolve into tyranny, and the second thing was they knew that they had to settle this giant country and there weren’t going to be laws out in the West and people had to have guns to protect themselves from bears and—Native Americans that didn’t like them—
            COSTAS : Yes. Yes.
            O ’ REILLY : — coming on their property. So there’s a history here, all right? And most people don’t even understand that history. So Americans grow up with the right to protect themselves—against the government and against bad people. Then you enter into the modern age, where you have a debate about, well, what’s the government’s responsibility here, because these are lethal weapons? And that’s where you come in, right? So you’re saying that you want a more stringent program by the authorities to make it harder to get guns—
            COSTAS : It sounds like you’re saying I’m saying that.
            O ’ REILLY : You’re not saying that?
            COSTAS : If you were to ask me, I believe that there should be more comprehensive and effective controls on the sale of guns.
            O ’ REILLY : But what does that mean?
            COSTAS : Roughly 40 percent of the guns purchased in this country do not require a background check for purchase.
            O ’ REILLY : Okay. You want a background check, right?
            COSTAS : You have that. You’ve talked about stricter penalties, harsher penalties for criminals. There is that. Thereought