Baffoe: Hey, Sports, Stop Being Silent About Guns

By Tim Baffoe--

(CBS) As expected, Major League Baseball games had them league-wide. There was one prior to puck drop in the decisive Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final on Sunday night between the Pittsburgh Penguins and San Jose Sharks. There will be one before tip-off in Game 5 of the NBA Finals between the Golden State Warriors and Cleveland Cavaliers on Monday night.

It's the moment of silence, that traditional call for a large group of otherwise jacked-up people to be quiet for a few seconds and feel bad. Oh, and now un-pause your adrenaline, athletes, and get out there and destroy your opponent.

But a moment of silence -- this time around for the victims of the Sunday morning shooting at the gay nightclub in Orlando that left 49 victims dead -- accomplishes nothing. It's a box to check off to let the audience know that sports is aware of unfortunate stuff happening outside of the stadium. Then we must immediately get back to the screaming for sports and put the awful stuff instantly out of our minds in favor of what's really important -- sports -- until the next time awful not sports stuff happens. Probably sooner and not later, by the way.

It's a larger collective version of "thoughts and prayers" and hashtag self-congratulations that really say: "Hey, I heard about this thing and want to be included in what everyone's talking about, but I don't care enough to really do anything to fix the problem. But now I can cut off any pesky guilt about my own complacency." Individually, if you can't donate your time, money or intelligent discussion on solving problems, please shut the hell up.

Individuals are dumb for the most part, though, especially individual sports fans. The good news is that they love herd mentality and often take marching orders from the teams and players for whom they cheer, for better or worse.

That's where teams and leagues can have an actual effect on the issue of gun violence stemming from gun accessibility in this country. Don't shuffle around it. Name it. Speak specifically of guns and how they are problematic.

The rational world needs to be made as uncomfortable as possible for gun nuts whose fears and weird complexes fund the gun lobby that buys the politicians who allow the normalization of tools of death among us. Just as sports have supposedly tried to make it uncomfortable for domestic abusers and bigots with reprimanding players who use slurs and PR campaigns standing up for women...

We can't bring guns to games because not psychotic people understand that putting large numbers of armed people in a concentrated area full of emotion is dangerous. "Good guys with guns" stopping active shooters is a myth, and stadium personnel know that. (But stupid people still want more guns in stadiums with alcohol and mood swings.)

The players are subject to suspensions and fines if they run afoul of gun laws, but leagues don't explicitly denounce guns.

Commissioners - the same dudes who dictate the uber important rules like player dress codes on and off the field of play -- need to specifically start vilifying guns in the way they do unsanctioned socks. A player needs to wear a suit at the airport, but he's fine advertising online his love of firing a high-powered rifle at a super-predatory deer. If he smokes weed, he can be suspended as much or more than for improper possession of a firearm.

The personal conduct policy of the NFL penalizes "conduct that imposes inherent danger to the safety and well-being of another person" as a separate bullet point from "possession of a gun or other weapon in any workplace setting, including but not limited to stadiums, team facilities, training camp, locker rooms, team planes, buses, parking lots, etc. or unlawful possession of a weapon outside of the workplace."

But, yeah, thoughts and prayers and moments of silence. And cultures of silence at that.

Players' unions need to step up as well. Make concessions in collective bargaining agreements that discourage gun culture among your ranks, be it normalizing the carrying of a pistol into a club or bringing an AR-15 to a shooting range or hunting environment. Because to hell with "thoughts and prayers" tweets after the fact when you have automatic rifles in your closet or a pistol in your glove compartment.

And how about encouraging athletes with their hollow platitudes and hashtags to -- if they're going to advertise their inconsequential prayers for families that aren't getting a loved one back -- also advertise actual ways to help -- where to give money, how to donate blood or time. Demand education against the anti-logic of guns as safety devices.

Speak specifically to the problems of gun accessibility, be it in our inner cities or suburban malls. Call for conversations about why it's such an American (usually male) thing to channel anger into shooting people.

Say this: "I, professional athlete whose sociopolitical opinions have a massive reach and supposedly believe in (insert any religion's) tenets of peace, know that gun culture is largely responsible for mass shootings and think guns are not cool and are hypocritical to my faith."

Do something, ya know, a bit more than half-assed declarations of look-at-me-thinking-and-praying and public moments of quiet that add up to one big monolithic practice of deafening silence in the sports world about paying customers and their love of things manufactured solely to end life. Because that's disingenuous to not just the Orlando victims and their loved ones but those of previous mass shootings and the inevitable future ones that Mr. and Ms. Thoughtsandprayers did nothing tangible to help prevent. And it's insulting to the intelligent.

Speak on it, sports figures. Say the right things instead of clasping your hands and putting your head literally and figuratively down. Otherwise, you're in the same boat as politicians who release statements about how appalled they are at the violence despite the money they've taken from the NRA and laws they've passed facilitating mass violence.

Which is to say while the death toll rises, you're being silent.

Tim Baffoe is a columnist for CBSChicago.com. Follow Tim on Twitter @TimBaffoe. The views expressed on this page are those of the author, not CBS Local Chicago or our affiliated television and radio stations.