Professional athletes never stray far from the public eye, on or off the field. Whether it’s run-ins with the law or run-ins with criminals targeting them, every week seems to bring another disgraced or victimized celebrity athlete into the limelight. Writing for Reason online, Chris Sprow looks at the NFL and NBA’s gun control policies, using the murder of Washington Redskins safety Sean Taylor as an example of how the policies put players in danger. While Sprow spends some time skipping down the oft-trod path of the gun lobby, pondering how different things would have turned out if Taylor had only been packing heat, he makes some interesting inroads as well. The NBA and NFL’s paternalistic approach to governing their players’ lives is rather disturbing, and Sprow suggests that race has a lot to do with this meddling.
