RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, a serious sociological question. Should the National Football League ban the automobile? Should the National Football League request that all of its players turn in their automobiles? I ask this seriously. It was two weeks ago that Jovan Belcher murdered his girlfriend and committed suicide with a gun. And there was an immediate outcry on NBC and elsewhere that guns are the problem and that we need to get rid of guns. I submit to you if you’re really serious about saving lives, ban the wheel.

The statistics are not even close. The number of people killed because of the wheel, the invention of the wheel, which now has become a tire in the case of automobiles, but the invention of the wheel has led to the death of millions of people all over the world, billions, in fact. The numbers of people killed by wheels or because of wheels dwarf the number of people murdered or accidentally killed by guns. It’s not even close, folks. And yet there isn’t any sentiment whatsoever to banning the wheel or the automobile, is there? No, of course not. And I’m not suggesting that there should be. But if you take the logic of the left, it’s the gun that kills people. Well, it’s the automobile that kills more. And you don’t need to be armed in an automobile to have somebody die as a result of your use of the automobile.

Now, I make this point only to show that the leftist arguments against guns have nothing really to do with death, and they have nothing to do with risk or danger. I mean, the left wants you to think that every life is precious in their view, and this is just unfortunate and so sad. If they really cared all that much, they’d be leading the cause to ban the car, but of course it’s impractical, they all drive cars. They all get from point A to point B with cars. Airplanes couldn’t land without wheels. It’s, of course, absurd. But so is the argument that banning guns, I mean, if you use their rationale you’d have to say the wheel and the car should be banned long before you’d talk about banning guns.

But now we’ve got this problem in the NFL with the Cowboys where a player drove drunk and killed his good friend riding with him, and it has sent shock waves through the league, and the headline of the story is: “Does the NFL Have a Drinking Problem?” Right here in USA Today. I would ask, is there any socio-cultural issue that’s not a problem in the NFL? Gambling, hoarding. Seems like concussions, no matter where you look, the NFL is riddled with societal problems. This week it’s the drinking problem in the NFL.

Do you know the NFL has a program — stop and think of this. They have a program, Safe Rides program, and whoever you are, if you’re a player, or an executive, you call an 800 number, and they will send a car to take you where you want to go so you don’t have to drive drunk. It is free of charge. It’s not a tattletale program. If you play for team X and you call the number ’cause you need to be driven home, the team never knows. It’s not a mechanism to find out what you’re doing. It’s entirely common sense and safe. There are no statistics on how many NFL players use it ’cause it’s not a tattletale program so nobody knows. The only time somebody brings it up is when an accident like this happens and it becomes obvious that the number was not called by this player for the Dallas Cowboys.

Safe Rides program, wherever you are, if you can’t drive, if you’re intoxicated, if you just don’t want to ’cause you’re tired, you call that number. The league has a contract with various car services wherever in America. You get a car in a half an hour to take you home, and, as I say, it’s not a tattletale program. But nobody knows how frequently, if at all, it’s used precisely because it’s not a tattletale program.