My Friends,

 

A line near the end of Rick Morrissey’s column today struck me: "anything short of murder is acceptable."

 

I guess he forgot about Ray Lewis.

This whole thing is out of whack, and it has to do with the lack of swift and blinding justice in the NFL and sports as a whole these days. If the players knew a suspension without pay loomed immediately when they ran afoul of the law, do you think we’d see as much of this kind of behavior? Now comes word that the Bears have deactivated Terry Johnson (don’t call him Tank, it only propagates the bad ass myth he’s trying to nurture) for Sunday’s game against the mighty Buccaneers. What a joke. The Bears get to kill two birds with one assault rifle; they keep the prying media from jamming a microphone into Terry’s face to get his reaction, and I’ll bet there’s nothing Johnson likes more than the idea of getting to watch the game in his crib with a blunt in one hand and his precious children in his lap, the other hand empty because law enforcement took away his loaded weapons. Count on this, though; playing or not, next week Terry will be sure check his bank account to see that his game check got deposited. Sheesh!

 

When I saw this, my first reaction was “they won't get him into court in time to suspend him this year.” But then I thought; “could they violate his probation on the first gun charge?” It’s a sad state of affairs when a fan first thinks about the NFL “rules of engagement” when something like this happens and it comes to meting out punishment. What does it say that we have this attitude? Are wins all we really think about?

 

Personally, I think he should have been hauled in front of a judge and made to answer for the probation violation yesterday. If he were thrown in jail, maybe another guy on the Bears roster (or elsewhere) would think twice. As I read it, his probation only had about another month to go, which probably had something to do with the timing of the raid. Good for the cops. But as has been said before, pay no attention to character or the crime blotter and the fact that the Bears success in recent years has grown proportionately with the number of annual mug shots taken of their players. I’ve been waiting for another “high fiber” blast from the Beach Domer all day.

From what I’m reading Johnson was arrested for not having a Firearm Owner’s Identification (FOID) card. Especially considering he’s already been popped on one gun charge, how stupid is that? Getting a FOID is easy! At one place I used to work, a couple of the guys owned handguns. Now there’s another recipe for disaster – guys working in a high pressure, high stress occupation wielding guns at their desks. Well, not exactly “wielding,” but you get the picture. It was especially unsettling when they would bring them out and clean them at their desks. They bought a big safe to store the guns, so they weren't in their homes where their kids could get at them. Smart, I guess. On days when things were slow, they'd grab their weapons, head to the range and fire off a clip or two (or three).

Anyway, they invited me to come along, but said I would need a FOID to shoot. So I went to the Illinois State Police website, downloaded the form, filled it out, went next door to the Walgreen's and had my picture taken, stuffed that into an envelope with the form and a check for the nominal fee of around five or ten bucks and mailed it. The whole process took about fifteen minutes. A few weeks later I received my FOID in the mail. Simple. For me, I guess.

So now I have a Firearm Owner’s Identification card. But I don't own (and never have owned) a gun, and I never did get the chance to go shooting with those guys.

Tank is a moron, a thug who is going to get somebody seriously hurt in an off-the-field incident some day. Maybe even himself. It’s only a matter of time. And then we’ll read how “this could have been prevented,” like the murder of that Burger King manager last week.

 

But “Go Bears,” right?

 

I’m just so confused and conflicted. Damn.

 

LBF

12/15/2006