In the wake of a tragic murder/suicide involving an NFL football player, the co-hosts of Fox & Friends on Monday defended gun culture while blasting NBC broadcaster Bob Costas’ call for gun control.

During halftime of Sunday night’s the Kansas City Chiefs football game, Costas had read commentary by FOX Sports columnist Jason Whitlock about why linebacker Jovan Belcher may not have kill himself and his girlfriend, Kasandra Perkins, if the player had not had access to a gun.

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“Bob Costas actually used what happened in Kansas City as an excuse to call for gun control,” Fox News co-host Steve Doocy reported in a disapproving tone.

“When people, unfortunately, want to kill other people, there’s a lot of ways to do it,” co-host Gretchen Carlson opined. “So, I don’t know. Would the rage have come out in a different way? Would he have strangled her? I don’t know if anybody knows, quite frankly, and that’s why it’s always dangerous to kind of make personal predictions when you don’t have all the facts — number one — and nobody will ever know whether or not he would have killed her with or without a gun.”

“People have a way of getting guns that want to get guns,” co-host Brian Kilmeade agreed.

“This guy had guns legally,” Doocy interrupted, not realizing he was undermining Kilmeade’s point.

“You have a way of getting them if they were illegal,” Kilmeade continued. “Number two is I don’t know if it’s appropriate on a Sunday night less than 24 hours after a guy took his own life and killed his girlfriend and the mother of his baby to make that stance. Although he was quoting another columnist in doing so, I don’t think we really needed to hear that last night.”

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“Yeah, I think you’re right,” Doocy concluded.

Update (10:30 a.m. ET): Sportscaster Jim Gray defended Costas to Fox News on Monday, saying, “If there’s no gun here, nobody’s dead.”

Watch the video below from Fox News’ Fox & Friends, broadcast Dec. 3, 2012.

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(h/t: Media Matters)