Bob Costas: 'Availability of guns makes mayhem easier'

NBC Sports' Bob Costas speaks out in this exclusive interview with Lawrence O'Donnell about his Sunday night comments on the gun culture of America and the murder-suicide committed by Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher. By NBC News staff NBC Sports commentator Bob Costas on Tuesday expanded on comments he made about the need for gun control in the wake of the murder-suicide of an NFL player. "What I was talking about here – and I'm sorry if that wasn't clear to everybody – was a gun culture," Costas said, referring to comments he made during his weekly half-time slot on NBC's Sunday Night Football. "I never mentioned the Second Amendment. I never used the words gun control. people inferred that. Now do I believe that we need more comprehensive and sensible gun control? Yes I do. That doesn't mean repeal the Second Amendment. Costas sparked a firestorm when he quoted from a column written by Fox Sports columnist Jason Whitlock: "If Jovan Belcher didn't possess a gun, he and Kasandra Perkins would both be alive today," Costas said. Belcher, a Kansas City Chiefs linebacker, shot and killed his 22-year-old girlfriend Kasandra Perkins before fatally shooting himself. The gun he used was registered legally, police confirmed on Monday.  Following Costas's comments, social media sites lit up with views from both sides of the argument:  On Tuesday, Costas told reporters that it was a "mistake" to address "football culture, the gun culture, domestic violence" in the brief half-time slot.   "My mistake is I left it open for too much miscommunication," Costas told "The Dan Patrick Show." Costas said the proliferation of guns and semi-automatic weapons are the problem.  "Among young people, there seems to be too cavalier an attitude toward guns," Costas said on the show. Meanwhile Fox's Whitlock told Roland told Roland Martin of Roland Martin Reports that he hadn't gone far enough in his original commentary. He said that he took advantage of writing about gun violence in his column because so many people ignore the real world but they do pay attention to sports.   "I believe the NRA is the new KKK," Whitlock said. "And that the arming of so many black youths, and loading up our community with drugs, and then just having an open shooting gallery, is the work of people that obviously don't have our best interests." More content from NBCNews.com: Disability-compensation claims for veterans lag as 'VA backlog' worsens More than 20,000 students to miss school as teachers in Chicago suburb strike 'You killed Jesus' scrawled on Hanukkah menorah Witnesses: Man pushed to his death on NYC subway tracks after argument Follow US news from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook