Bob Costas’ NBC Sports Network vehicle has been struggling to get a foothold in the market. However, he might have found a ratings-grabber for tonight’s show: Charles Barkley and guns.

Fresh off his controversial commentary last Sunday, Costas tackles the gun issue on the latest version of Costas Tonight (Thursday, NBC Sports Network, 9 p.m. ET )

Barkley and John McEnroe join Costas for a roundtable discussion. Now, there’s a roundtable.

Barkley, a massive man who is more than capable of protecting himself physically, says he feels safer with a gun. Question: Do you feel safer with Barkley carrying a gun?

Here are excerpts from their conversation:

Barkley: “I think, especially in the black culture, it’s a crime culture. We, as black people, and I always say we, we don’t have respect for each other. We got more black men in prison than we do in college, and crime in our neighborhoods is running rampant. I know everybody reacts when something like the (Jovan) Belcher thing happens (in Kansas City) but being black, this is something you deal with all the time, and it’s just sad. I’m a guy and I carry a gun. I carry a gun.

“I carried a gun in my car, every year of my life since I was 20 – never had to use it… I just feel safer with it because we have jocks who get robbed all the time, road rage and things like that. I feel a sense of peace when I have it with me, but it would take extreme circumstances for me to even touch it.”

McEnroe: “I feel safer without it. I’ve got to say I think that there are just so many bad things that could happen. That’s why someone like Mayor Bloomberg in New York City, where I live, has advocated, I think rightly so, that we get as many guns as possible off the streets. There are too many scenarios…that would make it that much easier to pick up a gun and do something.”

Costas: “Some people misunderstood when I pointed to what Jason Whitlock had said about a gun culture (in Sunday Night Football halftime essay). They thought I was laying everything at the feet of that. Domestic violence is part of it; the possible effect that football itself has on many of its participants is part of it. Drugs and alcohol could be part of it. And I didn’t say anything specifically about gun control legislation or the second amendment. I don’t want to repeal the second amendment. I think we should have responsible gun control but that wouldn’t prohibit somebody from carrying a gun.”