Tankful of excuses

MIAMI —  One semiautomatic rifle. One loaded .45-caliber handgun. One collection of four other guns. One ammunition stash of 550 rounds.

One police raid of his home. One book thrown at him on multiple weapons charges. One probation violated.

One scene of his two young daughters being carried from his home during the raid. One visit to a club the next night, where someone murdered his bodyguard.

One game suspension by his team. One home confinement ordered. One judge in Bear’s clothing allowing him to attend the Super Bowl.

One apology?

I asked Tank Johnson if he was sorry.

“Sorry to who?” he said.

Sorry to society?

He turned his broad back to me. He shook his head. He laughed. He said nothing more.

There are many legendarily dumb questions asked at the Super Bowl’s annual media day.

On Tuesday, asking a criminal defensive lineman to show remorse was apparently the dumbest.

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As it usually happens on media day, the Super Bowl players from the Chicago Bears and Indianapolis Colts swaggered the sidelines as if in their own world.

Tight jerseys stretched across massive frames. Tattoos covering the bulging arms. Eyes hidden in expensive sunglasses. Diamonds studding the ears.

Many are young, huge, hip and appear to exist in their own reality.

Tank Johnson opened his mouth and proved it.

In an hourlong defense of the indefensible, the Bears’ embattled star blamed his troubles on everything from racism to poverty to unnamed demons.

Not once did he say he was sorry.

And not once did he say that he was going to play it safe on the wild streets here during Super Bowl week.

“I never hurt nobody,” he said.

You decide.

In November 2005, he was sentenced to 18 months’ probation after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor gun charge. Three months later, he allegedly scuffled with police outside a Chicago nightclub, but charges were dropped. Then, last December, police raided his suburban Chicago home and found more unregistered guns -- resulting in a probation violation and his third arrest in 19 months.

The day after the raid, the Bears publicly warned the players to avoid off-field problems.

That same night, Johnson hit the clubs again along with his bodyguard, who was shot and killed.

His legal problems prompted the Bears to suspend him -- for all of one game. They need him to win.

The court took it more seriously, ordering him confined to his home unless he’s working. He is here this week only after a judge allowed him released.

In a year when the NFL was nearly as violent on the streets as in the stadiums, it is only fitting that one of its Super Bowl stars could be headed not to Disneyland, but to jail.

And, by the way, has he stayed out of those troublesome clubs since coming here? Of course not.

“Let’s just say I’ve had a very nice time here,” Johnson said.

He smiled, as he did frequently during a session in which he wasn’t nasty or angry, which was really scary.

“I got caught up in the whole thing of being a normal guy,” he said.

Normal? By whose standards?

Judging by the way his teammates openly supported him and his team barely disciplined him, Tank Johnson is apparently normal in today’s NFL culture.

The game has clearly changed. The rules are clearly different. The Tank Johnson interview says more about Sunday’s game than the thousands of sound bites spewed during it.

Today’s players live in a different world. The average American will think they understand what they are watching. The average American will have no idea.

Just listen.

OK, Tank, so why does a 6-foot-3, 300-pound man need so many guns?

“I’m from Arizona, I live in the desert,” he said.

So, why keep loaded guns in the house with two young children?

“People have the liberty to ask that question but, if you have kids, you know how it is,” he said.

Are you worried about the trauma to the children, who are 3 and 1?

“I don’t think my kids had trauma,” he said. “They just had a tough day.”

Do you really think you have been treated unfairly?

“Of course I would say that,” he said, later adding, “I’ve never felt racism in my life before, but now ... I look at it like, is this because I’m a certain thing?”

Racism?

“I’m young, I’m black, I have tattoos, I’m easy to stereotype,” he said. “I don’t look like you, I don’t walk like you, I don’t talk like you.”

So this means you should be allowed to keep weapons and break team rules and violate probation?

“I learned a lot about people,” Johnson said. “A lot of people are demons, man. A lot of people are out there to hurt people.”

Are those demons the people who would question your lifestyle?

“Where I grew up, you’ll never know, you’ll never understand,” he said. “It’s white America. It is what it is.”

It is an insult to all races to blame a probation violation on skin color.

It is an insult to all gun owners to blame illegally owned firearms on a lack of cultural understanding.

It is an insult to all parents to imply that children can be defended only with guns.

Yet, for an hour Tuesday, Tank Johnson would have had you believe that it was America that was insulting him.

I understand the complications of the inner workings of today’s NFL locker rooms. I know it’s a violent game, and we must be sensitive to the violent backgrounds and natures of the gladiators who play it. Living underneath helmets and visors and anger, the players are indeed from a different world, and there’s no reason we cannot celebrate those differences.

But couldn’t he have just said he was sorry?