Photos of Duke Basketball players holding fake firearms after a gun safety course were pulled when gun control proponents complained.
As part of a team-building exercise in New York, Duke basketball head coach Mike Krzyzewski took the team to West Point for a look at military life and a course in gun safety at this alma mater.
But WRAL Sports reports that after a photo of the team holding fake guns was posted on the school’s twitter account, it had to be taken down because gun control proponents complained that is sent the wrong message.
Duke associate director of athletics Joe Jackson said the photo of the guys holding laser guns that look like AR-15s and M4s was not intended to convey any message other than that of the team working together: “[The team was] given the opportunity by Army personnel to take some pictures.” He said Deadspin.com ran the picture of the team holding fake guns, along with the headline, “What is the this photo of the Duke Basketball Team holding assault rifles?” and things were downhill from there.
Jackson added: “If you take that image by itself and it’s taken out of context, it could be seen as somehow glamorizing gun violence or something like that. Clearly, [that’s] not the case.”
The backlash was epitomized by comments from radio host Adam Gold at 99.9 FM The Fan in Raleigh, N.C.. Gold said: “You’re in your Duke uniform, your warm-ups, and everybody’s out there holding machine guns. It just looks bad.”
One more time in unison–the guns were not machine guns, they weren’t even real guns, they were dummy guns used for training purposes.
Follow AWR Hawkins on Twitter @AWRHawkins
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