October 15, 2013
By Robert W. Hunnicutt
Duke men's basketball coach Mike Kryzewski wanted to show his team the facilities at his alma mater, the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. The players got some pointers from an Army instructor and then tried out some laser M4 carbines and M240 machine guns on a simulation range .
These were, again, not real guns, and were being used on a U.S. Army installation under the supervision of uniformed military personnel. You'd think even the most rabid gun control advocate would have had no objection, but you would be wrong.
Photos of the event were posted on the athletic department's Twitter feed, and the screaming soon started. Duke took the photos down and trotted out a spokesman to point out the obvious, that the university didn't mean for the pics to imply indifference to gun violence.
I'm not one to see racism around every corner, but I would ask whether the reaction would have been the same if it had been, say, the BYU team, rather than a group of very tall, young, black men in the video. The Duke players weren't posing in gangsta fashion, and at least one of them was even exercising proper trigger finger discipline. The photos were offensive only to those determined to be offended.
There's a real hysteria among our opponents, and it's always good to see it nakedly displayed.
