Duke Basketball Team Goes Simulating at West Point Gun Range

Whether the complaints came from anti-gun activists or North Carolina basketball fans, Duke University's basketball team garnered a lot of attention this weekend when they took photos at West Point's gun simulation range. 

The Duke basketball team took a trip the U.S. Military Academy this past weekend, where coach Mike Krzyzewski started his coaching career, according to NESN.com. The basketball team received a tour of campus and a hands-on simulation training with weapons.

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The instructional program taught the players how to properly use the guns. Then, they had several simulations with their assault rifles. 

Photos of the players posing with their weapons were posted online, which prompted a range of responses.

Deadspin.com ran one of the photos with the headline "What Is This Photo of the Duke Basketball Team Handling Assault Rifles?" 

"If you take the image by itself and it's taken out of context, it could be seen as are we somehow glamorizing gun violence or something like that. Clearly, (that's) not the case," Jon Jackson, Duke's associated director of athletics, told WRAL radio.  

Some took to Twitter to express their disappointment with the players.

Oh look, its two of my least favorite things in one picture, duke basketball players with guns http://t.co/9fFGQthjUT

— Shannon Wilson (@ShannonMWilson) October 14, 2013

i'm sorry, but calling duke's players posing with machine guns a "teaching moment" is like calling grand theft auto a driver's ed movie.

— Coach L Folwer (@Lee_Folwer) October 15, 2013

Others did not think it was a big deal.

So let me get this straight. People are upset at Duke players for posing with guns while at a MILITARY ACADEMY?

— Travis Sloat (@tstyles77) October 13, 2013

Others tweeted that the gun controversy had more to do with politics than the Duke basketball team.

Gun-haters go nuts over photo of Duke players with #guns. They hate freedom and all it stands for: http://t.co/Cu8b9lHW27 #GunControl kills.

— Dean Michaels (@quixxdraw) October 15, 2013

Jackson told WRAL that the attention gave the athletics department a chance to talk with players about the power of social media.

"(We'll discuss) the importance of perception and how those images could have been perceived not when taken in context," Jackson said.

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