Olympic biathletes: 'Our country needs to change' on guns
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Campaign Action Members of the United States Olympic biathlon team, currently competing in PyeongChang, are not messing around when it comes to calling for America to change its gun laws. “I support an assault weapons ban,” [Lowell] Bailey said. “I reOlympic biathletes: 'Our country needs to change' on guns
Campaign Action Members of the United States Olympic biathlon team, currently competing in PyeongChang, are not messing around when it comes to calling for America to change its gun laws. “I support an assault weapons ban,” [Lowell] Bailey said. “I really do. Our county needs to wake up. Our country needs to change. There’s just no excuse. I compete against all of these other World Cup nations — Germany, Norway. How good are they on the range? They’re great at rifle marksmanship. Do you know how strict their gun controls law are? It’s a travesty America hasn’t changed and continues to go down this path. It just makes me want to cry.” [...] “Not only am I a biathlete, but I’m also an avid hunter,” U.S. biathlete Tim Burke said. “If locking up all of my sports rifles and my hunting rifles meant saving one life, I would do it.” These are athletes whose very careers revolve around guns; they, like many other avid gun enthusiasts, have no patience for the NRA-sponsored notion that Americans need to be able to purchase and wander around with weapons intended to inflict mass casualties quickly. “We’re a sport that uses a .22 caliber rifle,” Bailey said. “A .22 caliber rifle with a bolt action that shoots a single round is a much different thing than an AR-15. In my opinion, there’s just no reason for assault rifles to be in the hands of ordinary citizens.” We should listen to gun owners, say the pundits. We should listen to the shooting enthusiasts. Well, we are. And a great many of them, the ones who treat firearms as tools of sport and of war, rather than imagining themselves as lone warriors who need the immediate need to kill an unspecified number of their fellow Americans if they ever wake up one morning and decide that somebody around them needs killing, do not buy the NRA line. So what now? Are these American experts allowed a seat at the table, or will there be a new conservative reason why they, like the survivors of this latest shooting, are illegitimate voices as well? Read more