General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsU.S. biathletes shoot guns to compete. They want gun control for America.
DAEGWALLYEONG, South Korea For his profession, Lowell Bailey wears a .22 caliber rifle strapped to his back. It has taken him across the world and to four Olympic Games, most recently to the biathlon mixed relay Tuesday night at Alpensia Biathlon Centre, where he skied the anchor leg for a United States team that finished 15th. His sport and his livelihood revolve around shooting. His competitors from other countries often wonder about his countrys relationship with guns.
At the PyeongChang Olympics, the U.S. biathlon team woke up last Thursday morning to alerts on their phones about terrible news from the other side of the world. Seventeen students, teachers and staff had been murdered at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., by a 19-year-old with an AR-15. It was both tragedy and data point, another in a ceaseless succession of mass shootings in America.
Biathlon and mass murder of innocent people share no connective tissue, other than the broadest definition of the tool used. Even understanding that intellectual fact, Bailey and his teammates often experience a visceral need to reconcile the shooting portion of their sport and the destruction guns have caused in their country. They are shooting rifles while representing a country where debates over gun control have once again become a central issue.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/olympics/us-biathletes-shoot-guns-to-compete-they-want-gun-control-for-america/2018/02/20/6f7911ee-1603-11e8-b681-2d4d462a1921_story.html?utm_term=.3ecfa2e0f8f7
Lowell Bailey is a fellow Vermont Catamount