Liberty junior works closely with gun rights advocate Antonia Okafor to bring new club to campus

When Liberty junior Bailey Duran opened her Twitter at the end of last semester, she never imagined one retweet would connect her with one of the loudest voices in the gun rights movement. 

After Antonia Okafor tweeted a response in support of nationwide campus carry Dec. 7, Duran commented on the tweet, expressing her agreement on the need for this extra measure of protection on college campuses. 

The tweet garnered over 100 retweets and 500 likes, well over Duran’s usual traffic from her 40 Twitter followers. Along with the tweet interactions, Duran also received a message from Okafor herself, thanking the Liberty junior for her support. From there, the two started talking about Empowered 2A, an organization Okafor founded.

According to the organization’s Twitter bio, Empowered 2A is “a movement made of and for women on college campuses across the USA who feel empowered exercising their Second Amendment rights.” Okafor launched the movement in February 2017, campaigning that gun rights were women’s rights. In November of 2019, Gun Owners of America (GOA) hired Okafor and integrated Empowered 2A as one of its main projects. This association with GOA and Empowered 2A made her a viable candidate to be an ambassador for the new Falkirk Center that launched Nov. 30, 2019.    

Over the past few weeks, Okafor and Duran have been in communication, brainstorming ways to bring Empowered 2A to one of the most conservative campuses in America. The two are looking into starting one of the first Empowered 2A chapters and encouraging gun rights for women on campus. 

“Liberty is a perfect place to get something like this started,” Duran said. 

Though the organization has worked with Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA and similar organizations for almost three years, Empowered 2A has been hesitant to start reaching out to high school and college campuses. But with help from Gun Owners of America, Okafor is optimistic about the future of Empowered 2A. 

“(Empowered 2A) is essentially focused on getting (young men and women) (into) the gun rights movement,” Okafor said in her announcement video with GOA. 

In the near future, Duran hopes to use Empowered 2A to inform people on campus about issues like conceal carry. 

“I know a lot of people (at Liberty) are pro-gun, but I don’t think quite as many people know about concealed carry or understand exactly how it works,” Duran said. “It’s a really cool privilege to be able to protect yourself.”

Okafor and Duran are hoping to bring Empowered 2A to Liberty within the next year. The two hope to work closely with Students for Gun Rights on campus and bring more awareness to campus in hopes of increasing involvement in the gun rights movement.

Graves is the assistant feature editor. Follow her on Twitter.