.png&w=128&q=75)
.png&w=128&q=75)
Former NFL kicker Jay Feely’s rather endearing, funny and, frankly, a little cliched photo of himself holding a hand gun standing between his daughter and her prom date is officially big news in 2018. USA Today covered it; so did the Washington Post; Deadspin got in on it too. And of course, the internet has initiated full meltdown mode.
Here’s the harmless post that ten years ago would never have made headlines:
Cue the hysterical backlash, with, as RedState’s Caleb Howe puts it, anti-gunners posting increasingly “cartoonish” statements embracing the “absurd anthropomorphizing of an inanimate object.” The first two responses out of the gate: a declaration that just posing with a gun means you “SHOULD NOT OWN A GUN!!” and the feminist claim that what should be an endearing expression of a father’s protectiveness of his daughter actually makes her his “property.” But many also come to the defense of Feely and gun owners. A few examples:
Because it’s 2018, Feely also eventually offered an explanation and partial apology for his self-explanatory, no-apologies-necessary tweet:
“The prom picture I posted was obviously intended to be a joke. My Daughter has dated her boyfriend for over a year and they knew I was joking,” he wrote. “I take gun safety seriously (the gun was not loaded and had no clip in) and I did not intend to be insensitive to that important issue.”
Sigh.
.png)
.png)
.png)
