…and expecting different results.

Responses to the New York Daily News’ article on the “terrifying” experience of shooting an AR15 prompted its author to write a follow up piece to be sure everyone knows just how mean the world is to him.   You didn’t think I was going to let that one go, did you?  Hang on boys and girls……

Oh poor dear. Your feelings were hurt. You exercised your First Amendment rights to support your opinions and were astounded, flabbergasted, offended and outright shocked that anyone might respond with anything other than glowing praise.

We have First Amendment rights, too.

In your fervor to once again promote yourself as a champion of peace loving peoples among a world run amok with gun loving zealots, you managed to completely gloss over the points where those of us who responded took a red pen to erroneous facts. Instead, you chose, quite intentionally I believe, to focus on how you were maligned and mistreated and called a whiny little girl with a skinned knee, or words to that affect. Let me be perfectly clear, I do not disagree with those assessments however your characterization that this is a gender war upon your poor soul is ludicrous. Or did you miss the fact that many of us in the law abiding world of responsible gun owners are women?

Its ok if you did, I certainly couldn’t expect you to have noticed such details when your first article was so peppered with glaring omissions and outright fabrications.

As I type this over my morning coffee with my cat on my lap and my dog at my feet, I imagine you in your mother’s basement, desperately calling for more Hot Pockets while you read the scathing reviews of your so called journalism. “Mom, here’s another one, they said MEAN THINGS about me!”.

Suck it up, buttercup. Because here’s the thing: you don’t have a right not to be offended. Shocking, I know but it’s true.

You have a right to your own opinion but you do not have the right to your own facts, and using a Platform such as the New York Daily News to promote them, knowing they are false, undermines the credibility of the press entirely. You’re certainly not alone in these endeavors, Katie Couric recently participated in a heavily edited video piece that should properly be labeled propaganda, then doubled down defending its Conclusions First, Questions Later position. I could name a slew of other celebrities and media personalities who have done the same but it would take too much time and effort; their journalistic sins are legion. You saw an opportunity to jump on the bandwagon and finally sit with the cool kids at lunch. Yay, you!

Except that you, like Couric, chose to double down and respond to the backlash your highly excitable work product generated. And you’ve chosen to portray yourself as a victim of the big-scary-gun owning public. You carefully cherry picked a few comments, while refusing to publish the responses in toto, to present yourself in a positive light, while vilifying the big-scary-meanies who used words to hurt you.
You are upset because after you willfully offended people who exercise their Second Amendment Rights they used their First Amendment rights in a way that offended you. The horror! The humanity! How dare they!

Nevermind that you made light of a serious psychiatric condition to describe your alleged terror at firing a simple small caliber rifle. Nevermind that you completely fabricated a narrative where you allegedly switched this particular firearm to full automatic fire, and were traumatized for life, when it was absolutely impossible to do so. Nevermind that you preyed on the fears of the public by allowing, no, purposefully attempting to make them believe that all such firearms are a push of a button away from being machine guns. You lied. You got called out on it. Instead of confessing that you took creative license a little too far, you tried to engage in a war of words about how badly you’ve been treated. You lied. You were called a liar. You stomped your feet and threw a temper tantrum in the New York Daily News. The lady doth protest too much.

And yes, I wholly support that it is your right to do so. As misguided, ridiculous, idiotic, puerile, callow and petty as it was. For the simple fact that it is your right. The First Amendment is not the ONLY Amendment, though. And your right to the First, and every other liberty you claim as an American, holds in this nation only as long as men and women with the Second have the means to defend it. From your comfortable little place in the universe, where every kid gets a trophy and you should be treated like the special little snowflake you are, you have no concept of what oppression or tyranny really are. So you create it as it relates to your reality.

Don’t be surprised when the rest of us give you a reality check.

Dannielle Romeo, southwest Virginia
wife. mother. domestic violence survivor. member NRA

ps I’m including a photo of me, taken at my property where we have a shooting range. The firearm I am holding is nearly identical to the one you claimed to have operated in Philadelphia. Please note that I am in what a friend has dubbed the “supported and chill” firing position due to a lower leg cast for a broken ankle. It is important to train for every scenario, and be able to accurately strike a target despite an infirmity. If being sent videos of pink swathed little girls at the range upset you so much, this ought to really make your day.