We live in a day and age in which social media is everywhere and people can pay attention to and take you to task for every little thing that you do on a social media platform.
It’s scary, in many ways.
Some off-hand comment that someone says, even as sarcasm and a joke, can be taken (even out of context) and come back to bite them ten, fifteen, or more years later.
Even worse is how many social media companies and many people act when they are faced with seeing someone with a firearm on social media, and an NBA star found that out the hard way recently. Leon Wolf writes,
Memphis Grizzlies player Ja Morant, who is one of the leagues brightest young stars, will sit for “at least two games” in response to a controversy over an Instagram live post in which the basketball player purportedly displayed a gun at a nightclub.
The controversy began when Morant began livestreaming from a club at 5:19am ET on Saturday, several hours after the Grizzlies lost to the Western Conference leading Denver Nuggets. In the video, which has since been removed after Morant deactivated his Instagram account in response to the controversy, Morant reportedly livestreamed himself “shirtless and rapping along” to the music in the club, while holding what appeared to be a gun aloft in his left hand. There is no indication that Morant pointed the gun at anyone during the course of the video or threatened anyone with it.
Now, pay special attention to that last sentence: “There is no indication that Morant pointed the gun at anyone during the course of the video or threatened anyone with it.”
That’s right, Morant got into trouble even though he wasn’t being threatening.
Yes, this wasn’t Morant’s smartest move, but if an NBA star can get into trouble for just having a gun seen in one of his social media posts, what can happen to normal people like you or me when you post something about your firearms online?
Please take this lesson to heart: don’t post about your guns, what guns you have, or what guns you want. Nothing about what you own or want to own. That information on social media just makes you a target, and you don’t want those problems for yourself or your family.