Nick D'Arcy and Kendrick Monk Facebook Picture Creates Wave of Mock Outrage

Two Aussie Olympic swimmers, Nick D’Arcy and Kendrick Monk, have landed themselves in hot water with a harmless happy-snap posted on one of their Facebook accounts.

The two bad boys have appeared in a photo posing with guns at an LA gun shop, striking what has been described as a gangsta pose, raising outrage amongst the morally indignant. The two have been described by John Crook, a spokesman for Gun Control Australia, as “a disgrace to the Australian Olympic team.”

What garbage.

Here we have two guys who have sacrificed a massive portion of their life to represent their country who are being castigated for the simple act of having their photo taken.

In what has to be one of the most unjust criticisms of any individual, Monk has drawn the bulk of the criticism for holding shotguns that appear to be the same as ones use by Martin Bryant, the perpetrator of the 1996 Port Arthur massacre in Tasmania in 1996.

Monk was eight years old when that took place.

Bryant faced similar criticism for holding weapons similar to that used by Cho Seung-hui, the Virginia Tech gunman.

It’s fair to say, however, that any weapon the boys happened to pick up could be traced back to some atrocity or other. Perhaps the easiest thing would have been not to touch the guns after all.

Let’s be absolutely clear: They have broken no laws. They have harmed nothing and no one. They have simply held unloaded weapons in a controlled environment and had an obliging shopkeeper snap a low-quality photograph with a mobile phone.

And yet they face disciplinary action and the possibility of losing their positions on the Olympic team.

It must be said that both of these two boys have form.

D’Arcy was dropped from the 2008 Australian Olympic team for breaking the jaw of fellow squad member Simon Cowley in a drunken incident and then declaring himself bankrupt rather than paying the A$370,000 compensation to Cowley.

Monk made a false police report when he fell off his skateboard and broke his elbow in 2011. He blamed youths for running him off the road when it was his own stupidity to blame.

It is difficult to imagine that a US athlete would have been exposed to this sort of criticism for a similar act. Australia’s hypersensitivity to guns seems to border on hysterical overreaction.

Social networking is a ubiquitous part of modern society. The positives are somewhat nebulous and difficult to explain, but the negatives are immediate, public and seem to bite people on a daily basis.

What started out as a harmless bit of fun for two guys on a break from training could well undo four years of hard work, and that seems disproportionate for the act.

While it may have been indiscreet and poorly thought out, they broke no laws and have harmed no one.

What the hell is all the fuss about?