Lolo Jones: Controversy Surrounding Gun Tweet Is Ridiculous

American track and field athlete Lolo Jones is taking flak for a gun related tweet she made after observing the results of the men’s archery competition at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.

On Saturday, July 28—Day 1 of the London Games—Jones tweeted:

"

USA Men's Archery lost the gold medal to Italy but that's ok, we are Americans... When's da Gun shooting competition?

— Lolo Jones (@lolojones) July 28, 2012"

This comment drew the ire of many on Twitter and in the media. This is an extreme overreaction to a harmless statement that was meant with absolutely no malice.

Jones is a world-class hurdler for Team USA and—more telling—is a devout Christian who has pledged to remain a virgin until marriage. She has never stirred up trouble before during her career, and there is no way that she meant to now.

Gossip outlets like StarPulse.com picked up on this story and measured the reactions from Twitter users. They ranged from “insensitive and bad timeing Delete the tweet #Thanks” to "Me being from the south I saw nothing wrong with Lolo Jones tweet. I don't automatically think of violence when I think of guns”

It seems that that was what Lolo was going for, and she explained her reasoning for the initial tweet:

"

@Allaboutbnme @DianeDixon sorry u guys only think of violence but I think of all the hunting I do w southerners in da south. Its impressive.

— Lolo Jones (@lolojones) July 28, 2012"

The only crime Jones has committed here is the repeated and intentional butchering of the word “the.”

The fact that a college educated 29-year-old woman is repeatedly substituting the word “da” for “the” is more ridiculous and more heinous than anything Lolo intended with her original, harmless, humorous tweet.

This “controversy” is over absolutely nothing. Lolo’s detractors and critics need to relax and take a look at the context and intent before losing their minds over nothing.