According to philly.com columnist Kevin Riordan, DyAnn DiSalvo is an unobservant, self-absorbed children’s book author and illustrator living in Merchantville, New Jersey (“a quaint Camden County borough of about 3,800, Merchantville is best known for Victorian architecture”). Actually, Riordan doesn’t describe her as unobservant and self-absorbed. That’s just the obvious conclusion drawn from reading of her outrage at looking up one day recently and noticing that her small town just across the Delaware River from Philadelphia now sports a gun store. And that it’s been there for over a year. Which means that something must be done about this. Now.

“I was completely startled when I saw a sign saying ‘firearms and ammunition,’ ” says DiSalvo, who has lived in the borough for 10 years and is the mother of two grown children. “I thought, ‘Why is there a gun store here?’ “

Being a Brooklyn, New York native, DyAnn’s probably more accustomed to an idyllic, gun-free atmosphere where suddenly coming upon a gun store in your neighborhood would be about as likely (and as welcome) as finding a newly established combination methadone clinic/hazardous waste disposal center had opened down the street. As the title to the piece ominously indicates, the store’s mere existence…raises questions. And more sympathetic to DiSalvo’s concerns, columnist Riordan could not be.

Firearms pervade our culture; they make some people feel secure and others afraid. Many people have no interest in owning (much less firing) one. And we’d rather not live near a commercial establishment that supplies folks who do.

But DyAnn doesn’t like what the gun store, RayCo Armory, says about her little burgh to unsuspecting visitors.

“Here’s the ‘Welcome to Merchantville’ sign, there’s the elementary school, there’s the fried chicken, and there’s the gun shop,” says DiSalvo, who grew up in Brooklyn. “Welcome to Merchantville!”

So DiSalvo’s begun a letter-writing campaign to make sure her senses aren’t assaulted again in this manner.

“Business is business, but they need to be regulated into certain areas – business areas,” she says. “This is a residential area.

“Merchantville . . . needs to wake up. We need to change the zoning laws.”

DiSalvo obviously believes that certain types of undesirable retail enterprises need to be confined to ghettos so they don’t affront the sensibilities of decent people. The LEOs and hunters who frequent RayCo just aren’t the kind of patrons DyAnn thinks are suitable to be readily seen by polite society.

But rather than amending the town’s zoning laws and changing the way Merchantville licenses and locates lawful businesses, there may be another solution. Perhaps RayCo, local gun enthusiasts, second amendment advocates and other lovers of free enterprise could take up a collection and offer to move DyAnn out of Merchantville to another town where her delicate sensibilities won’t be assaulted on a regular basis by the presence of a gun store and its reprobate customers. If, that is, they can find another town that’s willing to have her.

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94 COMMENTS

  3. Never been to Merchantsville, but having grown up in NJ, I can safely tell you that Camden County has been a real “hole”, for as long as I can remember. One of the highest crime rates in America if I recall correctly. LONG before this gun store assaulted her senses.
    I think the abject poverty, racial tensions, long history of corrupt officials or officials making stupid decisions (Ala governor going on a ride along with Camden Troopers and then frisking a suspect while posing for pictures), perennial highest violent crime rate in the US ranking, and that friggen smell, say more about her town and township, then a gun store does.

    Way to keep your eye on the ball NJ.

    • Hey Coyote Gray,
      I grew up in Merchantville and would like to inform you the the greater majority of the county is no “Hole”. Merchantville in particular is a nice quiet little town with very little crime and among the best Elementary school in the state, the County has in fact taken over the Police Dept. of Camden City the scourge you have described. That being said this woman is a friggin’ moron to impede the lawful purchase of anything is a bafoonish mindset. We have laws in place , some of the strictest in the nation in New Jersey, criminals are not able to participate in firearms or ammunition purchasing. I have a grandson I am now building a project rifle for so we can enjoy the natural process of life and consumption and the need for ethical bloodshed when you expect to eat meat. We are not trophy hunters we hunt only what we will eat and or share. So shoot on brother I take offense only to the lumpimg of a county in with the hole that is Camden City. I hope you find peace and blessings in your home. And let the idiots rant on about the device that gave us the separation from tyranny and guarantees safety from criminals. They only want firearms to defend “their” rights in the hands of authoritarians.

      • Oh and a big HELLL YEAH must visit Aunt Charlotte’s when you go to Rayco. And Vincent’s for a Panzarotti!!!

  4. Ah, the Garden State.

    New Jersey is home to about a million people who think they are really in France, Sweden, England, or some other Euro Socialist state with it’s own special constitution and rules. And to a large extent they are, albeit in violation of the Supreme Law of the Land. They have moved past living their own way to fostering an environment where you live their way and pay handsomely for the privilege to do so.

    Fortunately a deep and wide river exists between myself and NJ, I won’t accidentally drive into the state with anything banned and get in trouble.

  6. I’ll bet business picks up at Rayco Armory after this little tantrum. If I lived closer I drop buy and spend some money. Hopefully our friends in Camden County will do it for me.

  9. Back in the 70s in the Carolinas, Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority publicly criticized a bakery and called for a boycott since they baked overtly erotic looking baked goods. Due to the publicity the bakery’s business doubled.

  10. From now on I’ll buy some ammo from their when I’m in the area, just to piss her off and keep more local gun shops open.

  11. From now on I’ll buy something from there when ever I’m in the area, just to piss her off and keep another local gun shop running.

  12. “Elaborating on these concerns (Mayor) North said that in spite of a 36% reduction in state aid over the past four years Merchantville still has a surplus and does not have a deficit”.
    — Does not ‘yet’ have a deficit. State aid already down more than one-third. The future will probably bring more cuts from state and feds. Guns sales from a local merchant are a good reliable source of ongoing revenue for a small local government. Someone needs to tell DyAnn that money does not grow on magical trees. She needs to deal with it.

    “The Sweet Truth: There’s something special about handmade chocolate candy
    At Aunt Charlotte’s Candies in Merchantville….”
    — More people are suffering and dieing from obesity in America than bullets. We must ban candy stores.

    http://www.merchantville.com/

  13. Where to begin? My father’s parents lived at the corner of Browning Road and Volans in Merchantville. I spent many many months there as a child, though my parents lived in Haddonfield. In the ’20’s Merchantville was thriving. In the ’50’s, when I was a child, it was safe to roam the nearby area, within three or four blocks, and we did, alone. That was changing. Camden’s near suburbs (Pennsauken, etc.) were pressing in. Organized crime had become a larger presence. Recent rapid minority immigration to Camden had, for whatever reason, driven crime through the rough. My grandfather’s wholesale hardware business in Camden required response to alarms almost every night in the early ’60’s. The block on which Rayco is located was already commercial use. Of COURSE there is a gun store there. Anyone deciding to stay in much of Merchantville realizes they should either buy a gun or move. I suspect DyAnn moved there 10 years ago without actually knowing the population dynamics of the area. That happened to many New Yorkers moving to near suburbs in NJ, or psuedo-gentrifying areas of Philadelphia. Phila. has some beautiful safe urban areas. They are circumscribed. It has some gorgeous affluent suburbs, whose boundaries have been stable since, oh, 1910. From Brooklyn? Learn before you buy RE near Camden, which regulary competes with Detroit and East St. Louis as street-crime capitol of the US.

    • It seems that it’s DyAnne’s mission in life is to turn her little corner of New Joisey into Brooklyn, a place that I was thrilled to see in my rearview mirror over 25 years ago. In the immortal words of Bette Davis, “what a dump.”

      Sorry, Brooklynites. I love ya but B’klyn blows.

  14. I hope all the local shooters support this gun shop and then maybe they can move into a bigger building.

  16. And we’d rather not live near a commercial establishment that supplies folks who do.

    well ….then move

  17. I escaped from the People’s Demokratik Republik of NJ several years ago, crossing the Delaware River, evading the bridge trolls, to the relative freedom of PA. New Jersey has an over-abundance of bunny hugging, tree loving, grass eating, protest marching, folks that have rock solid opinions on how they AND everyone else should live. They have these opinions because they are smarter, better educated and just plain better able to decide these things than the rest of us (just ask them, they will be HAPPY to tell you!). I don’t care at all if YOU want to be a vegan, wear plastic shoes, and run 5k races every weekend for your favorite 52 causes you want to support. Don’t take away my steak and eggs, my leather belt and shoes, and regulate where and how and what I can shop for. I wish I was able to go down to Merchantville and buy some stuff from the gun shop.

    A side thought: One major flaw in Ms. DiSalvo’s thinking about her town. It is named “Merchantville”, not “Residentialville”. I would expect a town named Merchantville to have merchants selling their wares and to welcome other merchants that plan to do likewise.

  18. Beimg from NJ, I can’t really blame most RESIDENTS for being anti-gun. It’s different when you grow up in an anti-gun culture: “friendly” police officers go to schools and talk about “taking guns off the streets” while flaunting their department’s AR-15’s (banned for normal people in NJ) and carry permits are only awarded to cops.

    I don’t blame the people here for being anti-gun; I used to be one of them. Rather, I blame the policies of the government here (we have a republican governor, but his position is that NJ gun laws should continue to be aggressively enforced) and the culture that emerges as a result of said policy.

    • Currently living in jersey and I’d like to know since when are AR15s ‘banned’…. As I saw several during my last trip to the range

        • That’s why I love this site make a comment and get a legit response. Thanks for the info. IRC if I loose this reasonably good job I told the fiance were out of here…. Also going on 4+ months waiting for change of address on my permit purchase any advice?

          • Your permit adress change is thru your local police dept? Then you just need to politely nudge them along, maybe stopping in during the day and asking nicely if it’s ready yet. If you live in one of those areas that uses the NJ State police, I have no advise, because I never delt with them. I left the state back in 1988? maybe it was late ’87. I used to shoot at a club in Hunterdon county, but the building is long gone, maybe the club is too. The 2 public ranges I used to shoot at are also LONG gone. It’s been a LONG time since I pulled a trigger in NJ.

            • Yea local pd small tho I work during all their business hours ill give them a call. Only range near me is called Shore Shots its in lawrenceville. Used to go to Rays in south plainfield but they closed some time ago.

              • I’ve shot at Ray’s. Back in the day, that was quite a store! Also frequented Effingers, but I hear that is nowhere near the gun store it was. There is a new public range in Easton, PA, just off the interstate. My brother has shot there, been meaning to check it out myself. There are precious few places to shoot in NJ. Just about all the gun shops I used to hang out at are all gone. All because those “nice people” that Dy ann knows all moved in the area. (note heavy sarcasm here!)

              • I heard rays got a very good offer for their property from one of the dealerships right next door. Efingers sucks now 30% of the selection they used to have and when I complained I was told to write managment a letter…. Havnt been back since

  19. Hmmm – I went to the link to read the article. Then read the comments.
    Two things:
    1) Comments have been closed.
    2) Comments were almost (if not all) slap downs of her idiocy.

    I don’t know that it will make any difference to her self-righteousness, but it’s sweet to see.

  20. “Firearms pervade our culture; they make some people feel secure and others afraid.”

    People who feel secure with firearms: Responsibly gun owners.
    People afraid of firearms: Criminals, tyrants, and projecting cowards.
    People who should have to give up a constitutional right based on any of the latter groups: None

    People like this make me so embarrassed that I grew up in NJ. How do shivering cowards like this look at themselves in the mirror? How do they manage to form coherent words with such pervasive and unnatural psychoses? She deserves a nice beating by the reality stick.

  22. “Firearmrecreational drugs pervade our culture; they make some people feel secure and others afraid. Many people have no interest in owning (much less firing)taking one. And we’d rather not live near a commercial establishment that supplies folks who do.”

    It would probably be too much to ask that our precious concerned citizen would get the point, though…

    • “I was completely startled when I saw a sign saying ‘firearms and ammunition,’ ” says DiSalvo, who has lived in the borough for 10 years and is the mother of two grown children. “I thought, ‘Why is there a gun store here?’ “
      Like, WOW, man, I mean, like, you know? I just looked up and, like, there it was, man, like, a real gun store and stuff an’ I was like, wow, why is that, like, here, you know?
      It DOES sound like the statement of a total stoner whose mental processes were formed by watching repeated showings of old Cheech and Chong flicks.

  23. A gunstore in Merchantville? Lemme get my 400 friends and we’ll go over and have a look. Thanks for the heads up DyAnn!

    • THAT would be the perfect response Johnny and I would hope she might be passing bye to see the hundreds of cars in front of the quant little store.

  25. According to Okto, DyAnn DiSalvo needs to learn to spell her own name properly, unless she wants to be mistaken for a 1970s cleaning product.

  26. “People are people, but they need to be regulated into certain areas – areas for those people,” she says. “This is an area where nice people live.”

    Sound familiar?

    • The soft bigotry of class warfare and snobbish superiority. I bet she has a nice liberal arts degree from a progressive women’s university on her wall, right next to a picture of her cat.

          • Now, now, she can’t help how she looks. I have known ladies much uglier than her that were a joy to be around. And I have known some extraordinarily beautiful women that weren’t worth the ink in this sentence. But she does have responsibility for how she thinks. Keep in mind, she thinks we gun owners are not “nice people”.

          • Actually she is trying out for the position of Poster Girl for syrup of ipecac. She WAS trying a singing career, calling herself Lady Caca, but it did not work out when she kept interrupting recording sessions to howl at passing trucks outside.
            Word on the street is that she only went into ‘writing children’s books’ because she was going broke at her preferred job, selling one dollar lap dances at a Tijuana truck stop.

      • and I also bet she crosses the street when she sees a Black man wearing a Brooks Brothers suit carrying a briefcase walking towards her.

    • © 2011 Brian Butler

      from her website;
      About the Author and Illustrator
      Born, raised and housebroken in Brooklyn, New York, DyAnne DiSalvo decided to become a children’s book illustrator when her kindergarten teacher at P.S 230 told her that, “books were not born in the library.”

      Housebroken in Brooklyn, NY. kinda fits, don’t it?

  29. We really need to have a civil war already and clean out the puss filled abomination known as the American Left, and no, I’m not kidding.

  30. “Here’s the ‘Welcome to Merchantville’ sign, there’s the elementary school, there’s the fried chicken, and there’s the gun shop,” says DiSalvo, who grew up in Brooklyn. “Welcome to Merchantville!”

    Well, it is Merchantville; I mean people are supposed to sell stuff.
    Duh!

  31. Actually, according to the gun control groups, suburban females are the backbone of gun control. Sooo this is the face of the rank and file gun control freak.

    • “we’d rather not live near a commercial establishment that supplies folks who do.a’
      There IS a solution to that situation. It’s called ‘moving’.

  32. Not to spot on a matter of immaturity…

    But I think her face is scarier than that gun store. She looks like Michael Jacksons long lost Daughter if he slept with Cher.

    • One thing’s for sure; she’ll not need a Guy Fawkes mask should she join Anonymous……
      Someone ought to point out to her that a gun store is one of the few places where those making purchases must not have ever been convicted of a felony & are therefore far more law-abiding than the general populace.

  33. “Isn’t the law of unintended consequences fun?” “Due to the publicity the bakery’s business doubled.” Works the other way, too.

    There is a small chain of restaurants in Illinois and Iowa called “Maid-Rite.” When Tom Arnold joined the cast of “Roseanne,” he mentioned “Maid-Rite” sandwiches by name and said he liked them.

    The owners of the company threatened to sue for using their name on TV without permission. Henceforth, they were called “loose meat sandwiches” and nobody heard about “Maid-Rite” on “Roseanne” after that. The dummies couldn’t buy exposure like that, but they were short sighted and self centered and didn’t see what a gold mine looked like when they had one handed to them.

    Remember Mike Royko? The Boston group that monitors the public morality once told him he’d have to change something about one of his books or they’d ban his book. He refused, and asked them to please make a lot of noise when they banned his book. Have press conferences, put it on the radio, on TV, in the newsreels. He put “BANNED IN BOSTON” on the cover of the book.

    They ought to invite her in and let her send some lead downrange. When she finds out how much fun it is, she’ll want to buy stock.

  34. What would be the problem if firearms make some people feel secure and others afraid? As long as the people feeling (and being) secure are the citizens, and the ones afraid are the criminals. See, criminals don’t just go to a gun store an buy a gun. They get them from the black market, and from corrupt police officers (say it isn’t so, now!). The gun store feeds the law abiding citizen market. I don’t understand why would that be a problem for you, unless you are a criminal.

  36. DyAnne,
    I hate to break it to you but you do not have a constitutional right not to be offended. I, on the other hand, do have a constitutional right to defend myself with a gun (SCOTUS: DC v. Heller and McDonald v. Chicago).

  37. The gun store owner should not do or say one thing. Like most left-wingers, if you give them an inch, they’ll take a mile and DiSalvo is probably no different. So the store owner should just watch, then when DiSalvo goes too far, sue her for restraint of trade. To the bast of my knowledge, all states have that law on the books. Left-wingers cry big alligator tears when their purses,(both male and female) get lighter. Oh, by the way, I liked DiSalvo in the Wizard of Oz.

  38. Just looking at the store front, I would say it’s a pretty classy place, much nicer than a lot of the really functional gun stores I’ve been to. An by golly, is that a 4WD Ford Bronco in front with the company sign on it? Now what the hell would a sophisticated, New Joisy person NEED with a 4WD Rough country vehicle like that? Surely there isn’t that much off-roadism around there. She didn’t mention THAT.
    But I can’t see how she could object to the appearance of the store itself. The signs are subdued, nicely done, the front door looks like a real entrance. DyAnn, just live with it and go in and get a cup of coffee, look at their wares, talk to some of the people ( They ARE real people after all) in there and you might come out a new person with a new perspective on the world.

  42. “Being a Brooklyn, New York native, DyAnn’s probably more accustomed to an idyllic, gun-free atmosphere …”

    Brooklyn? New York? Home of Henry Repeating arms up until a few years ago? That Brooklyn?

    Yes, she _is_ oblivious.

    • Having lived there my entire life, I am embarrassed to share a borough with so many folk of her persuasion.

  43. ….I’m sure that her ‘children’s books’ promote and illustrate homosexuality, socialism, (and other things reprehensible to patriot, conservative Americans), as “normal healthy lifestyle choices”. Move her out of the small town?….How about out of the country! Even with her mouth shut, you can tell that it is big and obnoxious words and ideas spew from it like diarrhea!

  44. Rayco, here’s wishing you the best of luck. I’m an Arizona native, an older woman, and a lifelong gunner. Your store looks great, and if I ever make my way ‘back east’, I’ll be sure to drop in and say hey.
    In the meantime, I hope you saw some great publicity out of this poor misguided womans freak out.
    Lady, you need to take the advice we all give children. Don’t assume you don’t like something if you’ve never tried it. I have yet to meet someone who tried shooting who didn’t walk away loving it.
    What I take exception to are cars. We all know how dangerous they are, and even those that are parked COULD start themselves and run people over.
    Put one in the hands of a child, and OMG. You’re guaranteed to end up with something not very nice. Did you see the story of the guy in Illinois who killed himself, two of his friends, and a total stranger with HIS car?? Actually taunted his friends, telling them to get ready to die, as he intentionally drove the wrong way on a highway. If you need a cause, there’s one worth your time.

  45. Without our right to bear arms we would be part of Russia or China or some other more oppressive government than our own. Do you think they don’t attack because of our military or because there are over a million snipers who have been shooting since they were 5 at squirrels, then deer ect.

  46. She dosn’t like the gun store idea, because she came from NYC where criminals roam free and don’t need no stinkin gun store. she prefers victims and supports criminals I guess.

  47. now now my good fellows i no Ray very well and he is a nice guy he sold my sisters guns and me one all so. now thats get to the bottom of this . that women cant help it she just had a house fall on her and her ruby slippers were stolen along with here magic musrooms she brought from drug riddin New York, so cut here some slack( around the neck would ) and keep an i you you little dog toto if she is flying around

  48. Wonder how she feels about microaggressions ?
    I never do microaggressions – I like the maxi ones.
    Don’t have to read between the lines.

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