Republican Tweets Grossest Christmas Card of All Time

Republican Congressman Thomas Massie waited just a couple of days after the latest deadly school shooting before he tweeted out a Christmas photo of his family and all of their favorite guns.  

On Saturday, the Kentucky Republican tweeted a photo of himself and his family all holding firearms with the message, “Merry Christmas! ps. Santa, please bring ammo.”

Republican politicians using their family Christmas photos to profess their love of guns has become something of a tradition in recent years. But Massie tweeted his just days after a 15-year-old allegedly used a gun his father bought for him on Black Friday as a Christmas present to kill four students and injure several others at his Michigan high school.

The student has been charged as an adult with murder, attempted murder, and terrorism, while his parents have been charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter. Michigan Democrats, including Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, have called for more gun control legislation in the wake of the massacre. 

Fred Guttenberg, whose 14-year-old daughter, Jaime, was killed in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre in Parkland, Florida, in 2018, responded to Massie’s tweet Saturday with pictures of his daughter and her grave.

“Since we are sharing family photos, here are mine,” Guttenberg said. “One is the last photo that I ever took of Jaime, the other is where she is buried because of the Parkland school shooting.”

“The Michigan school shooter and his family used to take photos like yours as well,” Guttenberg said. 

Massie’s tweet also drew a round of condemnation from Democrats and even some Republicans. Rep. John Yarmuth, the lone Democrat in Kentucky’s congressional delegation, tweeted that “not everyone in Kentucky is an insensitive asshole.”

“I’m old enough to remember Republicans screaming that it was insensitive to try to protect people from gun violence after a tragedy,” Yarmuth said. “Now they openly rub the murder of children in our faces like they scored a touchdown. Disgraceful.”

Rep. Adam Kinzinger, an Illinois Republican frequently at odds with the party’s far-right, said he was “pro-Second Amendment” but called Massie’s tweet a “gun fetish.” Members of the far-right House Freedom Caucus have sought to expel Kinzinger from the Republican conference; he’s retiring from Congress after 2022. 

Some Republicans, however, backed Massie. Rep. Lauren Boebert, the Colorado freshman who made Islamophobic comments about Rep. Ilhan Omar, tweeted: “That’s my kind of Christmas card!” 

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Nor did House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who is currently the defendant in a lawsuit filed by Massie to end the practice of fining House members for not wearing masks on the floor.

Massie, for his part, has been indignant about the criticism. On Monday, he tweeted a Twitter poll asking “which of these do liberals hate most?,” with the options being guns, Christmas, family, and freedom.

“I hate that my complete FAMILY won't celebrate CHANUKAH (we are Jewish) because of a GUN so that you can have the FREEDOM to post photos that incite gun violence,” Guttenberg said in a post responding to Massie’s tweet. “More FAMILIES will miss CHRISTMAS this year because of GUNS and your warped views of FREEDOM.”

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