Guns On Our Family Christmas Card (Satire)

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky) recently sent out his family Christmas card, showing his family all holding large guns (see above photo). Not to be outdone, Rep. Lauren Robert (R-Colorado) did the same.

Coming just a few days after the mass murder with a gun at Oxford High School in Michigan, these cards were both offensive and unfeeling. For these Republican representatives, guns seem to be more important than the lives of students (or anyone else).

Much has been written about this offensive conduct, but perhaps the best commentary is a bit of satire by Alexandra Petri in The Washington Post. It is both funny and frightening. Ms. Petri writes:

Merry Christmas (NEVER HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!) to you and your family (adults, children, and guns alike)!

We hope you are enjoying the blessings of the season: togetherness, ammunition and owning the libs. You may have spotted our holiday photo, which contained numerous triggers (both literal and metaphorical, but mostly literal). It was designed — like the Christmas photos of Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) — to enrage snowflakes. (It is nearly winter, after all.) It depicts all our family members, of which we are equally proud: the two of us, our four children and our many deadly firearms! Some of us are smiling; the other five are guns. All of us are excited to head back to schools and workplaces after the holidays, and if you don’t like it, too bad! Five of us have been vaccinated, but not the five you would expect.

Given the recent Oxford Township, Mich., school shooting and the approaching anniversary of the deaths at Sandy Hook, is this card in ghoulish bad taste? Before answering, please know that I am holding a gun.

What a year we’ve all had! 2022 can’t come soon enough. My wife, Maureen, and I have been hard at work getting the house ready for our newest arrival (another gun!) by getting a larger cabinet that we will also omit to lock. Sadly, we have to wait a few months until the gun show where we can purchase it without any kind of license. Can’t come soon enough! Our family really won’t be complete without another sleek weapon that can propel a bullet through the air to kill or, in some cases, maim whoever stands in its path!

Some more updates on us: Maureen made her famous clam dip last weekend, and it lived up to its billing. I just finished wrapping my presents in time for our holiday exchange (everyone is getting ammo this year!). Tracy (our oldest AR-15) made headlines for looking just like the weapon Kyle Rittenhouse used in Kenosha, Wis.! Representation is so important. If you can’t see yourself, you never know your potential. Fortunately, 2021 has featured hundreds of mass shootings, so seeing yourself hasn’t been a problem for our six favorite family members.

Tim (our 9-year-old) is excited for Little League this year. We play a lot of catch in the yard. He’s had a real growth spurt this year, and he loves to share facts about his favorite teams.

Bradley (our M-60 machine gun) is a weapon of war that has been used from Vietnam to Afghanistan! Ours is modified for civilian use, so itcan’t fire as many rounds per minute as its fully automatic cousins; we’re jealous! Still, if someone gets their hands on it, it can be pretty deadly! It doesn’t belong in a home where there are children!

Maisie, who just turned 7, continues her pursuit of fashion and is goading all of us into elevating our holiday sweater game. Recently, her class took a virtual field trip. She is already an accomplished birdwatcher!

Viggo, 1, is a semiautomatic assault-style rifle designed to kill people quickly and in large numbers, once we can obtain some ammunition. Semiautomatic means that you must squeeze the trigger each time you wish to fire. But this rifle has still been used in mass shootings from Las Vegas to Orlando’s Pulse nightclub, which just goes to show — as we always tell Viggo — that you can overcome any obstacle.

Activists say these weapons have “no valid recreational use, and civilians should not be allowed to own them.” We own three! But then again, we decreasingly think of ourselves as civilians and more and more as volunteer soldiers in a cataclysmic conflict we assume is coming shortly!

Katie (15) didn’t want to be in the card. We don’t know why.

Trevor (our youngest AR-15) is still completely unsecured. (Recently, we saw on TV that another family’s Trevor was used in an event that decreased the number of holiday cards that several other families will have to send and receive! Very careless of the people who put themselves in its way and chose that day for their bodies to be made entirely of fragile bone and soft, vulnerable muscle, but it’s in no way their Trevor’s fault.)

Kevin (now 13!) is enjoying the seventh grade. He liked seeing friends at school and has started to read the “Lord of the Rings.” At school every year, he has to practice active shooter drills, which is bittersweet for him, but not for Avery (another AR-15) who’s been pretty quiet this year.

Maureen and I are looking forward to retirement, though we will probably be back in action, just as assault rifles were after the ban on them (which seemed to reduce the number of mass shootings) expired.

Wishing you and your family life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, unless you can have guns instead!