My family never sent out holiday cards when I was a kid. When we wanted to keep in touch with someone, we just kept in touch with them, directly, without posing for a photograph and writing a generic paragraph about how “it’s been an interesting year for us all blah blah blah.” So, admittedly, when it comes to this sort of thing, I’m not exactly an expert.
With that in mind, I ask you, beloved reader: Taking a picture of your family lined up with the sort of armaments usually reserved for an elite special operations units ... is that, uh, normal?
Here’s why I ask:
What are we doing here, folks? We get it, dude. You like guns. Your whole family likes guns. Is that really what the spirit of Christmas is all about? If Santa brings you ammo — a product expressly designed to end lives — as you request, does that mean he has to put himself on the naughty list next year? Is squishing a child carrying what appears to be an Uzi submachine gun between two grown adults on a small sofa (large loveseat?) considered good weapons safety? These are just a few of the questions I have.
As MSNBC’s Adam Weinstein pointed out earlier this week, it’s not just that family of Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) posed with insanely powerful looking guns, it’s that, by most indications, at least some of the firearms in question are the kind that are highly regulated by the National Firearms Act. That makes the picture less a “look at this charming ordinary American gun-humping family” and more of a weird flex to show off all their extraordinary killing machines, which average gun owners could never dream of having themselves. To which, again, I ask: What’s the point?
While you ponder that, here comes fellow Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert (Colo.) with her own Rockwellian, uh, thing:
Putting aside the fact that these are very young children handling very powerful weapons, can we talk for a second about her “we’ve got your six” message? Because, the phrase — a ubiquitous military term meaning “got your back” — seems to imply that there’s some sort of expected danger coming, for which the Boebert family of Packers/Raiders/Gators fans will apparently need to protect the Massies’ rear. What sort of non-specific threat could result in these two families, back to back, prowling along, weapons drawn, as Christmastime nears? It’s not clear.
Also, look at this poor moose:
I feel ya, pal.
In any case, I suppose gun fanatics fanatically showing off their guns isn’t anything new, but for some reason these two instances really seemed to kick things up a notch. I just hope that if Santa IS real, and he DOES land on the Boebert or Massie family roofs, he remembers that both Colorado and Kentucky are “stand your ground” states and takes some extra precautions.
