A Republican elected official was at the center of a controversy on Sunday caused by a photo showing him with his family, all smiles in front of a Christmas tree adorned with garlands ... and guns in hand, a few days after a new murderous shooting in an American school.
Read alsoFire in an American high school: four students killed, eight injured including a teacher
“
Merry Christmas!
PS: Father Christmas, bring ammunition,
”commented Thomas Massie, representative of Kentucky in the lower house of the United States Congress, by tweeting the image, where he appears with six of his relatives.
On Tuesday, the United States was bereaved by a shooting at a Michigan high school in which a teenager killed four students, a tragedy that has become recurrent in a country where gun violence has been called an "
epidemic
" by President Biden.
The parents of the 15-year-old shooter, charged with manslaughter, had given their son the Sig Sauer semi-automatic pistol as an early Christmas present.
In this context, the family photo of Thomas Massie caused an uproar, elected officials or parents of shooting victims accusing the Republican of insensitivity.
"
Outrageous,
" Democrat John Yarmuth wrote, saying such messages amounted to "
blatantly taking child murder in the face."
Conversely, conservative political commentator Candace Owens tweeted to her nearly three million subscribers, "
Could someone explain to me how they can blame the Michigan shooting on Thomas Massie, because shared a photo of himself and his family holding legal guns?
".