WASHINGTON (Reuters) – (Note language in penultimate paragraph)

One Saturday morning, the U.S. Congressman shared a Christmas snap of himself with his family. The picture was taken just days following four teens were shot and killed at a Michigan highschool.

“Merry Christmas! ps. Santa, please send ammo,” Thomas Massie (USA Representative) wrote via Twitter (NYSE:

Ethan Crumbley (15 years old) carried out Tuesday’s most deadly U.S. school shooter attack. This was the latest in a long line of mass shootings at U.S schools. His parents were arrested https://www.reuters.com/world/us/parents-suspected-michigan-school-shooter-themselves-wanted-taken-into-custody-2021-12-04 on Saturday in connection with the slayings.

Massie is a Republican representative and posted the photo of six other people holding guns resembling an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle, M60 machine gun and a Thompson submachine pistol.

Many semi-automatic guns look very similar to fully automatic weapon like the machine gun. U.S. laws restrict the possession of weapons such as machine guns only to those in law enforcement, military and civilian ranks who possess special licenses that cover weapons manufactured before May 1986.

Jonathan van Norman is a Massie campaign manger, and did not reply immediately to my request for comment via Twitter.

John Yarmuth, Democratic U.S. Representative, is condemning his Kentuckian counterpart’s position as he chairs the U.S. House of Representatives Budget Committee.

“I’m old enough to remember Republicans screaming that it was insensitive to try to protect people from gun violence after a tragedy,” Yarmuth wrote on Twitter, apparently referring to calls for gun control laws.

“I guarantee not everybody in Kentucky is an insensitive asshole,” he said.

Fourteen teenagers died and six others were injured in the shooting at Oxford High School in Michigan. This was just one of a series of tragic incidents that has sparked fierce debates about gun rights, school safety and gun control.