Dear Commons Community,

The Huffington Post is reporting that an Arizona gun club is offering a chance for children and their families to pose for photos with Santa while holding pistols and military-style rifles.

One image shows Santa in a wingback chair with a snowflake background, a Christmas tree behind him and flanked by an $80,000 machine gun and a tripod-mounted rifle. Next to Santa is a man standing behind a boy, who is holding an unloaded AR-15 with an attached grenade launcher.

It was less than a year ago that nineteen people were shot, six of them fatally, during an open meeting that U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords was holding with members of her constituency in a  Tucson supermarket parking lot.  You would think that there would be a modicum of sensitivity to say nothing about the message of “peace on earth” that the Christmas season is suppose to bring.

Tony