Scottsdale Gun Club Defends Family Photos With Santa And Rifles As Tradition (VIDEO)

Scottsdale Gun Club Encourages Family Holiday Photos With Santa, Guns

Families who want to pose for photos with Santa while holding on to firearms will once again be able to do so at the Scottsdale Gun Club in Arizona.

"This is our third year doing this at the Scottsdale Gun Club, and every year it continues to grow larger and larger, a lot of folks turning this into a regular holiday tradition," Ron Kennedy recently told "Fox & Friends."

Kennedy went on to explain that the gun club was looking to "add a little holiday spirit to people's second amendment rights to be able to carry and purchase firearms."

According to the club's website, people are invited to pose with Santa and his machine guns at a starting price of $10.

"Santa's back with his bag of goodies," the promotional materials read.

The club already held one day of photo shoots on Nov. 17, and they'll be holding another on Dec. 2.

In the past, guests have been invited to pose with Santa and a wide range of firearms, including pistols and and modified AR15s.

This isn't the first time the event has prompted national attention. Last year, the Associated Press described several of the Santa-plus-arms pictures, some of which included young children:

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.

In another photo, Santa cradles a toddler dressed in camouflage, while a man and woman stand close by with rifles with foldable stocks.

At the time, Democratic state Rep. Steve Farley said the photos were inappropriate.

"To involve machine guns and Santa in a celebration in the birth of Jesus Christ is the worst kind of heresy I can imagine," Farley told the AP. "I would suggest that the people who created this read some of the New Testament."

When asked by "Fox & Friends" about about Farley's objections and, specifically, the Tucson shooting that wounded U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and 12 others, the club's manager responded by saying that people don't have to participate in the event if they don't want to. He also stressed the safety precautions that the club takes during the photo shoots, such as removing the firing pins and not allowing people to place their fingers on the triggers.

As Mediaite noted, the Scottsdale Gun Club has been the site of three self-inflicted shootings since 2007. Two of those shootings were considered suicides, and the third was accidental, according to the Arizona Republic.

(h/t The Raw Story for the find.)

Before You Go

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