Sleighing the holidays! Gun-toting Americans proudly show off their beloved firearms at Christmas
By Snejana Farberov For Dailymail.com
Social media sites are being flooded with photos showing proud gun owners cradling their weapons of choice on Christmas morning
Some parents took their high-powered weapons along with their children to meet Santa ClausOthers staged elaborate family photos at home, with each relative, from grade-schoolers to senior citizens, packing heat Those who received guns as presents took to sites like Instagram and Twitter to boast about their lethal new toys
Christmas is all about spending time with loved ones, and for pro-gun rights Americans, that means happily posing up with their beloved AR-15s, hunting rifles and handguns by the tree.
Social media sites lit up with photos showing proud gun owners cradling their weapons of choice on Christmas morning.
Some gun-toting Americans turned their passion for firepower into a family affair, taking their high-powered weapons along with their children to meet Santa Claus.
Others staged elaborate family photos at home, with each relative, from grade-schoolers to senior citizens, packing heat while smiling for the camera in living rooms decked out for the holiday.
Those who received guns as presents for the holidays, among them children and teens, took to sites like Instagram and Twitter to boast about their lethal new toys.
According to a new analysis of data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s WONDER database, close to 40,000 people died as a result of guns last year, making it the highest number of gun-related deaths since at least 1979.
Another new study published last week in the New England Journal of Medicine found that in 2016 alone, 15 per cent of all children between one and 19 who were killed by injury in the US died of a gunshot wound.
On a related note, researchers found that 11 of every 100,000 children and teens treated in emergency rooms across the country have gun-related injuries, which amount to about 8,300 kids each year.
Over the course of nine years, 75,000 children and teens were treated for gun injuries at emergency rooms at a cost of nearly $3billion.
Earlier this year, researchers examined FBI data on nearly 250 active shooter incidents in the US since 2000 and found that gunmen armed with semi-automatic rifles wounded and killed twice as many people as those using non-self-loading weapons.
Recent deadly attacks involving semi-automatics include the shootings at a California bar, a Pittsburgh synagogue, Parkland High School and Orlando’s Pulse night club.
Some gun-toting Americans turned their passion for firepower into a family affair, taking their high-powered weapons along with their children to meet Santa Claus