Colorado’s El Paso County Sheriff’s Office faced backlash for posting a photograph showing a man dressed as Santa Claus applying for a gun permit, just days after a 15-year-old sophomore killed four students and wounded seven people including a teacher at a Michigan high school. “Guess who came in to receive his Concealed Handgun Permit today. Did you know the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office has issued 49,750 Concealed Handgun Permits with another 2,560 awaiting to be issued?” a caption accompanying the photograph on Twitter said.

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Many Twitter users accused the sheriff’s office of being insensitive. “I’m sitting here in downtown Oxford, MI, waiting for the candlelight vigil to start to pay tribute to 4 students who were murdered by a handgun smuggled into the school. But by all means, tell kids Santa carries a concealed weapon,” wrote one.

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“I’m just speechless, this isn’t a joke, an actual tweet from the El Paso Sheriff’s office, days after a school shooting where the shooter got his gun for Christmas and in a state that has had some of the deadliest mass shootings in the country,” wrote another.

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The sheriff’s office responded by saying the photo was meant to “highlight our staff in the Concealed Handgun Permit Office, not to be insensitive. Santa correlates to the month of December and we thought he would help to recognize our hard working staff.”

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A day after the post from the El Paso sheriff’s office, Kentucky Republican congressman Thomas Massie posted a picture of himself and what appeared to be his family, smiling and posing with various guns.

“Merry Christmas! ps. Santa, please bring ammo,” Massie tweeted, drawing criticism from both Democratic and Republican politicians, for being insensitive to the violence at Oxford High School.