COLUMBIA, S.C. — Chances are what you got for Christmas probably didn’t cause as much of a stir as what South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley got.
The Palmetto State CEO posted a picture Thursday of the 9 mm Beretta handgun she received from her husband on her Facebook account, which generated a lot of post-holiday buzz.
“Our family had a wonderful Christmas together!” the Republican wrote. “I must have been good(.) Santa gave me a Beretta Px4 Storm.”
The Facebook post received nearly 15,000 likes and 1,700 comments in less than 10 hours. Social media burst with mini-debates about guns, though a majority of the comments approved Haley’s gift.
Congratulations (“Another reason why I love South Carolina’) were mixed with pleas for gun safety (“I will say a prayer for your family”).
And the 2014 gubernatorial campaign was caught in the line of fire.
“Everything is about politics with her. Everything,” state Democratic Party director Amanda Loveday tweeted.
The governor is familiar with this type of gift.
Haley holds a concealed-weapons permit and a lifetime “A” rating from the National Rifle Association. Her husband, Michael, returned recently from a year-long military deployment to Afghanistan.
Plus, the governor fired off machine-gun rounds at a Columbia arms maker this summer in a video sent out by her office that went viral.
