Facebook Competition Shows Rifle-Wielding Santa Claus

Byssusmiðja Agnars, the gun shop on Hverafold in 112 Reykjavík, has attracted attention on Facebook after running a Christmas raffle-style competition in which the winner will take home a Mossberg ATR 308 rifle.

The competition, explained in a Facebook post, just requires people to like the Facebook page and share the post in question. A winner will then be drawn from amongst the sharers on the 23rd of December. The post has received over five thousand shares already.

“It got a little more attention than I expected,” Guðjón Agnarsson, one of the owners of the gun shop, told Vísir. They have even had a problem with fraudsters pretending to represent Byssusmiðja Agnars and messaging competitors to ask for additional information. The gun shop followed up with a second post emphasising that these people were dishonest, and that they would not require their customers to follow any extra links.

Guðjón also explained to Vísir that there has been some reaction to the picture of Santa Claus holding a rifle that illustrates the original post. “Yes, we have received some suggestions about Santa Claus, that this is not appropriate,” he said. However, the vast majority of the comments on the Facebook post appear to be positive and excited.

Guðjón told Vísir that the Covid-19 epidemic has been difficult for the gun industry and for their shop, but emphasised that “even if there is less to do, you are just grateful for your health.”

Despite an almost complete absence of gun violence, guns are actually fairly popular in Iceland, with some 90,000 legally registered firearms in the country.