Michigan GOP chair not apologizing after comparing gun reform to Holocaust: ‘We’re a different Republican Party’

Kristina Karamo, the chairwoman of the Michigan Republican Party, has doubled down amid backlash surrounding a tweet her party posted in which they compared gun reform to the Holocaust. 

Speaking at a news conference on Wednesday, Karamo defended her party’s Holocaust-related social media posts, saying that people get “way too offended” by tweets and adding that the posts weren’t intended to be controversial and its purpose was to “point to history,” according to the Detroit News. 

“We’re a different Republican Party,” Karamo said at a news conference. “We are not the Republican Party who apologizes and runs away from our positions. It’s a reason the Republican Party has gotten kicked in the teeth the last three cycles. Because it’s been a party that’s always apologizing. We’re done.”

Karamo was tapped to be the chair of her state’s GOP party last month; her latest remarks stem from her state party’s official Twitter account, which posted a photo with a text that had “before they collected all these wedding rings… they collected all the guns.” 

According to the National Archives, the image included in the Michigan Republican Party’s post is a photo from 1945 of wedding rings removed from victims of the Holocaust. 

“#History has shown us that the first thing a government does when it wants total control over its people is to disarm them. President Reagan once stated, “if we lose #freedom here, there is nowhere else to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth.” #2A #GOP” the tweet reads.

The Michigan Republican Party tweeted the photo in protest of proposed gun safety efforts pushed by the state’s legislature; the Michigan state Senate recently passed a package of 11 gun-related measures that seek to expand background checks and implement safe storage laws for guns that can be accessed by minors. 

The Senate passage comes a month after a gunman opened fire at Michigan State University, resulting in the deaths of three students. 

Karamo, who unsuccessfully ran for Michigan’s secretary of state last year, said in a separate statement that her GOP party will not remain silent on the matter. 

“My ancestors were enslaved and my great-great grandfather was lynched by a white mob in front of his entire family,” Karamo said in a statement. “We will not be silent as the Democratic Party, the party who fought to enslave Black Americans, and currently fights to murder unborn children, attempt (sic) to disarm us.”

The Michigan Republican Party tweet has received backlash from congressional lawmakers and prominent figures who all denounced the post from the state-affiliated party.

“This tweet by @MIGOP is absolutely inappropriate and offensive and should be taken down immediately,” Republican Jewish Coalition CEO Matt Brooks wrote in a tweet.