Since when was Christmas supposed to be edgy? Since now, according to Urban Outfitters, whose 2006 holiday catalog includes a “5-inch-long, Chinese-made gun ornament for $6.” While the Philadelphia company insists the ornament and its “Bust a cap in your tree” tagline are funny, others disagree. A rep for Pennsylvania’s governor, Ed Rendell, says her boss “doesn’t find it humorous or clever to display weapons that are responsible for taking hundreds of lives each year as if they are decorations.” Urban Outfitters responded by calling the ornament and others like it “ironic twists” on the holidays. The gun itself is pretty benign; it looks like something from the Liberace Sidearm Collection. But Santa help them if that’s their best defense. Much like the debacle over its poorly conceived “Everyone loves a Jewish girl” T-shirts, Urban Outfitters was shooting for dark humor here and missed the mark entirely.

—Posted by David Kiefaber