Reply #14: Breaking news at this hour!

[Irreverend IX]

AP WIRE, DEMOCRATIC UNDERGROUND

Gun violence took a deadly toll on Democratic Underground last night when yet another of Iverglas's arguments was brutally shot down by an armed Democrat. Gun control advocates on America's most popular progressive political discussion board have been in a state of panic for weeks now, afraid to voice their ideas in public for fear of being mercilessly rebutted by the many self-defense supporters who frequent the forum.

Iverglas and her associates have urged administrators to ban "assault anecdotes:" pieces of evidence supporting gun rights that can be quickly presented and do massive damage to the anti-gun cause.

"Some of the evidence these gun nuts are packing is just insane," said one gun-grabber, speaking on condition of anonymity. "I've heard them citing FBI statistics, talking about how Eleanor Roosevelt owned a revolver, stuff like that. It's just crazy. I mean, last night one of them mentioned that the first gun control measures were part of the Jim Crow laws! That's not fair--no one needs to cite facts that compelling. Guns are evil and that's all there is to it."

Iverglas herself has felt the sting of gun violence all too often. As one of the most fervent supporters of gun restrictions, her posts have been shot full of holes more times than she cares to remember.

"It's utterly appalling," said Iverglas. "I spend upwards of an hour writing and proofreading every post I make, and that doesn't even take into account the time I spend going through people's post histories looking for non-gender-neutral pronouns. And all it takes to rip them apart is one little cut-and-pasted chapter from a civil rights history book. All this spinning and hair-splitting isn't as easy as it looks, you know. No honest person should be able to rebut my arguments so easily."

Long-standing Democratic Underground policy forbids the denial of a poster's progressive politics on the basis of their self-defense views, but gun control advocates are working to push through the Liberal Litmus Test Act nonetheless. Among the act's provisions are a ban on the citation of any gun control statutes from before 1980, total prohibition of the discussion of Switzerland's gun crime statistics and strict controls on references to Gary Kleck's publications.

"Those lunatics are running around blasting us with fully-footnoted studies and all we can do to defend ourselves is make penis jokes," said another anonymous anti-gunner. "The mods need to do something to balance the scales."

In lieu of a legislative response to the verbal barrage from gun owners, some anti-gun posters have opted to guard their minds with bulletproof shields that keep any outside ideas from entering.

"I'm not afraid of those gun-sucking freaks," said long-time gun control advocate Billbuckhead. "No logic or reason can penetrate my mental armor. I'm going to keep posting 'Are Gun Owners Baby-Killing Psychopaths?' polls in General Discussion until I get a majority Yes vote."