US congressman made sarcastic gun control joke and conservatives are freaking out

An American congressman has learned a valuable lesson on the difficultly of denoting sarcasm when making a point online.

Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell wrote an op-ed titled 'Ban assault weapons, buy them back, go after resisters: Ex-prosecutor in Congress' for USA Today this week.

He was trying to make an earnest and optimistic call for stronger gun regulations in America, but it quickly turned into a Twitter storm of outrage from conservatives.

As you might expect, the response to the article was met with the usual furore over people's 2nd Amendment rights, Twitter trolling and National Rifle Association spokesperson Dana Loesch taking aim at Swalwell's position.

Things were however slightly escalated when Swalwell responded to former InfoWars blogger Joe Biggs, who quickly accused the democrat of wanting a 'war.'

"And it would be a short war, my friend," Swalwell fired back on Twitter. "The government has nukes. Too many of them. But they’re legit."

Biggs doubles down on the passing, if somewhat ill-advised nuke reference. Maybe oblivious to the fact that he just threatened a war to Swalwell.

Then Dana Loesch waded into the conversation, slamming Swalwell for wanting to confiscate people's gun, but he responded to her stating:

She’s not lying. We should ban assault weapons by buying them back or restricting them to ranges/clubs. #EnoughIsEnough

Since the op-ed and his comments, right-wing Twitter has been flocking to the scene to decry the congressman's words and stances.

Joe Walsh, a former Republican congressman and conservative radio host, who in 2016 essentially tweeted what was seen as a direct threat of violence to President Obama, of course had some words for Swalwell.

Swalwell is quick to point out that he was being sarcastic, also making a note that it's rather difficult to get across sarcasm in a written form.

Despite the measured response, Walsh went on to host an episode of his radio show on the topic with the Twitter headline “The #2A is the still the most important amendment, especially after a sitting Congressman ‘sarcastically’ threatens to nuke fellow Americans over it.”