Wow, Rep. Eric Swalwell just can’t keep that foot out of his mouth. First, he set all of those crazy militia types straight when it comes to fighting against a tyrannical government. The government has nukes, and all they have is the AR-15s he’d like to confiscate.

You’d think Swalwell would be smart enough to let his ridiculous tweet slide out of the news cycle, but no: on Monday he cited fact-checking site Snopes.com as proof that he didn’t make a “serious threat to nuke gun owners.”

Dude … can we call you dude? Dude, no one thought you were seriously going to nuke gun owners — we’re pretty sure as a congressman you don’t have the launch codes. But the fact that the idea even crossed your mind, let alone made it into a tweet … it’s mind-blowing. This was not “faux outrage.”

What ticked off Second Amendment defenders was that you made their point for them: if a congressman can even suggest nuking American citizens, then yes, there should be a legitimate fear of the government having too much power.

Related: