Pun Salad

Although Pun Salad has pooh-poohed the left wing efforts to link conservative/libertarian rhetoric with mass murder, recent events have caused me to take a hard look in the mirror.

OK, you might laugh. Obviously, the chances of a lunatic being set off by an inadvertent metaphorical mention of "crosshairs" is low. But if it saves even one life, then isn't it incumbent on us all to watch what we say, tone down the rhetoric, and just basically STFU? Of course.

Which made me look with shame upon Pun Salad's use—some might say overuse—of the HTML <ul> tag, the unordered list.

• Or, as it's informally known: the bullet list. Uh oh.

• What was I thinking? If pop psychology, as explicated by numerous New York Times and Washington Post columnists, has taught us anything, it's that the juxtaposition of (a) conservative opinion and (b) anything at all suggestive of firearms is likely to send your random psychopath off on a spree of indiscriminate shooting of politicians, children, and other innocent bystanders.

• And who am I to say that the plethora of those • symbols in so many Pun Salad posts hasn't pushed some nutball into a violent reaction: "Ohmigod! Bullets! Bullets everywhere! Telling me… Must killkillkilll…"

• So what to do?

• Maybe change it to an arrow? But I'd hate to take responsibility for any crazed archers out there. Better avoid anything pointy.

• A heart perhaps? It's a symbol of love, baby. But to a person in a certain frame of mind, it can also be a big fat target. Avoid this too.

• Hello kitty! Nah, that one almost makes me homicidal.

• Ditto for snowflakes. I'd be OK with not seeing another one as long as I live, and I take no responsibility for what I might do if the frickin' town plow buries my mailbox again…

  Deep breaths… Pure thoughts… I'm OK now.

• Ah, a nice flower. Who could be tipped over the edge by that?

  Anyone who's allergic, that's who! Die, you insensitive clod!

Can't win, I guess.

IMAO has a brief list (bullet-free, but excessive pointiness) of other problematic behavior, and his commenters have many, many more examples. We're doomed.