The editor of the Des Moines Register “regrets the missteps” in handling a column that called for “[tying] Mitch McConnell and John Boehner, our esteemed Republican leaders, to the back of a Chevy pickup truck and drag them around a parking lot until they saw the light on gun control.”

Strangely, the columnist did not mention Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, rated “B” by the NRA, which the columnist said should be designated a “terrorist organization.”

The columnist now laments the number of threatening phone calls he’s received since publishing the column; he also insists it was satire, and compares himself to Jonathan Swift.