Do you fear that the District will become more dangerous if its gun laws are relaxed, as legislation moving through the Senate currently contemplates? Are you angry that a Senator from Texas is trying to impose her pro-gun beliefs on a city that did not elect her nor can remove her from office? Does your status as a District resident leave you unrepresented and disgruntled with the state American democracy? If you answered yes to any of the above, fear not, you have a medium through which you can both express yourself and influence the democratic process — the online petition.

A California-based gun control activist, irate over legislation proposed by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison that would overturn the District’s three decade old gun laws, has created an online petition expressing support for the city’s handgun restrictions. Currently boasting 190 signatures, the petition states:

We, the undersigned, believe that the free, unrestricted, flow of guns into our community would result in more violent crime, not less, and primarily benefit criminals who actively seek firearms for illicit purposes.

Gun control activists and defenders of home rule have their work cut of out for them, though — 190 signatures, in a city of 600,000, may not serve to impress many Senators as to the importance of defending the District’s gun laws, especially when placed alongside the many other petitions floating around cyberspace demanding the public’s endorsement. So far, 26,029 people have signed a petition demanding that Lindsay Lohan eat more so as to “put those oh so cute pounds back on,” 15,419 principled advocates have indicated their intent to boycott all things Tom Cruise (criticizing the “potentially dangerous antics of this raving narcissist”), and 684 people have signed to bring Lucky Charms back to the U.K.