Getting angry at a hyper partisan culture warrior for posting crass memes is not "protecting journalists."

It's impossible to claim Schilling was advocating violence instead of engaging in the type of hyperbole frequently found in political humor (and politics generally). The clear intended message of the joke strikes me as basically just cursing at the generic political journalist.

You can argue that sort of political joke crossed a line but it's pretty hard to seriously argue this is an invitation to violence.

It's clear a number of journalists overreacted (helped by their inherent dislike of Schilling's hyper partisan right-wing-culture-warrior persona) but that's at least somewhat understandable in the moment given it's directed at them and it came during a heated presidential election.