Two nitwits who made a bomb the same way anarchists did in the '70s, apparently didn't imagine they were on camera at one of the most photographed events in the world, carrying a rather striking black-and-white backpack.
They had 48 hours to make their getaway to Shytzystan -- or go underground so they could continue their reign of terror -- and instead hung out a few miles from the scene of their mass murder. When they finally saw their faces on TV, they decided to... what? Tell the first guy they met what they'd done? Carjack their way to Canada?
If these two were the best Al Qaeda had, we would have little to worry about.
Except.
Except, they aren't the best. As bad as Boston was, competent terrorists could have made it far worse.
Because even as low-tech as those murderous bombs were, we couldn't have traced the gunpowder they used to kill three people and maim nearly 200. The NRA, which runs our Congress for us, has seen to it that black powder shall not have taggants in it, so if we hadn't been lucky enough to be attacked by imbeciles... we might have spent months trying to figure out where they got their bomb materials. We might never have found out.
We were also lucky they didn't think to open up on the Marathon crowd with Bushmaster AR-15s. You know, the kind of perfectly legal semi-automatic assault weapon that pumped 153 bullets into 20 Newtown first-graders and their teachers in less than 300 seconds... with perfectly legal 30-shot clips so their killer needed only four reloads.
And if they'd thought to wear Kevlar (like the North Hollywood bank robbers in 1997) and armored boots (which the robbers forgot)... how many in that crowd could they have slaughtered, each of them firing 45 rounds per minute? Imagine Newtown plus Tucson, times Aurora. Imagine everyone that bomb maimed, only dead, riddled with bullets.
That's the wonderful thing about our gun laws: They empower mass murderers of every stripe, without regard to race, creed, or level of rationality.
School kids and the mentally disturbed don't need to be shrewd planners to carry out their revenge fantasies. A lone psycho can snap and immediately commit the kind of carnage you used to need an armed squad of men for. Of course, that doesn't mean that squad of Al Qaeda (or neo-nazis) is an impossibility. Just that so far, we've been comparatively lucky.
The latest ABC/Washington Post poll says 56% of Americans want a ban on assault weapons. The same percentage want a ban on magazines that carry more than ten bullets.
But the NRA, which owns 45% of your Senators, says you don't even get a vote on that law. And thanks to the filibuster rule, that's that.
These geniuses apparently didn't know how easy it is to buy guns in this country. They started with one, though at any gun show, older brother could have bought guns without having his domestic abuse record checked.
The same poll says 86% of Americans want stronger background checks.
But the NRA says you don't even get to have a vote on that law. Even though 80% of their own members want stronger background checks.
The NRA brags openly that any Congressperson who moves "even an inch" on their gun rights will be defeated by NRA money. And by "their" gun rights, the NRA does not mean their members, or gun owners, who support these massacre-control measures. The NRA means the Gun Lobby. That's what the NRA is... a pressure group which is run to benefit our domestic weapons manufacturing cartel.
You know what? We better hope these guys were Al Qaeda. We better hope these two sadistic mental defectives were the very best Al Qaeda can send against us.
Because if an Al Qaeda fighter who's on the terror watch list manages to sneak into this country, he will have no trouble buying guns. Sellers aren't required to check gun buyers against the terror watch list.
And if you think these two made a bloodbath at a public event... imagine what a handful of suicidal Al Qaeda types in Kevlar, armed with Bushmasters, could have done to that crowd before they died.
And when that eventually does happen, it will be too late for the laws Congress should have passed to save all those victims.
But at least we'll know who made it possible.
"The NRA: Making It Easier To Kill Folks Since 1871."