Naturally, our thoughts are with the people affected by the explosions in Boston on Monday. As terrible as this tragedy is, we should be respectful to the people effected by it and not talk about new regulations on explosives. However, it is not to soon to talk about rescinding a few of them:
As a lifetime member of the NEA, the only thing I worry about more than human life is our freedoms. The last thing we need are more laws dictating who can bring how much TNT to which sporting events. Criminals are going to find a way to bring them anyway. Heck, you should see the jackets I own. I could sneak 50 pounds-worth past a cop on any given day. I can also bench 180.
The point is, the only thing that stops a bad person with explosives is a good person with explosives. I just wish that one of those runners were carrying C4 on them--this whole incident might have been averted. In fact, if you're going to enact a law, we should make it mandatory that all marathon runners carry at least 10 lbs of explosives on them at all times. See someone along the route acting suspicious--waving their arms, reaching for you with strange liquids...? Lob a bottle of nitromethane. Better safe than sorry.
Right now, to possess explosives you must be a licensed demolitions expert, have a huge amount of training and must endure an annoying amount of legal vetting (not to mention the paperwork). And even if you have a demolitions license, there are only a small number of specially-licensed dealers, most (if not all) of whom are military suppliers.
I know. I'm as outraged as you are. Like you, I worry that the government regulating how much explosives I can buy will be a slippery-slope. Next thing you know, ol' Uncle Sam is breaking down your door and taking away your implosion triggers. And once they take away our home-made bombs, what will we use to fight the government when it turns tyrannical?
Let's stop talking about enacting laws that criminals will ignore and focus on only enacting laws that criminals all agree to obey. Think about it: Cars kill way more people than explosives, and there are no regulations on the manufacturing or ownership of cars. I'm assuming (I'm a New Yorker, I don't drive). If there were, it'd be a matter of weeks before the government took away people's automobiles and then how would I transport my chemical fertilizer bomb to D.C. to defend you against our government?
Our Founding Fathers created the Second Amendment because they didn't have a good enough army to fight the British. Now that we have a good enough army, we've amended the meaning of the Second Amendment. Like the bible, that's what makes the Constitution great. And thank God we've got lawmakers, like Republicans in the North Carolina, who are willing to defend our freedom to explode things by enacting laws preventing people who might vote for anti-explosive liberals from being able to vote. Because instead of trying to regulate weaponry, we should focus on preventing something even more destructive and un-American: Democracy.