The colors of a West Point Cadet's uniform - grey, black and gold - have, since the inception of the academy in 1802, stood for three common substances: saltpeter (potassium nitrate), charcoal, and sulfur. The power obtained by the proper combination of these simple, cheap and readily available chemicals can never be erased from the memory of mankind. The knowledge has been with us for a thousand years.

So, if somehow magically we could scoop up every pistol, rifle and shotgun on the planet and dump them all in the ocean tomorrow, by the following day (if not sooner) a multi-billion dollar black market would instantly arise, and within a very short time most of the millions upon millions of guns then produced would be in the wrong hands.

Suppose, though, that the effort did inconvenience a few evil minds, so that guns no longer factored into their schemes. Well, considering that the Columbine school shooters had as their back-up plan blowing up a gas grill canister surrounded with nails in the cafeteria at lunchtime, that Timothy McVeigh used a truck full of plain old fertilizer, that the 9/11 hijackers used nothing but box-cutters to obtain four jetliners loaded with fuel, that the Boston Marathon bombers used pressure cookers anyone can buy at Walmart, I wouldn't be sleeping any easier at night.

One thing, though... and this is aside from the damage done to our Constitution - a document that has protected us far more than we would care to admit these last couple of centuries - anyone putting into practice a policy of even partial disarmament of the public at large will bear responsibility for any lives lost due to good people having no recourse to firearms.
Posted January 6 2016 by David Churchill Barrow
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David Churchill Barrow is an attorney and historian who was raised as a Massachusetts "Swamp Yankee," but now resides with his wife MaryLu near Tampa, Florida.