By Martin Smedley

OPINION – In the wake of yet another deadly act of domestic terrorism, we as Americans must once again make clear that as a nation we remain resolutely in support of our constitutional right to keep and bear a single, olde-timey stick of dynamite, if we want.

As has been said time and time again, the answer to the unabated wave of violence plaguing this country will surely not be found in any new laws that limit our constitutional freedoms. As we have seen in the past, it’s a slippery slope from so-called ‘common-sense’ dynamite control to wholesale restrictions on dynamite ownership. No, the answer will be in making it easier for upstanding, law abiding citizens to legally purchase and carry their own 10, 12 or 14 inch sticks of dusty old blasting dynamite, when and wherever they choose. After all, if we know one thing it’s that the only thing that stops a bad guy with a stick of dynamite is a good guy with his own, lit and ready stick of dynamite.

So please, celebrate this God given freedom! Take your dynamite to work. Take your dynamite to school. Go out and buy a couple old wooden crates of dynamite like you’re building your own Thunder Mountain Railroad. Because if we do not use these rights, we shall lose these rights.

And to those liberal elites who would argue that the solution to our epidemic of mass killings is taking away all of our dynamite? I would remind you of one inconvenient and unassailable fact: highly unstable 19th century mining explosives don’t kill people, people kill people.

The author, seen here with an antique stick of dynamite that belonged to Andrew Jackson. – (AP Photo)

If we are to restrict dynamite ownership, where do we stop? There are knife attacks, do we confiscate all knives? All hammers? All bats? I’ll tell you one thing. I see a guy coming at me in a dark alley with a knife, hammer or bat, he’s going to be getting a face-full of red-hot dynamite justice.

In conclusion, the inescapable fact is that we live today in an increasingly dangerous world. And I know I’ll sleep a whole lot easier knowing that at the door to every elementary school, church, synagogue, community center and Walmart there’s a minimum wage high-school dropout with a folding chair and a lit stick of American-made dynamite ready to protect you, me and our way of life.

– Martin Smedley, Omaha

(L&B)