Its a lot easier in the USA to get military grade firearms and ammunition and to train to use them than to assemble the materials for a bomb, a biological weapon or a chemical attack. The use of legally acquired guns by the Boston Marathon bombers and the San Bernadino shooters is evidence that this is now part of the Islamic terrorist toolkit. It also simplifies the task of Jihadi target selection. Any assembled group of innocents will do.

No, the Paris attack was not quite the same. They had to smuggle in weapons, stockpile and transport them and secretly train the shooters to use them, which implies money and risk, organization and planning, a terrorist infrastructure of some size and sophistication. There’s a lot more opportunity for something to go wrong and for the authorities to intervene.

There’s a delicious irony to this. Besides suicide, accidents, domestic violence and crime, Conservatives have managed to find a new way to kill Americans, and a whole new way to equip our enemies to do it.

It appears that an armed citizenry may be a fine way to thwart a hypothetical foreign invasion, or an imaginary domestic tyrant, but it is useless for protecting us from a genuine threat in the real world.

Allah be praised.