I complain a lot about legislative efforts to impose more gun control, mainly because the biggest problem -- armed ex-convicts -- results from the non-enforcement of existing laws against criminals possessing guns. What good are laws if they are not enforced? What makes people think that more laws will result in more law enforcement if existing laws are not adequately enforced?

In the context of heightened airport security in the post-9/11 era, naturally I tend to assume that existing gun control laws are stringently enforced at airports. Right? Anyone caught trying to take a gun on a plane would, I assume, be facing serious consequences.

And naturally, someone trying to take a bomb on a plane would be, like, locked up for a while, right? At the very least, he'd be placed on a watch list and never be allowed on a plane again.

It's looking like my assumptions were all wrong.

According to Annie Jacobsen (author of Terror in The Skies, Why 9/11 Could Happen Again), a number of shoe bombers have been caught with explosive shoes including blasting caps embedded in the hollowed-out soles, and the authorities play catch and release, simply taking away their shoes and putting them on a later plane:

The sad truth is DHS and FBI intelligence analysts want airport screeners and their law enforcement counterparts to be on the lookout for shoe bombs. But when suspect shoes are found, DHS and FBI officials are not so interested in the people wearing the shoes. What this means is that we continue to look for bombs, not bombers. The policy is clear: catch and release.

Sheesh.

All this time I thought it was a crime -- and a really serious crime -- to try to get on a plane with a bomb.

I'm sure someone will say that more laws needed.

Hmmm....

Maybe the problem is the proliferation of shoes. Especially the high-capacity thick-soled variety. Rather than allow people with sick souls to hollow out their thick soles, perhaps thick soles should be banned entirely. But it will be a major struggle, because the radical right wing libertarian fascists will no doubt shriek inanely that "when thick soles are outlawed, only outlaws will have thick souls!" So the laws are only a start. We need to look at the root cause of why this country causes people to develop sick souls in the first place.

I suspect they're being trampled underfoot by America's violent fascist libertarian footwear culture.