Arson is the poor man's weapon of mass destruction. A box of matches, even a single match, can ignite a conflagration that consumes untold lives and results in unimaginable property loss. Nothing else is required other than the grudge driving the act and the very minimal tools of destruction.

Witness the widespread arsons taking place in Southern California at this moment. Authorities have no immediate suspects and no motive for the deliberately set blazes. But that is not unexpected considering that any person disgusted with the state of their lives, or the state of the nation, (or are mentally unbalanced) can register that dissatisfaction in a most dramatic and destructive way through burning down the physical symbols of their supposed oppression and discontent.

We fear our foreign enemies employing nuclear weapons, biological weapons, chemical weapons and heretofore unknown weapons of God only knows what capabilities. Yet, when you pause to consider, the destructive power of fire employed by a determined and relentless movement of but a few hundred domestic enemies, could equal if not surpass the damages to this nation caused by those external mass-destruction threats. Truth is, we could, indeed, be burned into submission by a determined internal subversion.

If you hate the current state of this country and have nothing left to lose, fire can be an hypnotic, enchanting and dramatic means of registering your discontent. You don't have to self-destruct, say, as with a bomb vest; you don't even have to fear legal retribution if you're very careful; arson investigators aren't generally attuned to politically motivated crimes. You could very well burn down something quite monetarily valuable, as well as politically and historically significant, and get away scot free.

As I said...arson is the poor man's weapon of mass destruction.