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And just eight months after that, that very Carcano, one of millions of war surplus guns unloaded on the American dumping ground, would be used to murder the president.

That weapon, too, was a war surplus import—shipped to Europe and then reimported for sale on the world’s biggest gun-consumer market.

By the end of the decade, Cummings was annually importing hundreds of thousands of war surplus weapons, Mausers and Carcanos chief among them, for sale on the U.S. consumer market.

By 1968, when the Gun Control Act would attempt to slam the door on the flood from overseas, half of all handgun sales were imports, and those guns—whether they were war surplus like Oswald’s or cheaply manufactured in postwar Western Europe—were across the board less expensive than new U.S.–made handguns, driving down prices and forcing U.S. gunmakers to be competitive.

After all, who goes shopping for a high-quality, brand-new $150 hunting rifle and goes home with a beat-up $10 war surplus weapon?