The only thing he is actually charged with is possession of a short barreled rifle. The prosecutor's documents do not even have photographs of the portion of the firearm that would establish whether it was configured as a "rifle" - it is perfectly legal under federal law to possess an AR style pistol with a naked buffer tube or a pistol brace, without a tax stamp.
In the one photograph they do have of this firearm, they intentionally crop it so that it is not possible to evaluate.
jvanderbot 17 days ago [-]
The suspect informed a confidential source that he had a 10" barrel rifle. The source provided pictures of the rifle to authorities, and had seen it before several times, including going shooting with the suspect. The source provided several other points of data supporting him caching weapons and possessing a short rifle.
You might be referring to this image? Which is fairly clear, but I'm not sure how they measure barrel length here, but to my eyes it is 13" (unless the last 3 are a suppressor of some sort that isn't counted).
The GP's complaint is that the linked photo contains insufficient context (for us, at least) to determine if the firearm in question is, from a legal standpoint, an SBR.
Tuna-Fish 16 days ago [-]
> You might be referring to this image? Which is fairly clear,
The issue is that it is entirely legal to have an AR-15 configured as a pistol with a very short barrel, without any tax stamps. That is, not having a stock attached to it. The image provided does not prove that he has a short-barreled rifle, because you cannot see whether it has a stock.
jvanderbot 16 days ago [-]
Oh thank you. That's a very clear distinction.
ImPostingOnHN 17 days ago [-]
The muzzle device looks to be a flash suppressor, possibly a Noveske KX3 or something similar. Muzzle devices don't count towards barrel length, except in some cases where they're permanently attached.
That said, 13" is also a short-barreled rifle length. If this is indeed a rifle, and not an AR pistol.
generalizations 16 days ago [-]
> You might be referring to this image? Which is fairly clear
The buffer tube extends off the rear, which has been cropped from the image.
jvanderbot 16 days ago [-]
I understand now, thank you
declan_roberts 17 days ago [-]
It seems to me like they busted an eccentric collector.
Men love this kind of stuff. If TNT was legal to own there would probably be a collector for it.
llamaimperative 16 days ago [-]
What if he had ISIS flags hung around his home?
potato3732842 16 days ago [-]
Make them communist flags, I don't care. Political signaling wouldn't change anything for me unless there was evidince he was going to engage in violence.
llamaimperative 16 days ago [-]
I know this is easy for people to say in theory, but as mentioned elsewhere, if this materialized into an attack people would’ve retrospectively seen that as “certain” evidence of intent.
NicholasGurr 16 days ago [-]
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542354234235 16 days ago [-]
Most evidence is circumstantial. If someone walks into your office with a wet umbrella, that is evidence that it is raining outside but it doesn’t prove that it is raining. Some evidence is stronger than others, but it is all evidence and should be judged in its totality. Having a flag of a terrorist organization doesn’t prove anything, but it is still evidence. Having a knife, rope, and duct tape in your car doesn’t prove anything, but it is still evidence. It is throwing logic out the window to ignore context and the totality of evidence.
llamaimperative 16 days ago [-]
[flagged]
NicholasGurr 16 days ago [-]
[flagged]
jrflowers 16 days ago [-]
You make a good point. When you see a stranger write the word “people” on the internet, they are talking about you, NicholasGurr, The One Person That Exists
NicholasGurr 16 days ago [-]
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16 days ago [-]
sangnoir 16 days ago [-]
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NicholasGurr 16 days ago [-]
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petre 16 days ago [-]
That kind of evidence usually turns up when the suspect ends up shooting people. When it's already too late.
rickandmortyy 16 days ago [-]
alexa play minority report lol
franktankbank 17 days ago [-]
If TNT was legal to own I'd be buying it for my farm.
lazide 17 days ago [-]
it is legal to own with the right permits, in most areas.
The more dense the population, the more heavily restricted in general.
franktankbank 16 days ago [-]
There's legal and then there's needing 5 certifications, yearly renewals etc etc in order to avoid destroying your tractor for handling common nuisance on the farm.
motorest 16 days ago [-]
> There's legal and then there's needing 5 certifications, yearly renewals etc etc in order to avoid destroying your tractor for handling common nuisance on the farm.
You're grossly representing what regulation covers or means.
In this context, regulation means things like health and safety. Those who feel the need to buy explosives need to transport them around and store them. This means sitting in traffic next to someone carrying them in the trunk, or living next to someone sitting on a supply. Society is fine with you blowing up your tractor, but not killing your neighbors, employees, or any passer-by due to your gross irresponsibility. Consequently, if you really want to buy explosives then you must learn and prove that you know how to safely handle them.
Do you think that is too much to ask?
defrost 16 days ago [-]
The health and safety aspects of routine handling of TNT have more to do with the carcinogenic possibilities and absolute risk of anemia and abnormal liver function if not treated as a toxin.
As an explosive it's relatively stable .. but those health risks are exactly why the regulations around it are strict and why the "bomb girls" in WWII factories turned yellow and died young.
Nothing in those federal regulations has anything to do with toxicity?
defrost 15 days ago [-]
If that's a question then the answer is yes, there is plenty that is health related in the TNT (explosive) handling regulations.
Simply:
What recommendations has the federal government made to protect human health?
The government has developed regulations and guidelines for 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene. These are designed to protect the public and workers exposed to 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene from potential harmful health effects of the chemical. Since 2,4,6- trinitrotoluene is explosive, flammable, and toxic, EPA has designated it as a hazardous waste. The Department of Transportation (DOT) regulates the transport of 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene because it is a hazardous material. DOT specifies that when 2,4,6- trinitrotoluene is shipped, it must be wet with at least 10% water (by weight) and it must be clearly labeled as a flammable solid.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulates levels of hazardous materials in the workplace. The maximum allowable amount of 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene in workroom air during an 8-hour workday, 40-hour workweek, is 0.5 mg/m3. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) recommends that the concentration in workroom air be limited to 0.5 mg/m3 for up to a 10-hour workday during a 40-hour workweek.
“An amendment in 1977 saw the OSHA restrict the use of funds to prescribe, issue, administer or enforce agricultural regulations for farming employers of 10 or less people.”
i agree, which is why it’s harder to run across now. Notably, it’s about the same amount of paperwork or less than owning guns in most European countries.
fasa99 16 days ago [-]
A lot of regulations are a mess. As I understand it, agriculture drones full of fertilizer are beginning to be used throughout, makes sense. And tractors run on diesel since forever. So add diesel to the fertilizer drone now you have a viable powerful weapon... unregulated. I'm sure tens of thousands of farmers have this in their pocket right now, just not their intent.
Same with firearms. A pea shooter .22, highly regulated, felony charges everywhere. Now, a 50 caliber airgun? No gunpowder, not a firearm. They even make automatic airguns. Arguably with a large air supply and large ammo clip, and airgun could trounce some automatics, primarily because their barrels won't overheat, they might overcool though because physics of expanding gasses. And yet the humble .22 is the highly regulated one.
Some governments and regulators attempt to enumerate every possible conceivable bad thing and outlaw it. Problem is it's not enumerable, there will always be dozens of missed loopholes, which the regulations will steer people into. Parallels the warping and skewing of trying to fix an economy through proclamation versus distributed capitalism.
motorest 16 days ago [-]
> So add diesel to the fertilizer drone now you have a viable powerful weapon... unregulated.
You're talking out of ignorance. I recommend you do a cursory read of the basic applicable regulation to understand both how you are wrong and what is actually covered by regulation.
trod1234 16 days ago [-]
The simple fact of the matter is regulators in corrupt societies believe that laws are only good if the public generally breaks them.
These societies may deceitfully claim to follow a rule of law, while objectively being rule by law.
They generally believe that if you can't use the law to coerce people to some form of arbitrary action after-the-fact through blackmail, the law is useless, and they glory in their power and control of others (privately).
This is why they write law ambiguously enough so it can apply to just about anything, and twist it later just like how it is written in Animal Farm.
Safety is just one of many propaganda narratives used, its all for the benefit of society where everyone is equal, some people in such societies are more equal than others.
Corruption is generally not done by the brightest, it often neglects rational principles for long-term survivability. The problem is these people become delusional warping things until collapse under a de-facto state of non-market socialism drives ecological overshoot into a great dying, if no other crises takes them first.
The chancellor will have his butter while everyone else starves, right up until he can't.
You can't have capitalism under a money printing fiat regime, where the majority of the market cooperates. Economic calculation requires independent adversarial decision-making, and for production in the economy to continue, in general, it requires producers and consumers to make more than enough to cover costs (in purchasing power, disconnected from currency debasement), a profit.
Fractional reserve issued debt, with no fractional reserve (0%) is money printing, its been that way since 2020. Basel III uses valuation as a capital reserve, so when valuations based in fiat change suddenly to the negative, the few banks left can collapse without warning. Value has credibly been shown to be subjective, it changes for every person, so you have to ask who decides the value. The same people issuing the debt as a reserve get to decide, which is a recipe for delusion, and chaotic collapse.
A conflict of interest like this never results in fraud /s...
Government has long been trying to make the public helplessly dependent on them so that no matter what they do (even if they break oaths and the constitution), they'll still retain power through a corruption by dependency. Its sad that such evil blind people have been allowed to get into these positions of power.
Survival will in the near future come down to whether or not we can oust such people from those positions or if people will complacently just follow them to their deaths believing lies.
Lies of omission, even unknowingly and without intent, are still lies, and result in the same destructive outcomes.
I guess what is it you're trying to imply? Because I find it EXTREMELY unlikely the FBI agents in question don't know what qualifies as an SBR vs. a pistol. Furthermore, even if he does have a naked buffer tube, if the gun was registered as a rifle at the time of purchase, it is a rifle. You cannot "convert" a rifle lower to a pistol if it was defined as a rifle when you bought it.
It also seems EXCEEDINGLY unlikely the FBI would make a giant press release before anyone verified if the rifle in question was actually violating any laws. There would be almost nothing to gain, and a LOT of egg on everyone's face if the guy walks because nobody at the FBI knew the difference between an SBR and an AR pistol.
ty6853 16 days ago [-]
The feds recently convicted a guy by arguing a piece of metal (basically a metal business card) with a drawing of a machine gun conversion device on, as having sold machine guns.
They can literally just lie about the law and confuse the ignorant jury as they did for matt hoover. In a couple years he'll get released on appeal, who cares, they already destroyed his business and relegated his wife and childs mother to begging for money on YouTube.
tw04 16 days ago [-]
So link to the court case and details?
When you create an account just to post in this thread endlessly defending what appears to be at minimum someone who probably shouldn’t own guns in the first place, it’s difficult to believe you’re here for anything other than stirring the pot.
Oh, I found it. He was literally selling a machine gun conversion kit and claiming it was a business card. It very clearly wasn’t. And it wasn’t a “drawing” it was the metal pieces to convert an AR to fully automatic by breaking out the pre-cut pieces with a pliers.
It was not the metal pieces. It was one flat piece with a drawing of the pieces on it. And the atf followed (cut with a dremel for 40 minutes) the drawing and it didn't even work as traced, nor did they ever get their own design to do anymore than a hammer follow malfunction that a fully legal AR can do without adding parts.
The distinguishing feature between this and a metal business card is the speech on it makes ATF sad face.
motorest 16 days ago [-]
> It was not the metal pieces. It was one flat piece with a drawing of the pieces on it.
That is the attempt to pull the wool over everyone's eyes. Even the seller was marketing their machine-gun conversion kits as AR-related devices that the ATF wished didn't existed.
The seller even posted puerile pseudo legal disclaimers such as don't use them to do anything illegal
It's baffling how these puerile arguments boil down to expecting everyone to be binded to a very specific and far-fetched literal interpretation of a specific part of the law while keeping to themselves the fact that it is actually a blatant violation that's kept as an in-joke. When their poorly-thought-through stunt blows up on their face and see the law still applies, they clutch their pearls claiming they demand law enforcement should be stupid and incompetent enough to fall for their gimmicks.
ty6853 16 days ago [-]
You've fallen for a trick. Rather than rehash all the ways you've defamed and lied, your claims are thoroughly disproven in the appeal that will prevail [0]. He sold a metal plate with sad speech on it, that atf testified did not induce automatic fire. Unless every non-stamped ar-15 is an illegal machine gun, this card can't be.
> When their poorly-thought-through stunt blows up on their face and see the law still applies, they clutch their pearls claiming they demand law enforcement should be stupid and incompetent enough to fall for their gimmicks.
And here you are, whining that others didn't fell for that pathetic gimmick.
ty6853 15 days ago [-]
You are asserting every ar-15 is a machine gun if those cards are. Is that really your position?
motorest 15 days ago [-]
> You are asserting every ar-15 is a machine gun if those cards are. Is that really your position?
I don't know who do you think you're fooling, or if you think everyone around you is a utter moron. The guy was selling machine-gun conversion kits. More specifically, he was selling lightning links which turns a semi-automatic AR-15 into a fully automatic machine gun.
ty6853 15 days ago [-]
The shapes depicted when cut out by the ATF did not induce automatic fire nor the function of a lightning link. After the ATF modified further they only induced hammer follow malfunctions which every single ar-15 can do with the parts sold.
You are asserting every single ar-15 is an illegal machine gun. You should read the testimony and about hammer follow to find out why you're wrong and why his case will absolutely be overturned.
motorest 16 days ago [-]
> The feds recently convicted a guy by arguing a piece of metal (basically a metal business card) with a drawing of a machine gun conversion device on, as having sold machine guns.
I feel you're grossly and purposely misrepresenting the case.
The case you're referring to was over unregistered machine-gun conversion devices. The guy was selling them online and was caught with over a thousand machine-gun conversion kits.
What makes this case noteworthy is the dissimulated way kits were being marketed and sold, such as bottle openers, pen holders, or business cards.
The guy also marketed his machine-gun conversion kits as an AR-related device and "the parts ATF wishes never existed".
I believe you are well-aware of this fact. Yet, you chose to misrepresent it.
ty6853 16 days ago [-]
They were not kits, and even if you did classify them as one it would necessarily result in every ar-15 being a machine gun because the parts sold in one can do the same hammer follow malfunction without possessing or reshaping the metal card.
It's a metal business card shape with a drawing of the parts of a lightning link on it, that the state admitted didn't even function as one when dremmeled out using the blueprint. Even if you cut into the shapes, ATF could not get it to induce automatic fire. This is primarily a first amendment case and will get overturned as soon as a non-lukewarm IQ judge sees it. It's inevitable.
motorest 15 days ago [-]
> They were not kits (...)
That's a personal assertion you're stating, and one that ignores and contrasts with all facts presented in the case.
I won't waste my time debating this.
ty6853 15 days ago [-]
That's a hilarious criticism considering the case was about a specific statutory definition, and your personal rewording to reduce to 'kits' which apparently means a flat single piece of metal with a (wrong) blueprint on it is. In that case the anarchist cookbook is a kit since it includes flammable paper that could spark the fire of one of the designs inside, therefore also violates the NFA.
A kit is usually sold to make it easier to do something. In this case the kit makes it even harder to induce hammer follow than simply using the parts already in an ar. Some kit, lmao. It is scary speech on the same kind of metal plates that sometimes instead have business card type speech.
jt2190 17 days ago [-]
As a legal filing, perhaps it’s important to show a picture of the weapon in a neutral way, in order to avoid an argument over the filing itself. (I’m not a lawyer just speculating.)
wl 16 days ago [-]
They could have photographed the entire firearm from buffer tube to muzzle device in a neutral way.
strathmeyer 17 days ago [-]
OK but what about all the dangerous explosives and the intent to murder innocent people?
ncr100 17 days ago [-]
"Soon": Get the process going, ankle monitor strapped and movement of suspect restricted, continue the law enforcement investigation, and make additional charges if violations are identified.
giantg2 17 days ago [-]
That's the question - why isn't he charged with those more blatant infractions. Maybe he will be, but just hasn't yet.
ceejayoz 17 days ago [-]
That's not uncommon; Luigi Mangione was first charged with having the unpermitted handgun and fake IDs. They want enough to hold and investigate further initially; they'll have taken all the bombs.
rustcleaner 17 days ago [-]
I have a dream... that one day we will have a DEA which only regulates purity and accuracy of dose for drugs, and an ATF which only regulates quality and accuracy for firearms. These laws do little to protect the public and they mire enthusiasts with steep and discouraging legal (and thus personal physical) risks. This sort of thinking about the role of government has to stop; it is human civilization's chief sickness.
anon7000 17 days ago [-]
“Chief sickness” is pretty strong when there are dozens of other human problems that are considerably worse.
bigfudge 16 days ago [-]
But drugs and firearms have very different risk profiles for other people. Perhaps it bears repeating: US lax gun laws and culture which glorifies violence leads to an order of magnitude more violent deaths than comparable countries in Europe.
bongodongobob 16 days ago [-]
[flagged]
16 days ago [-]
potato3732842 16 days ago [-]
That's a non-starter. These militia types don't see the state headed in a good direction so of course they're not gonna sign up to be part of one of the violence arms of the state (military, LEO, etc). If they did believe in the state they'd already have signed up.
The 2A is interpreted both popularly and legally as an individual right: it is the right of the people, not the right of the militia.
And, as I’m sure you know, the term “regulated” as written in 2A does not mean the same thing as “regulated” in terms of “government regulation”. In context, it means approximately “well-functioning” or “reliable”.
dr_dshiv 17 days ago [-]
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed”
An individual right to participate in a well regulated militia.
Pyxl101 16 days ago [-]
In historical context, the “militia” was everyone, every able bodied person who could participate in common defense. It wasn’t a specific organization like we’d think of today
Beyond that, the right is entirely unconnected with service in a militia. That clause at the beginning “A well-regulated Militia …” does not scope or bound what comes next; it offers one explanation for why that right is protected.
SCOTUS explained the historical meaning of these words in more detail in District of Columbia vs. Heller, including an in-depth examination of the language as part of its opinion that the right is an individual right.
> 1. The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a
firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.
> (a) The Amendment’s prefatory clause announces a purpose, but
does not limit or expand the scope of the second part, the operative
clause. The operative clause’s text and history demonstrate that it connotes an individual right to keep and bear arms.
dmoy 16 days ago [-]
> In historical context
In current federal legal context, the "militia" is all men between like age 18-45, plus all people in the national guard, or something like that. That's what the US CFR says.
Aloisius 16 days ago [-]
Are we really to believe that slave states ratified the 2nd amendment with the belief that they were giving every individual the right to keep and bear arms?
Because that seems absurd given their rather large population of slaves.
herewulf 16 days ago [-]
Worth noting that this was a 5 vs. 4 ruling and thus reeks of politics.
15155 11 days ago [-]
Worth noting that Caetano was unanimous - including some of the most staunchly left-leaning Justices in the history of the Court.
jandrewrogers 16 days ago [-]
The militia is every able-bodied person, both as a matter of history and as literally defined in US law for centuries. Furthermore, this militia is expressly recognized as "unorganized" in law i.e. separate from organized militias created by the government.
In the US, the militia is explicitly independent of the government. Even if one were to accept your narrow reading, which no court has, I don't see how it would materially change anything given that any random group of blokes without any government involvement is a militia as a matter of law.
dr_dshiv 16 days ago [-]
It is constitutionally ok to require that certain guns can only be kept at well-regulated gun clubs.
Those clubs, or militias, could own tanks, drones, explosives.
Ie, all those things that aren’t allowed today in the hands of private owners.
15155 11 days ago [-]
> tanks, drones, explosives.
These are all allowed today in the hands of private owners.
What are you even talking about?
oldpersonintx 16 days ago [-]
[dead]
jl6 17 days ago [-]
If this guy went on a terror rampage and it later emerged that he had spent years stockpiling bombs and obsessing over weapons, there would be a chorus of “why didn’t someone intervene earlier?” and “of course the guy was dangerous”. Hindsight makes it easy, but before the fact it’s difficult to judge where to place the line between non-criminal eccentricity and imminent threat.
declan_roberts 17 days ago [-]
The problem is that his arsenal is hardly any more dangerous than driving a 6,500 lb truck into a crowd during a celebration.
The people who want to harm our country don't seem to have any difficulty doing it.
Retric 17 days ago [-]
It seems likely you could do far more harm with 150 finished explosive devices than driving a truck through a crowd. There’s many examples of people driving into dense crowds and the death totals are rarely in the double digits. Ex: 5 dead 235 injured https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Magdeburg_car_attack
Though obviously the amount of explosives per device is going to modify the risk profile.
belorn 17 days ago [-]
A truck full of ammonium nitrate, which trucks occasionally carry, could do a lot more damage than 150 handmade explosives.
There is occasionally discussions if we should ban trucks that carries dangerous materials from driving near large cities. The main counter argument is that the number of people who has access to trucks with dangerous goods in them is so few compared to the number of people with access to a car. Thus the more logical solution to mitigate risks is to address car access to areas with crowds.
Retric 17 days ago [-]
Again, scale isn’t mentioned. 150 devices could be several tons of high explosives which are more dangerous than a truck of ammonium nitrate which only becomes an explosive when mixed with other chemicals.
jandrewrogers 16 days ago [-]
> ammonium nitrate which only becomes an explosive when mixed with other chemicals
This is incorrect, ammonium nitrate is intrinsically high-explosive. It is mixed with other ingredients to improve performance and/or sensitize it but this is not required. There are several famous examples of stored ammonium nitrate exploding e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Beirut_explosion
lazide 16 days ago [-]
The confusion likely stems from Ammonium Nitrate (uncontaminated) generally only being explosive when hit with a very high speed shockwave (aka a booster charge + detonator in typical mining/blasting applications), or when sensitized with other chemicals (like with tannerite).
Most of those other blasts, including Beirut, involved lots of contamination of the AN + large fires + very large quantities of ammonium nitrate.
In truckload or less quantities, and when not contaminated with specific substances, ammonium nitrate is pretty much impossible to detonate without a sizable quantity of some other high explosive.
Retric 16 days ago [-]
You’re of course technically correct, but in practice a truck of ammonium nitrate is basically inert on its own.
If you’re going to assume they have access to significant explosives to actually detonate pure ammonium nitrate, then you also need to consider flour and other ‘safe’ compounds due to the potential for even larger fuel air explosions.
AnarchismIsCool 17 days ago [-]
They're pipe bombs so quite low yield. They're typically based on smokeless powder so they're "low explosives" meaning they don't really detonate, they deflagrate at below the speed of sound.
Retric 17 days ago [-]
Pipe bombs cover a wide range and can be extremely deadly or basically a dud.
There’s no mention of the guy using smokeless powder just hexamethylene triperoxide diamine which is an actual high explosive.
ImPostingOnHN 17 days ago [-]
Some of the bombs shown were labeled ETN [0], likely erythritol tetranitrate [1]
That’s leaving the territory of what most people have ready access to.
The poser referred to a “6,500lb truck” vs “19-tonne Renault Midlum cargo truck” used in that attack.
red-iron-pine 16 days ago [-]
it is fairly trivial to get access to a medium or large panel truck, either by theft, or by simply getting a CDL.
the 9/11 attackers went though flight school to be able to hijack planes. meanwhile getting a CDL is like $6k for out of state, $2k for in state, and ~$400 if you can demonstrate need / poverty. the classes are readily available at any community college, and can be done by anyone who can drive, basically.
Retric 15 days ago [-]
The difference between things that can happen through inattention vs a drunk person might do while really pissed vs things that require significant preparation has major implications for how often they occur.
Vehicles are used to kill a great number of people per year, but it’s really unusual to find someone who actually killed 50+ people through a vehicle alone. Meanwhile there’s significantly more people who used bombs to reach those numbers, despite how much more difficult it is to access significant quantities of explosives.
16 days ago [-]
ben_w 17 days ago [-]
> The people who want to harm our country don't seem to have any difficulty doing it.
We see the examples of successful attempts at harm, most of us don't pay much attention to the failed attempts, which makes it difficult to draw conclusions about how hard it go from "attempted harm" to "actual harm".
gilleain 17 days ago [-]
Really?
>Investigators also found hexamethylene triperoxide diamine, which the agency described as “an explosive material that is so unstable it can be exploded merely as a result of friction or temperature changes.”
I mean, I don't even have to look that chemical up to see that it is explosive.
Actually looking at it, it's a cage of nitrogens and peroxides. Cricky.
>Cases of detonation caused by the simple act of screwing a lid on a jar containing HMTD have been reported
jmathai 17 days ago [-]
From the article, there seemed to be evidence of mental instability and propensity towards violence.
I don’t know the line but it seems this would obviously warrant investigation regardless of if this person broke a law. I say that as someone who believes in limited government.
bloomingeek 17 days ago [-]
Your point, to me, is well taken. I can't imagine being a neighbor of this man when he suddenly snapped and went on a rampage. Some might argue who knows if he would have ever snapped, that's all well and good if you're not living near him.
Is it fair of my neighbor to instill fear in his fellow neighbors? What if his stash was kept secret for decades, are all those bombs good for the neighborhood? What if he dies and then his stash is discovered in some kind of explosive event?
oceanplexian 17 days ago [-]
There are probably lots of people doing exactly that, who are running meth labs or dealing drugs like Fentanyl with minimal scrutiny from federal law enforcement.
However, instead of going after those criminals, the FBI has placed its focus on sending a SWAT team to arrest someone who downloaded the wrong 3D print file or ordered a spicy plastic gun accessory on the Internet. That’s a disingenuous application of the law by people who have an agenda, not an approach that’s actually intended to reduce harm.
thinkcontext 16 days ago [-]
> There are probably lots of people doing exactly that, who are running meth labs or dealing drugs like Fentanyl with minimal scrutiny from federal law enforcement.
Why do you think the fbi is giving a pass to drugs? There's ample evidence that they devote a lot of resources to it.
trehalose 17 days ago [-]
The article implies that the FBI was aware of his large collection of extremely dangerous explosives at the time they arrested him. It doesn't mention a SWAT team, but I'll take your word for that, but do note that there had to be a bomb disposal team because some of the bombs were too sensitive to remove and had to be exploded on-site.
bloomingeek 16 days ago [-]
Your reply to my reply has nothing to do with what I said! I suspect yours has a veiled political/2nd amendment agenda.
Again, and please read this slowly, to be a decent, caring, good neighbor is not to have them worried about what you're building in your garage. Your reply cares nothing if one of his kids or neighborhood playmates happens upon one of his bombs that could lead to a potential explosion.
16 days ago [-]
oliwarner 17 days ago [-]
> there would be a chorus
The problem of listening and reacting to public outbursts is that there are enough people on all sides of this that there'll be an outburst whatever happens.
The Algorithm makes us a pile of hyper-reactionary babies.
llamaimperative 17 days ago [-]
Eh, this is true but not really relevant to the claim here.
If the FBI had all this information and didn't act on it, then he e.g. went into a tower and murdered dozens of people in the street, there is not going to be a substantial number of people saying "oh well ya know they didn't have a basis to intervene when they were first informed of his 1) probably-illegal firearms, 2) extreme violent views and 3) growing stockpile of explosives."
oliwarner 17 days ago [-]
The comment seemed to be about when it was right to ignore Constitutional Rights, giving two examples of people noisily pushing for that. There will always be people noisily complaining because that's what we amplify these days.
I personally don't think there's enough public consultation on rights. For some reason America relies on an increasingly political supreme court to set those boundaries rather than what The People actually want.
And all of this is entirely impossible to derive from online conduct because it's just wall-to-wall strife, disagreement and suffering. A system continuously telling us to be angry with other people, rather than how to enjoy these short, little lives we have. Weird if you ask me.
llamaimperative 16 days ago [-]
The comment did not say that. The comment said that people would have perceived it as certain evidence of an impending attack and a clear security failure.
All of that is absolutely, obviously true.
oliwarner 16 days ago [-]
Yes, I agreed. People would have perceived it as a colossal security failure. They would have cited it as a reason for gun and explosive control. They would have done and said a lot of things because there are a lot of people who can think and say things. There are people who will think the opposite too. And some jousting off in every other direction.
My original point got a little lost by my second post. That there are angry people shouting about something doesn't mean they're right. Being loud shouldn't earn you opinion being rebroadcast, but that's exactly what today's social media does. And it's what the traditional media did before it. Sell engagement through outrage.
If we want to have qualitative conversations about what homeland security really looks like to stop an attack like the one here —that nobody is even suggesting was planned— I'm not sure people will be so "absolutely, obviously" on one side. Only once you have those conversations can you reasonably barter with the limits of rights.
harrall 16 days ago [-]
I’m sure the real explanation is that there are probably a lot of people with weapon caches or doing other really questionable stuff but very few of them have intent to harm and the small remaining number of people who have that intent are never actually going to do anything and may not yet violate any laws.
As it always is, people are always on some spectrum for an activity.
ethbr1 17 days ago [-]
Lots of Americans don't understand legal due process. Especially the ones who watch hyper-partisan news.
epolanski 17 days ago [-]
Meanwhile half the internet and some comments here are "what is he being charged for? He did nothing".
giantg2 17 days ago [-]
That's to be expected in this community. There are more libertarian views on here due to the DIY and inquisitive nature of the hacker community. In a large way, the intended use or application of dangerous things are considered a more important point on here because many of us know the damage a person can cause with common things that have legitimate purposes (certain computer software).
I'm generally on the side of intended use mattering more than mere possession of things. However, it seems there may be evidence in this case of violent intentions and destructive devices intended to kill. The comments about the SBR are mostly based on the mental contortions one must do to say an SBR is somehow more dangerous than a braced pistol (even if one is clearly illegal and the other is legal, the question is why).
ethbr1 17 days ago [-]
The issue, from a public safety and law enforcement perspective, is that intent is mostly a post-hoc construction. Whereas possession can be judged before an act occurs.
If the US intends to stick to the freedom-first philosophy with regards to possession, then it would behoove everyone to have a more nuanced legal view of intent.
E.g. graduated escalating consequences for 'Making threats and remarks of a violent nature' to 'Taking actions that indicate preparation for violent action' etc.
Like you, I think if people want to mess around with homemade explosives, and they have enough land to do so, then that's their business.
BUT! There should also be a pattern of behavior, evidence, and witnessed statements where we say 'This particular individual has ceded the right to access dangerous things.'
So essentially being able to charge and convict someone (with due process) of 'violent intent', with no financial or incarceration penalties, but temporary addition (5 year?) to lists that preclude their being able to access dangerous material (guns, explosives, etc).
Of course, the NRA has historically been the biggest lobbyist blocker to anything of that nature, given their paranoia that any legal government consequences will spiral into a panopticon.
Unfortunately, that view doesn't solve the fact that there are very troubled individuals out there, and we'd all be able to be afforded greater freedom if we did a better job in managing those particular people's access to lethal things.
giantg2 17 days ago [-]
"So essentially being able to charge and convict someone (with due process) of 'violent intent', with no financial or incarceration penalties, but temporary addition to a lists that preclude their being able to access dangerous material (guns, explosives, etc)."
I'm not sure what you're getting at on this one. This individual faces potential incarceration. He is on bail and would be denied access to dangerous things... in theory. Of course he manufactured explosives, so it's not like he has to pass a background check to come into possession of them again.
"and we'd all be able to be afforded greater freedom if we did a better job in managing those particular people's access to lethal things."
Do you have some examples of additional freedoms we're missing currently?
"Of course, the NRA has historically been the biggest lobbyist blocker to anything of that nature, given their paranoia that any legal government consequences will spiral into a panopticon."
I'm not exactly sure what you're referring to that they oppose. But the legal term for a slippery slope is the Overton Window. Speaking of gun regulations generally, it's not hard to understand why a pro-gun group would be against the types of additional regulations that are already present in other states that arguable do not improve safety or could even reduce it in legitimate use circumstances (eg hollowpoint bans, etc).
bigfudge 16 days ago [-]
>Do you have some examples of additional freedoms we're missing currently?
Freedom from gun violence for thousands of US children annually?
giantg2 16 days ago [-]
I'm talking about freedoms as in things you can do that were previously restricted by law. People typically don't think of stuff like being negative for lyme disease as a "freedom" from lyme disease. But I also don't see how your claim would be applicable to the conversation at hand. It's jumping to conclusions to say a red flag law would protect thousands of children when places like RAND have not identified any evidence of their effectiveness beyond a possible reduction in suicide.
devops99 16 days ago [-]
[flagged]
bdangubic 16 days ago [-]
[flagged]
devops99 16 days ago [-]
The inner city gang-related shootings that are counted as more than just the bulk of the "mass shootings" are not "white male".
bdangubic 16 days ago [-]
[flagged]
giantg2 16 days ago [-]
Is this still sarcasm? Isn't a major point in the problem that the majority of firearm violence isn't reported on, thus potentially skewing any policy solutions by obscuring the underlying problem.
bdangubic 16 days ago [-]
skewing any policy solutions
that ship has sailed the moment United States of America collectively decided that it is acceptable to slaughter children in schools. when you make that decision as a society it is over.
bringing up inner city gun violence to a gun debate is more than funny to me :)
giantg2 16 days ago [-]
Why would that be funny if that's statically the most relevant aspect to the problem (not gang related, but urban shootings)? Schools shootings are statistically a very small part of the overall picture, so much so that schools are statistically one of the safest places for children, even more so than at home.
devops99 16 days ago [-]
[dead]
bdangubic 16 days ago [-]
[flagged]
giantg2 16 days ago [-]
I'm not sure if your sarcasm is towards your hinted at solution or the false claim of the problem. Also, isn't sarcasm against the guidelines for this reason?
devops99 16 days ago [-]
[flagged]
ethbr1 17 days ago [-]
> This individual faces potential incarceration. He is on bail and would be denied access to dangerous things... in theory.
The current US justice system is based around conviction of a crime (which usually requires having already committed it, or a VERY high bar for having intended to do so) in order to impose consequences (usually severe).
Or limitations on individuals' rights after conviction of the above.
There's no lesser standard of 'at higher risk to commit a crime', aside from a patchwork of short-duration city/state red-flag type laws, most of which are being challenged in court.
> Do you have some examples of additional freedoms we're missing currently?
Access to NFA-controlled devices? [0]
E.g. a breach-loading potato gun
> I'm not exactly sure what you're referring to that they oppose. But the legal term for a slippery slope is the Overton Window.
The Overton Window isn't a legal term: it's a PR/clickbait term.
The NRA has and currently opposes red-flag laws [1], even when constructed with due process procedures, because of its mistrust of any government firearm regulation.
If they instead switched their lobbying approach to productively crafting due process procedures that would allow targeting individuals with a history of threats, abuse, and violence, the rest of us could benefit from greater freedom to dangerous devices.
Instead, their tunnel vision on absolute freedom requires repeatedly casting a blind eye to inconvenient situations where disturbed individuals leverage that freedom to kill others.
Solving problems requires clear-eyed appraisals of the risks and benefits of various approaches to arrive at optimal outcomes.
The NRA has fueled the exact opposite, by leveraging histrionics and fear mongering, not least for its own financial gain. Fuck em.
Oh, you're talking about red flag laws. What makes you think passing red flag laws will provide additional freedoms? It seems highly unlikely that those who support the current red flag laws would support any loosening of other firearm restrictions. Your statement also implicitly assumes that red flag laws would be significantly effective to allow looser restrictions overall. However, groups like RAND have found no conclusive evidence that red flags work. The best evidence they have is potentially reducing suicides. What would the protections you mention look like? The whole point of moving things like red flag laws or civil asset forfeiture to the civil side is because it lacks the protections on the criminal side - lower burden of proof, no right to representation, ex parte proceedings, etc. It's no wonder we see constant abuses of the process in traditional PFAs during divorces in many states. Surely we could fix the existing processes to ameliorate the problems and concerns thus providing a solid basis for the argument to expand them. Currently, the ACLU opposes most of the red flag laws due to civil liberties issues.
I would bet that the NRA will propose ammendments to any national red flag legislation introduced, just as they helped shape the 1968 legislation once it looked inevitable. That's all a part of the political game. Sure, the Overton Window is associated with some clickbait, but it's a real and valid concept in politics. This is why groups aren't going to volunteer to help implement things that are counter to their goals, be it the NRA or Everytown. Do you really think Everytown would support something like national reciprocity in exchange for red flag laws? No, as they are also a hardliner and playing the game.
"Solving problems requires clear-eyed appraisals of the risks and benefits of various approaches to arrive at optimal outcomes."
So what's the solution? What's the optimal outcome?
ethbr1 17 days ago [-]
No, I'm talking about the need to have a discussion around moving access restrictions to before a crime is committed, while still ensuring individuals have access to due process.
The NRA's blanket opposition to red flag laws is simply one example their willingness to ideologically fight even the simplest approach to a priori restrictions.
> So what's the solution? What's the optimal outcome?
In my ideal world, the US would lean more heavily into universally-accessible but universally-required certification for access to dangerous devices.
Similar to motor vehicles, the default should be that no one has access to these things, but everyone has a right to obtain certification to have them.
As an example, that would look something like national "must issue" concealed weapons permits, but contingent on completing a non-trivial safety course and passing a background check (to ensure the individual isn't spending their free time talking about murdering people online / to their neighbors, appealable ofc).
Instead, we've spent ~60 years wringing our hands to try and square the circle between {everyone deserves access to dangerous things} and {some people are too irresponsible to have dangerous things}.
Why not just start with those facts and craft a viable system from there?
giantg2 17 days ago [-]
Yeah, that's going to be a tough sell considering the problems with the driving test being a joke and the history of requirements in some areas just being a pretext to deny rights to specific groups or individuals (still to this day). The main problem I see is that a safety course isn't going to prevent violent crime. It could prevent use of force issues or accidents, but those tend to occur at an extremely low rate already (for civilians). The background check part is already implemented depending on jurisdiction.
The way the current system is set up, it's supposed to weed people out before they get access to the more dangerous stuff. As juveniles, if they get convicted of certain offenses, they will be prohibited, at least until 35. We have eroded various aspects of this with selective enforcement, plea deals, and the promoting the continuation of childhood with delays in freedoms and responsibilities. Then for the of-age group we have stuff like conspiracy, voluntary/involuntary commitment, terroristic threats, and all manner of prohibiting offenses. There's certainly some room for improvement, but it hard to say what an effective improvement would be.
16 days ago [-]
oceanplexian 17 days ago [-]
> Taking actions that indicate preparation for violent action
The contradiction is that that’s literally the content and purpose of the 2A of the US Constitution. It’s not the right to bear arms for hunting deer, or the right to go target shooting. The language is pretty explicit, if it isn’t clear enough the founders took the time to explain the purpose of it in the Federalist Papers after they fought an armed revolution against their own government.
My take on unstable people is that if you’re not stable enough to own guns you’re not stable enough to participate in society. If the person in this case made credible threats, they should charge him with a crime other than possession of a firearm accessory. There are plenty of other ways that deranged people hurt others (Like driving a vehicle into a christmas market). The only way we can claim to live in a free society is by maintaining a system of due process.
ethbr1 17 days ago [-]
> The language is pretty explicit
The literal text is ambiguous to a degree that commas change its meaning:
>> A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Relying on contemporaneous ancillary (and unratified with consensus) documents should be an obvious sign that textual clarity is lacking.
Furthermore, the ability of an 18th century individual to craft weapons of mass destruction was vastly inferior to our modern access.
> My take on unstable people is that if you’re not stable enough to own guns you’re not stable enough to participate in society. If the person in this case made credible threats, they should charge him with a crime other than possession of a firearm accessory.
Not only stability! Just normal common sense.
~20% of English-proficient Americans can't do basic numerical tasks in English [0].
I wouldn't trust anyone that dumb around a loaded 6-lb trigger pull.
As the aphorism goes, some people ain't got the sense God saw fit to give a squirrel.
And while they and unstable people are fully entitled to live their lives however they want, it would behoove society at large to say 'Maybe we're not going to hand you things that require the highest amount of safety and carefulness.'
But I'm from the generation where you started out firearms ownership with a hunter safety course at the local firehouse, followed by supervised use with your family, eventually progressing to independent use by high school.
> ~20% of English-proficient Americans can't do basic numerical tasks in English [0]
We don’t gatekeep rights based on someone’s perceived intelligence. The same logic was used to keep southern blacks from voting in the civil rights era and was promptly struck down. If you’re an American, it’s your inalienable right.
> The literal text is ambiguous to a degree that commas change its meaning
The people who wrote the amendment literally wrote essays explaining their thought process. It’s not like we’re deciphering ancient greek artifacts, we all know exactly what the founders meant when they wrote it. The Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed this extremely obvious interpretation.
stouset 17 days ago [-]
Does the second amendment authorize me to bear nuclear weapons?
If no, you acknowledge there is a line. We’re allowed to bear arms, but not any and all arms.
If yes, maybe your views are consistent but you’re utterly insane.
oceanplexian 16 days ago [-]
It should guarantee the right to carry the same weapon we give to 17 year kids in the military. Which is an M4 carbine. That would be the modern musket and more or less consistent with historic tradition.
stouset 16 days ago [-]
You've conceded that there should be some limits. You think they should be at one point. I disagree.
Since the second amendment itself doesn’t contain any express instructions as to who can bear which arms—which is a necessary consideration once you’ve accepted that everyone shouldn’t be able to bear every arm—we’re now solidly in the realm of political debate rather than second amendment absolutism.
jl6 16 days ago [-]
2A people presumably think that even though there are some edge cases that are bad (citizens owning nuclear weapons), the risk of unintended consequences of legislating against these cases is too great given the small-to-nil occurrence of these cases in the real world.
stouset 16 days ago [-]
I’m sure people thought the same thing back when fully automatic weapons were first invented. “Sure gosh but who is ever going to tow around a Gatling gun with them?”
Nuclear weapons are an intentionally-absurd example to force a concession that there obviously must be limits. Frequently people will even acknowledge that the 2A probably doesn’t cover them (or at least oughtn’t be interpreted in a way that it does). From there it’s generally pretty easy to walk reasonable people backward towards MANPADs, and then further on down to things that aren’t quite so difficult to acquire.
jl6 16 days ago [-]
Sure, but there’s a gap between “this would be bad” and “we need to change the law to stop it happening”, so what you think of as a concession isn’t necessarily conceding anything at all.
potato3732842 16 days ago [-]
>My take on unstable people is that if you’re not stable enough to own guns you’re not stable enough to participate in society. I
Exactly. Prison or full rights, guns, voting, living beside a school, all of it. Get rid of all this inbetween crap.
Oh, the prisons are too crowded you say? Well perhaps criminalize less things.
giantg2 16 days ago [-]
"Oh, the prisons are too crowded you say? Well perhaps criminalize less things."
We can also focus on actual rehabilitation or fewer heavy handed sentences for non-violent offenders. A lot of things that are currently prison sentences could potentially be probation and fines.
rat87 16 days ago [-]
The second amendment was to make sure the government could organize militias to put down armed rebellions, not to empower them.
You may consider it hypocritical, but the vast majority of the founders ( Jefferson was an exception) were very very anti armed rebellion! That's the context for the Constitution replacing the articles of confederation. Having recently fought one they didn't think we needed any more revolutions and didn't want any more revolutions! And didn't appreciate several violent incidents like Shays rebellion.
> Shays’ Rebellion was an armed uprising led by former Massachusetts militiamen and veterans of the American Revolution which took place between 1786 - 1787. Daniel Shays led several thousand ‘rebels" to fight against the economic injustices that were facing farmers and agrarian peasants all across America. (3) These farmers were experiencing extreme poverty following the end of the Revolutionary War. All across America, farmers saw their lands foreclosed on in unfair property seizures, and they wanted to fight back. They were also trying to fight taxes which were beginning to be levied against them.(4) People in rural American fought these perceived injustices in a few ways, with Shays' Rebellion being the most violent. Shays' Rebellion would ultimately be put down, but it startled the gentry who feared further uprisings throughout the United States.
> While we call it a “rebellion" today, these men did not label themselves this way. They called themselves “regulators,” specifically they called themselves the “Massachusetts Regulation,” modeling off of the North Carolina Regulators that we saw just a moment ago.(5) This was the larger part of a trend of poor Americans fighting back against economic injustice. The idea of “civilian regulation” was catching on and becoming a popular idea for ending government corruption. They believed that if the government wasn't regulating itself on behalf of "We the People", then "the People" had the right to regulate, or take back the government – to take it back and do what they believed was right. They didn't see themselves as a rebellion, but rather the gentry labeled them as such in order to de-legitimize their cause. By calling them "rebels," neutral Americans would see these men as insurgents who needed to be stopped. But this regulation was not the only type of fighting Americans across the country participated in. Many states saw widespread revolts
...
> By the time the the constitutional convention convened, America was under extreme duress. In Terry Bouton's article "A Road Closed: Rural Insurgency in Post-Independence Pennsylvania" he masterfully explained the fighting and rebellion that took place in the rural country sides of Pennsylvania that mirrored what had happened in Massachusetts.(7) The gentry were terrified that they were losing control of rural America, and as a result they would not be able to seize foreclosed land and collect taxes, which they needed. Empowering militias to be trained and carry firearms allowed the gentry to call up these men in times of need and suppress these rebellions that were taking place. The Founders knew that the only solutions were to call up militias as they had done in North Carolina and Massachusetts.
...
> Multiple other bills of rights from other states had already protected a militia's right to bear arms (such as Section 13 of Virginia's Declaration of Rights) and many of these states were fighting to have the federal government protect this as well. Here their declaration stated:
> > SEC. 13. That a well-regulated militia, or composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.(8)
> This wording is even more carefully crafted then in the national Bill of Rights. Here, they define “well-regulated” meaning they were trained my military officers. You also see that they define the purpose of it as being necessary to “defend” the state (implying against people in rebellion) and they of course explain why they feared a standing Army. Now if you examine the wording of the Second Amendment, we can see some clear similarities:
> > A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
> Like in Virginia, “well regulated" is the key phrase. They are referring to militias led by people like Benjamin Lincoln and his Massachusetts Militia, not Shays and his "rebellion". The idea that people need firearms to protect themselves from the government is not accurate. It was a message propagated by anti-gun control advocates of the 1980s. This “right” was crafted when rebellions were happening everywhere and the only way the government could maintain control was to make sure they could call up their militias.
giantg2 16 days ago [-]
The interesting part is how militias are defined. Looking at how conscription during the whiskey rebellion and US 10 ss 246 provides some interesting background and raises questions on how that could be applied in a non-discriminatory way today. Another interesting point is how the text of other state constitutions of that time have extremely similar wording but also include personal self defense (see PA).
oceanplexian 16 days ago [-]
If your theory is correct then why does the text say the right of the people to keep and bear arms, and not the right of the militia to keep and bear arms?
giantg2 16 days ago [-]
Because the militia is necessarily made of the people. There are even definitions for the implicit militia in 10 US ss 246. When individuals were conscripted to fight in the militia to put down the whisky rebellion, they brought their own arms. There is an interesting history of how those arms were treated - even exclusions when property was seized by the courts to pay debts the militia related arms were not taken. By leaving the arms with the people rather than only issuing them when their is an uprising lends itself to the "well regulated" part, as regulated has a different meaning when used to describe soldiers/units of the period - generally skilled and disciplined, which requires practice. There really is a lot to read into and interpret in many areas of the constitution based on the language differences from then vs now, the the second amendment being a prime example.
ClumsyPilot 16 days ago [-]
> think if people want to mess around with homemade explosives, and they have enough land to do so, then that's their business.
Do you also believe you should not need a driving license, or an electrician should not have any certification?
Because an average person can watch a YouTube video and wire a circuit, or learn to drive by themselves, but their chances of making explosives without posing a danger for themselves or others are far, far lower.
This should be a licensed activity where you need to demonstrate at least basic competence and mental stability.
giantg2 16 days ago [-]
A drivers license on your own land - no. Adding a circuit to your own house generally doesn't need a license but does need a permit. Driving without a license or doing electrical work without a license/permit usually isnt sending you to prison for years. Manufacturing explosives generally requires licenses and could otherwise result in years of prison. I'm not sure if the law works this way, but I would hope there are some exceptions for small quantities. I see plenty of stuff online about black powder manufacturing, which I think is cool as an insight into history. I'm sure it's dangerous, but in small quantities it's really only a danger to oneself. Honestly, I see that as less of a danger to others than reckless driving on a road or even electrical work after the house is sold.
ethbr1 16 days ago [-]
Or to put it another way, the things we're regulating as a society should be an individual's ability to cause harm to others (either intentionally or unintentionally), as that deprives others of their freedom to live their own lives.
If an individual is endangering only themselves in a way that poses no risk to others (e.g. blowing up stumps on their own large property), then that's a responsibility they should be given.
Which does suggest stricter limits on higher density areas (read: cities), given the proximity of people and lack of empty, fuck-around space.
roughly 16 days ago [-]
> There are more libertarian views on here due to the DIY and inquisitive nature of the hacker community.
Bluntly, it’s also the hacker community, or at least this hacker community, being kind of poor at generalizing things to an overall population and confusing their own emotions about something for a reasoned defense of it. We’re arrogant, overconfident in our ability to reason about things, undervalue others’ reasoning, experience, and history, regularly mistake our ability to reason through a technical issue for expertise in things outside our wheelhouse, and are profoundly gifted at self-motivated reasoning, so the idea that anyone else might have a valid opinion on why we shouldn’t do something we really want to do strikes us as tyranny.
giantg2 16 days ago [-]
I can kind of see that, but t
I think the main thing is more along the lines of "this interesting thing shouldn't be banned just because some people can't handle it" and "the punishment should fit the harm".
Regulations actually in place to protect people are fine. Most regulations on this sort of thing are overbearing. A lot of the licensing and recordkeeping are targeted towards companies and commercial producers and apply ham-fistedly to individuals. One example is distillation of spirits. It's illegal for me to distill. I'm not even allowed to get a license to do it because my property is residential and not commercial even though I want to do it for myself. There's really no valid reasoning for. The courts are starting to agree - there was one court that said making the permit impossible to get as an individual in a residential property is a violation of some right.
The point is, we should challenge regulations that don't make sense. If there is a valid reason, then we learn. If there isn't a valid reason, then maybe we can correct some injustice. Even as hackers/programmers/etc, we miss edge cases and have to amend our code, it's really not much different for policies, probably even worse than the spaghetti code with of us has seen.
BobaFloutist 16 days ago [-]
Also bombs and guns are "cool" and bureaucrats aren't, and most programmers are more likely to have been "harmed" (had their taxes collected) by a bureacrat than a bomb or a gun, so they automatically side with the guns and bombs.
onlyrealcuzzo 17 days ago [-]
Does anyone have a problem if I start stockpiling smallpox and nuclear bombs?
Where do we draw the line of ridiculousness?
rickandmortyy 16 days ago [-]
[dead]
Stevvo 17 days ago [-]
"it’s difficult to judge where to place the line between non-criminal eccentricity and imminent threat."
Fortunately, this guy commited over 150 crimes. Bail was denied. We can lock him up and throw away the key. It really doesn't matter if he were to be an imminent threat or not.
devops99 16 days ago [-]
Who is the injured party?
Stevvo 15 days ago [-]
The terrorized neighbors who called the cops on him, and the accused himself evidenced by the 3 fingers he blew off in an explosion.
devops99 15 days ago [-]
Did Spafford threaten the neighbors directly?
In a legal context, and also the real world sans a legal context, words do have meaning and words do matter. I don't see anything in the article that Spafford terrorized anyone.
Whether Spafford intended to terrorize anyone in the future is another matter, and a matter of legitimate and serious concern. But we must not confuse this with "terrorized" (past tense) if we are going to discuss the matter in a sane and sober way.
pjc50 17 days ago [-]
America sits on a weird knife edge where there's (a) lots of talk about political violence, which is constitutionally protected and (b) lots of stockpiling of weapons, which is constitutionally protected, and (c) lots of routine mass murder incidents, which follow logically from (a) and (b) ..
BUT
.. apart from Jan 6 and a few milita incidents, nobody ever combines these three into politically targeted violence. The mass murders are always either strangers, workplace, or schoolchildren. Politically motivated, but not targeted at any kind of power structure. It's been a long time since the Unabomber. All the elements are in place for a really serious deterioration of civil safety, but so far the glue is holding.
oceanplexian 17 days ago [-]
> (c) lots of routine mass murder incidents,
Your other points are valid but this one has been so highly politicized that inner city gang violence is classified as mass shooting, which is a completely different social issue that’s being co-opted in with the political violence issue and the mental health crisis. All of those problems are complex and have different root causes, implications and magnitudes, but activists like Everytown want to lump them together to portray a “Gun Problem” to pitch their forced solution, which is making it harder for law-abiding citizens to own guns.
ben_w 16 days ago [-]
> this one has been so highly politicized that inner city gang violence is classified as mass shooting
As a non American, I am unfamiliar with your inner city gang violence.
If it involves guns being used to kill multiple people in one incident, this seems tautologically "mass murder", even if it's specifically also gang war.
(Then again, perhaps I should add "gang war" to my list examples of things where people sincerely argue if it counts as murder, along with normal war, assassination, abortion, and meat).
seabird 16 days ago [-]
American gun control discourse basically completely ignores the reality that a huge amount of it is driven by gang violence and criminality. It is focused almost entirely on school shootings and things that suburbanite white people are afraid of. You're correct, they are mass shootings, but so many people aren't actually interested in stopping mass shootings on the whole, just the narrow class of them that may affect them.
rat87 16 days ago [-]
I mean it is a Gun problem. Or rather many Gun problems. If guns were better regulated and we had less of them we would have a safer less violent society. Those other issues would still exist but would lead to less violence. Instead we have activists who claim that any gun laws are unconstitutional going even further then our very activist supreme court.
anamax 16 days ago [-]
> If guns were better regulated
We can't stop drug importation. What makes you think that we can stop guns?
> and we had less of them we would have a safer less violent society.
"less of them"? We can take away all of the deer rifles and not change US violence at all. A collector with 100 guns is not more dangerous than one with 25.
The vast majority of US gun violence is committed by people who are already involved in other illegal activities involving other illegal substances. It is absurd to think that they can be disarmed by legal means.
It takes about 1% of the "by physical volume" drug smuggling to provide them with a new gun per crime.
If anything guns are harder to ban than drugs (because they're easier to make and smuggle), and that was true before 3d printing became a thing.
ben_w 16 days ago [-]
> We can't stop drug importation. What makes you think that we can stop guns?
Hello, I'm British.
Better solutions don't have to be perfect, as the country of my birth demonstrates: still has drugs smuggled in, sometimes even has firearms, even a few mass shootings.
But firearms are banned so effectively that even the police don't routinely carry them — the handful of officers I've ever seen armed in the UK, in person, were all in airports.
The four nations of the UK combined had around 700 homicides in total in each recent year, which is about the same as Philidelphia plus half of Baltimore. It's not just because the US is more populous, the per-capita homicide rate in the UK is about 80% lower in the UK than in the US.
I know the UK is unusual — I'm in Berlin now, and the cops here have what looks like a pistol, not that I'd be able to distinguish it in the holster from a taser or a pistol shaped pepper spray — but there's a whole world of other ways to do things than what each of us takes for granted, and we can learn from each other if we don't shut out the possibility.
pjc50 16 days ago [-]
Once I ran the numbers, and the part of the UK that had American Armalite rifles being smuggled in to fuel an armed conflict, Northern Ireland, which also had armed troops on the streets with rules of engagement that allowed them to open fire on civilians, resulting in dead women and children, was still less deadly than Detroit during the 80s.
devops99 16 days ago [-]
We already have a safer less violent society, it's found outside the cities.
ganoushoreilly 17 days ago [-]
n your (a), (b), and (c) list, you imply that (c) — routine mass murders — connects directly to (a) (talk of political violence) and (b) (stockpiling weapons). However, the examples you give, like Jan. 6 or militia incidents, don’t align with your routine mass murders implication. You could imply unrest for sure and I wholly agree that subsets could even be targeted violence, but that's not unique to either of your examples.
The elements will always be in place for disturbed individuals, just look at the number of "Cars running over crowds" stories, such as yesterday in New Orleans. The question and premise for a lot of the battles are, do we take away rights or abilities of those that won't do it, on the off chance that someone could?
Clear laws, enforced consistently would help a lot here. I would also posit, though not likely a popular opinion, there are people that cannot be a part of a functioning society and we have to collectively agree on that. We need to bring back functioning mental health facilities for long term care and accept that some people will be placed here and not leave.
pjc50 17 days ago [-]
> However, the examples you give, like Jan. 6 or militia incidents, don’t align with your routine mass murders implication
That's my point: there's loads of "apolitical" school shootings and much less "political" violence.
ganoushoreilly 17 days ago [-]
My mistake there, I misinterpreted your point of view.
specialist 16 days ago [-]
FYI David Neiwert and others have been documenting the reemergence of politically motivated violence for decades. Also, the Congressional Jan 6 report details extents of (just one coalition of) the paramilitary efforts. Fast forwarding to today, many groups were similarily prepared in the event a Democrat won in 2024.
Indeed. But since they're right wing guys attacking Trump, it seems to have faded from the conversation. Also they failed.
lamontcg 16 days ago [-]
Luigi?
pjc50 16 days ago [-]
Something of a standout. Will there be copycats?
sadboi31 17 days ago [-]
Yeah they do. Check out the 764 cult + project gladio. Lots of assassinations towards left-leaning folks. Atleast two such cases recorded on forensic architecture of murders of hacktivists going unchecked after quiet obviously being staged by intelligence agencies. One in Germany and one at a BLM event.
I wont speak more on it here but I can think of atleast 6 people i've known closely who've just gone completely dark online + in their community after anti-govt organization. I assume they're dead.
black_13 17 days ago [-]
[dead]
boomboomsubban 17 days ago [-]
If he was prepared to set up a turret to prevent his arrest, how did they nab him without incident?
Reading more about this, it seems to have come after a several year investigation. Yet he is out on bail as for some reason the only thing he's being charged with is owning a short barreled rifle. Which seems bizarre. https://www.vpm.org/news/2024-12-31/norfolk-homemade-explosi...
jandrewrogers 17 days ago [-]
High explosives are basically legal in the US, depending on State law, to a degree that I think would surprise most people. I've been to local retail depots where you could literally buy high-explosives by the ton from a pretty large menu, cash and carry. And explosives are dirt cheap, it is bulk industrial chemistry. The only real requirement was that you have a vehicle with the standard hazard placards and the surface of the storage area in the vehicle is non-sparking material.
A short-barreled rifle, on the other hand, it is strictly forbidden without an appropriate Federal tax stamp.
One of the reasons that high-explosives are widely legal is that they have several common applications for individual use. Despite the availability and consumption of high-explosives in the US, misuse has been very rare in practice.
nullc 17 days ago [-]
Anyone who is surprised that high explosives are available has not had to deal with a bunch of large stumps. -- they're a nightmare even with a large excavator, explosives are a life saver.
kstrauser 17 days ago [-]
Yup. I was surprised when my cousin showed me my uncle’s TNT stash, but then explained how they cleared stumps off the family farm.
One of my rural buddies told me how he spent a summer mixing diesel and fertilizer to clear fields, approaching it like a lab experiment and keeping detailed notes.
Honestly, both sounded like a lot of fun.
sandworm101 17 days ago [-]
Or a beaver dam. Imagine a bunch of those stumps all concreted together with mud.
raddan 17 days ago [-]
Twenty-plus years ago I hiked the Appalachian Trail. Back then, it was common practice to hitch a ride into town for resupply. One time when my partner and I were hiking in Virginia, we got picked up by a state department of conservation employee. During the ride I asked him what he did and he said “I destroy beaver dams.” When I asked him how he did it he said “with dynamite.” I laughed—how ridiculous, right?—and he looked at me very seriously and said “it’s not funny; beaver dams are difficult to remove.” For years I thought that this was some dumb redneck thing until I met another former DCR employee back home who told me the same story.
op00to 17 days ago [-]
I dunno, the image of some beaver watching a guy in green and brown blow up its hard work with dynamite is pretty damned funny. His little face all surprised and angry.
buildsjets 17 days ago [-]
I read a book a while back about the founder of San Juan Airlines, a local commuter airline, in the Puget Sound area. There was an entire chapter that described the process of the founder clearing the Friday Harbor runway on San Juan island of trees, mostly working alone, using TNT and heavy equipment.
Or you can use stump remover (Potassium nitrate) which allows to use fire to destroy them safely.
linsomniac 17 days ago [-]
AKA Saltpeter. I've heard that you can just dig the stump out after a few months, in addition to using fire. I bought some to remove a stump a few years ago, but when I went to drill the stump I found it had already rotted enough that I didn't need it. This was a small, maybe 10" diameter, stump that had sat for a couple years.
Going to see how well it works soon though; a few weeks ago had a ~2ft diameter stump left when my 65ft spruce snapped in a wind storm. Turns out about halfway up it had branched off into two trunks, and that junction was rotting, the wind storm caused that junction to snap half way up. In looking, my neighbor has a tree with the same dual-trunk situation, though hers is more likely to land on her house.
lazide 17 days ago [-]
It doesn’t work very well, and it can cause underground fires which pop up a year+ later.
littlestymaar 17 days ago [-]
It works well enough to be the only legal way of dealing with them in most of EU, and the consequences of mishandling are no doubt more severe with high explosive than simply “can cause underground fire”.
nullc 17 days ago [-]
"Works well" may also depend on the species and sizes of the trees in an area as well as the soil composition.
lazide 17 days ago [-]
Uh, the EU has plenty of bans of very useful things. I know of at least one 500+ acre wildfire in California that was caused by burning roots.
As to how much it matters or not? No clue.
littlestymaar 17 days ago [-]
> Uh, the EU has plenty of bans of very useful things.
Yeah, like AR-15 and high explosives, surprisingly violent death rate is much lower here…
lazide 17 days ago [-]
And a whole slew of common chemicals used in harmless synthesis, and in many countries even things like common knives.
littlestymaar 17 days ago [-]
> And a whole slew of common chemicals used in harmless synthesis
The US also regulate chemicals, and knives are free to sell everywhere, it's just forbidden to be carried in public.
chopin 17 days ago [-]
You can buy this knife, but you can't carry it home.
Many things which were common in my youth are vanishing forever.
littlestymaar 16 days ago [-]
> You can buy this knife, but you can't carry it home.
How can otherwise reasonable people come to believe nonsense like this just because it fits their worldviews will always remain a mystery for me.
lazide 16 days ago [-]
Not in the EU anymore, but this was a consistent issue in the UK - at least in London with kitchen knives.
orf 16 days ago [-]
Of course you can carry it home…
solidsnack9000 17 days ago [-]
Like speech, equity compensation...
AR-15s are actually not banned in many parts of the EU.
tonetegeatinst 17 days ago [-]
Iv got a photo from an unnamed image board.
The dude showed of this EU compliant collection.
Multiple pistols and rifles, and what some state would classify as weapons of war, an SBR, or a assault weapon.
All obtained legally via permits and a local cop signing off on the paperwork.
solidsnack9000 16 days ago [-]
Yeah, they have a different system. In broad outline, there are classes of weapons (generally four -- classes A, B, C and D -- with subclasses within them) and then courses and certificates required for each class of weapon. For example, an AR-15 might be class C2 -- so it does requires a lot of course work -- but usually it's not banned.
It's actually interesting to met that, in the American discourse, we never discourse an EU-style classification system. Whenever people in the US propose new gun regulation, it always a maximalist approach -- banning the AR-15 completely.
lazide 16 days ago [-]
Not true - various states have banned (and currently do ban) all sorts of variants/classifications, the Fed gov’t has several classifications, etc.
solidsnack9000 16 days ago [-]
I'm not aware of any US states that have a graded A, B, C, D system with courses and qualifications -- instead, they just ban everything that might be in a European B or C classification. This is how the old federal AWB worked, as well -- it didn't say, you can purchase an AR-15 if you take certain classes, it said you just can't buy it at all.
The European system, broadly speaking, is not like that.
There are federal classes for dealers and manufacturers -- manufacturers of silencers, of automatic weapons, of missiles and rockets, &c, and dealers of these articles -- but that also is not like the European classification system I am talking about, which is for end users.
The NFA, which does apply special regulation to silencers, short-barreled rifles and some other items, which allows them to be owned by end users, and that is kind of similar but there is a real difference: you file for a tax stamp and wait for a background check to complete, without having to worry about taking a particular course and getting a certain grade.
littlestymaar 17 days ago [-]
> Like speech
Speech, in both the EU and the US is free under the limits set by law, the US isn't an “absolute free speech land”, you will definitely be jailed for speech that goes against the law (for instance death threats, see [1]).
> equity compensation...
What are you talking about, I've been given equity more than once…
...sure, maybe don't use this technique if you live on top of a large amount of abandoned coal mines.
hombre_fatal 17 days ago [-]
[flagged]
giantg2 17 days ago [-]
"High explosives are basically legal in the US"
The compounds generally are. The applicable use is where the laws come into play. Things like pipe bombs, devices marked "lethal", etc are not legal without special permits and would be deemed destructive devices.
boomboomsubban 17 days ago [-]
There are laws barring explosives, see https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/842, and the one mentioned in the article is listed as having no known use with at least some evidence of others being charged with having it.
Maybe the charge would get thrown out at some point, but not including it in the indictment seems odd.
lazide 17 days ago [-]
Those laws don’t actually bar explosives at all, and there are numerous carve outs that could potentially meet what the poster is describing. You might want to read it?
Though it would be helpful to know which state, because I don’t know of any that are quite that easy to deal with.
BATF to my knowledge does still require a license (albeit easy to get if you meet the requirements) for commercial use, anyway.
boomboomsubban 17 days ago [-]
>It shall be unlawful for any person to engage in the business of importing, manufacturing, or dealing in explosive materials without a license issued under this chapter
Seems fairly clear cut. You could argue the term "business" means they need to be selling the stuff, but the definitions clarify "manufacturing" includes for personal use.
edit it never occurred to me he may be licensed. Still, this particular explosive seems to have no approved use, and the licensing seems to be for specific explosives. I may be wrong on that though.
And it's Virginia, the Isle of Wight is a county in Virginia.
lazide 17 days ago [-]
Purchasing, and using are still fine (when non-commercial).
The dealer would be the one with the license.
Also, manufacturing and using on site for non-commercial purposes is exempted (albeit not explicitly). Which is why tannerite and personal explosives research is fine and widespread.
tonetegeatinst 17 days ago [-]
Can I see a link to the exemption for non commercial use?
While I get some things are exempt like tannerite, I find it highly unlikely someone could just manufacture TNT or rdx and use it in their back yard without breaking a ton of laws.
Even if you used it within the 24 hour requirement so it didn't have to be stored(iirc from my memory of old legal readings)
lazide 16 days ago [-]
It depends on state laws, but there are a LOT of folks doing it on youtube - zero prosecutions i’m aware of. [https://www.atf.gov/explosives/binary-explosives], halfway through the ‘License and or permit requirements’. It’s not actually specific to binary explosives, but those are the ones where it most clearly applies to random members of the public.
Specifically, “Persons manufacturing explosives for their own personal, non-business use only (e.g., personal target practice) are not required to have a federal explosives license or permit under 27 CFR, Part 555”
The issue is the law is clearly written to regulate commercial activites, and the fed gov’t (at least in theory) only has jurisdiction over commercial activities (those involving trade). There is a lot of court precedent on this, some of it confusing. So while the law doesn’t explicitly exempt personal, non-business use, the courts (and constitution), and the law, doesn’t cover personal, non-business use either. So, legal.
also, there is zero chance they could stop it.
solidsnack9000 17 days ago [-]
Where does it clarify that manufacturing includes personal use? I did read it over a couple of times and I couldn't find anything that says that, at least not in those words.
However, it may be that the suspect violated a different section of the law:
It shall be unlawful for any person to store any explosive material in a manner not in conformity with regulations promulgated by the Attorney General.
The suspect may also have violated the NFA, by manufacturing destructive devices without appropriate permitting or record keeping.
boomboomsubban 17 days ago [-]
>Where does it clarify that manufacturing includes personal use?
You may be referring to (h), but that is the definition of "manufacturer".
I'm not sure if we can take that to mean "engaged in the business of manufacturing" includes non-commercial activity.
lazide 16 days ago [-]
you are correct, I pasted a link to the ATF saying so in a parallel comment.
it’s not explicitly called out in the law, like you’re noting. rather that personal, non-commercial use just isn’t covered by the law. So legal/exempt.
Other situations, like non-personal, non-commercial use are covered - distribution requires licensing even if not paid, same as import/export, doing business in explosives, etc.
Where some YouTubers and the like have gotten in trouble is when they start making money off what would otherwise be personal use (like showing videos of tannerite usage, or some other synthesis), but funny enough if they get demonitized and aren’t using it for some business purpose, they’re fine.
Hnrobert42 17 days ago [-]
[flagged]
lazide 17 days ago [-]
My comment did not refer to the article at all. It was if they had read the link to the law they pasted. Which near as I can tell they hadn’t, because the content of the law is the opposite of what they are asserting it is.
Feel free to check the law yourself if you’d like.
brookst 17 days ago [-]
Not sure about this kind of case, but for more garden variety crimes it is common for the first charges to be slam-dunk, with tons of evidence and a clear path to conviction.
Then, during the pre-trial phase, a superseding indictment can be added as more evidence is gathered and a stronger case is put together.
This happened with Paul Manafort, who was first indicted for “conspiracy against the United States”, but then the superseding indictment included all sorts of tax and bank fraud.
krior 17 days ago [-]
I honestly don't know - what are some common applications of explosive material for private persons?
chiph 17 days ago [-]
For a farmer or other rural resident - getting rid of tree stumps or large boulders. No one in a suburb or city truly needs explosives.
Note that it's not totally unregulated. If you are only an occasional user, you get a permit from the ATF for $25. Plus whatever your state/county wants.
Another application is removal of large rocks, or excavation in places where the bedrock is close to the surface. I recall seeing this done in Ridgefield, Connecticut some decades ago. The excavation was right next to a building and a mat was used to contain fragments.
abakker 17 days ago [-]
Haha, as I read your comment I was thinking “yeah, like back in CT.” I saw this done in ridgefield as well. My friends property was basically all bedrock about 1’ under the topsoil.
pfdietz 17 days ago [-]
It was at the Schlumberger-Doll Research Center (which Schlumberger since moved to Cambridge, MA in 2007).
infecto 17 days ago [-]
Stump removal for one. I would wager this is one of those things where the further outside of the city you get the more common it’s use would be.
zikduruqe 17 days ago [-]
Blowing up beaver dams that are flooding your farm land.
krior 17 days ago [-]
Maybe I am naive, but is the ability to remove stumps without specialists really worth the risk of random inexperienced/careless people buying dangerous explosives?
infecto 17 days ago [-]
To be frank I don’t have much of an opinion on either side. Just sharing how it’s used. I have heard of very few issues with people buying these historically and most/all of these require putting your name on a list.
I suspect a far greater many are injured from fireworks.
Loughla 17 days ago [-]
We use machinery for that now. It isn't 1823 anymore.
infecto 17 days ago [-]
I am not advocating for anything but sharing how it’s used. The why would be a lot of people don’t have access to stump grinders and they can be awfully slow if you have a lot to take care of. They also are more expensive to rent and especially to buy. You don’t seem to have experience in the area but if you are taking care of multiple acres and need to knock out a number of stumps, machinery is pretty inefficient. It’s also difficult to move around if we are talking multi acre properties and not a residential less than acre lot.
Get out of here with your ridiculous 1823 hyperbole. These explosive can be very efficient and useful when managing multiple acres.
Loughla 17 days ago [-]
I have either full time or part time row cropped and livestock farmed for the last 40 years. The last time anyone anywhere even remotely close to me used explosives was to bust a levee.
If you're clearing multiple acres you use a track hoe and a large bulldozer. Source: the 60 acres of grown up crp we finished clearing last month.
I know the Internet wants you to think that rural life is all guns and explosions, but that's sometimes not the case. Why do you think every small town has multiple excavator companies?
potato3732842 16 days ago [-]
>I have either full time or part time row cropped and livestock farmed for the last 40 years. The last time anyone anywhere even remotely close to me used explosives was to bust a levee.
Because the law is such an expensive PITA to comply with that nobody does it. People blew up rocks and stumps all the time before the mid 1970s.
infecto 16 days ago [-]
I am sure you have but in the parts of the country I have lived in it’s been a fairly common tool used when clearing forested back country. Not talking so much farming. I don’t know where your snark comes from but it still has a place for some use cases. Sorry to disappoint your imagination. Certainly if you are whole clearing 60 acres machines are helpful. If you are cleaning up some spots here and there on a multi acre property it can be quite useful. So much snark from you for no reason.
Different experiences for different folks.
potato3732842 16 days ago [-]
Machinery is a complete joke compared to explosives unless you're operating right up near stuff you care about.
About once a week I get pissed off that I'm on Craigslist looking for expensive tractors and expensive attachments instead of just a drill bit and explosives all because some leftists blew up some bathrooms in the 1970s and the 1970s equivalent of people like you wrung their hands over it.
Source: Clearing acreage the hard way in my spare time
harimau777 17 days ago [-]
At one point it was pretty common for farmer's guidebooks to include recipes for explosives that could be used to clear land (e.g. boulders).
It's fairly common for tannerite to be used for target shooting.
Gunpowder is commonly available for reloading.
I doubt this is common and should probably be illegal if it isn't already because it's horrible for the environment. However, blast fishing is apparently actually a thing! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blast_fishing
jandrewrogers 17 days ago [-]
Mostly agriculture, mining, and (re-)moving rock.
strathmeyer 17 days ago [-]
US government started tracking explosives sales in the 70s which is why such terror incidents drastically dropped at that time. Misuse is rare because of government regulation.
ty6853 17 days ago [-]
Tannerite, black powder and some explosives can be legally bought and owned cash and carry. It's quite likely no law was broken and all they found was a questionable pistol brace on a short lower.
Remember FPSRussia went down for paint on a serial number and a few vape pens but the arrest bulletin made him sound like a madman.
loamaa 17 days ago [-]
I was interested, so went and checked out the filing for this [1], it looks like he only got hit with the possession with intent to distribute, with the other 3 charges (including 'possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number') being dismissed.
You're both right, but your comment is confusing the issue. You're linking to the relevant case for TFA, whereas parent is linking to the relevant case for this thread regarding FPSRussia.
He took a plea deal, might have beaten the charges at trial, but the consequences of losing were way too high for him, can’t really blame him.
throwup238 17 days ago [-]
Marijuana and honey oil. He watched too much Trailer Park Boys and got caught.
throwaway173738 17 days ago [-]
He must’ve forgot to mix it with maple syrup.
sgarland 17 days ago [-]
It remains bewildering to me that tannerite is legal to purchase in large quantities without question. I shot 1 lb. of it once with a Mosin-Nagant, and that was enough to rattle the house a few hundred yards away. There are people who have set off charges orders of magnitude more than that, which apparently can be felt MILES away.
It’s an explosive, full stop. I have no problem with the premade targets that have a small amount, but honestly, the larger quantities should require at a minimum a background check.
bravetraveler 17 days ago [-]
I know little about this... but small amounts could still pose an issue. See: mules, Pseudoephedrine
lazide 17 days ago [-]
look up TATP. you aren’t going to be able to ban those ingredients either.
mschuster91 17 days ago [-]
Germany manages to do so just fine. It's virtually impossible to obtain hydrogen peroxide in enough high concentration and volume to produce significant amounts of TATP without setting off more than a few alerts.
Almost all popular precursor chemicals for drugs and explosives are heavily controlled in Europe.
jandrewrogers 16 days ago [-]
They do the same in the US but it just makes the synthesis a bit more complicated. Friction may be the point. Plenty of people synthesize the precursors. It is precursors all the way down, each one more ubiquitous and innocuous than the previous. Bootstrapping chemistry is 19th century technology.
giantg2 17 days ago [-]
What's the concentration cutoff at?
lazide 17 days ago [-]
Frankly, you can make it with 3%. It just takes longer.
giantg2 17 days ago [-]
I mean the legal limit in Germany.
lazide 16 days ago [-]
Near as I can tell, there is no explicit legal limit in Germany. Like the US it’s a kind of ‘soft’ limit, and is about 12%. If someone can find where it’s codified in law, I’d appreciate it.
mschuster91 16 days ago [-]
It's EU law, 12% hydrogen peroxide is the highest you can get in EU without being cleared to do so (say by showing government authorization, proof of end use, proof of academic education or certifications, ...) [1].
Pretty sure I can buy 30% or more from a lab supplier in the US. I can buy gallons of the 3% stuff with no issue too. The 12% stuff is usually in hair products, which I think has stabilizers or other additives in it. I use peroxide for European style mounts which is why I need so much of it. I decided 3% works fine and is way more economical than the powerful stuff even if it takes longer.
lazide 16 days ago [-]
Well, you can buy pretty much anything from a lab supplier if you’re the right type of customer.
tonetegeatinst 17 days ago [-]
Wouldn't this just encourage another killdoser situation without the guns? Just the armor?
I mean if someone wants to cause mass causulty and terror its going to happen, be it a gun or a knife or explosive. Hell I'd argue cyber attacks could also do the same.
mschuster91 15 days ago [-]
> I mean if someone wants to cause mass causulty and terror its going to happen, be it a gun or a knife or explosive.
Sure, the general idea though is to raise the barrier - both to make it more difficult to get the weapon in question and to have better chances of red flags popping up somewhere along the chain.
Same for gun background checks outside of the US, for requiring CDLs to rent trucks capable of plowing through assemblies of people, or for requiring at least a CPL if not an ATPL to pilot a plane capable of dealing a large amount of damage.
The higher the damage potential in the hands of someone abusing a thing for terrorism, the higher the barriers to entry should be.
rickandmortyy 16 days ago [-]
[dead]
jabroni_salad 17 days ago [-]
Easiest way to arrest somebody with a built up home is to just wait for them to leave. This guy had a day job.
giantg2 17 days ago [-]
BAFTE may have finally learned that after their extensive history of ignoring location, such as Ruby Ridge, then Waco, etc...
fullspectrumdev 17 days ago [-]
Because the turret thing was probably a drunken shitpost/joke he made to the informant that he thought was his friend much like the “claymore roomba” or “tannerite dog” meme.
ganoushoreilly 17 days ago [-]
If you look at a lot of their evidence it's a bunch of memes, if it goes to trial it'll be an interesting case to read for sure.
m0llusk 17 days ago [-]
Prosecution of cases like this can be extremely complex. Most likely the gun charge was an easy first step to get the process going. Other charges will be waiting on analysis of exactly what was going on and what materials have been found and taken. With this much it takes a while to be fully sure of the inventory.
sandworm101 17 days ago [-]
>> how did they nab him without incident?
Because the vast majority of these guys are all talk. For every Ted Kaczynski there are a thousand Dale Dribbles: backyard tinkerers who give up all notion of resistance when the cops actually show up. The cops cannot tell the difference and so must treat them all as potential Teds. Once safely in custody, the Dales will quietly plead guilty to vastly reduced charges.
vasco 17 days ago [-]
Kaczynski was arrested peacefully as far as I can find.
giantg2 17 days ago [-]
That's because they surprised him. I'm pretty sure they had to yank him out of the cabin after he realized what was going on and started to close the door.
sandworm101 17 days ago [-]
Yes but Ted clearly demonstrated a willingness to kill. If he had seen them comming, who knows what he might have done.
mathgeek 17 days ago [-]
The difference being the act of using the explosives, not resisting arrest.
mcnamaratw 17 days ago [-]
Dale Gribble
potato3732842 16 days ago [-]
Eh, enough of those guys will go down shooting that I wouldn't want to sign up for kicking in the doors. They know it's either jail for life or death.
The difference is that the Dale Gribbles don't go out of their way to harm anyone whereas the uncle Teds do.
cootsnuck 16 days ago [-]
*Dale Gribble
45645g54g54 17 days ago [-]
People like this are a dime a dozen. They are the "If the government tries and comes to takes ma guns 'way im gon...." type. Most of the time they are entirely harmless and it is all action fantasy. FBI keeps track of these types (they are loud) and they keep track of the inventory too. This guy isn't ever going to go on a rampage, and when the FBI knocks he will always roll over and comply. It only turns into a Waco when you accumulate a following of sorts.
praptak 17 days ago [-]
> It only turns into a Waco when you accumulate a following of sorts.
You don't need a Waco for many people to die a violent death.
It did say he was supposedly "considering" doing that, not that he actually did it.
billsmithaustin 16 days ago [-]
He probably started out wanting to make just one pipe bomb but you know how it is, you get a great discount if you buy the ingredients in bulk. So he made his pipe bomb and then he had all these leftover ingredients just taking up space in his closet. And so he went ahead and made another 149 pipe bombs.
smallmancontrov 16 days ago [-]
Could be, or maybe they had a really good discount at the pipe bomb store and he'd basically be losing money if he didn't buy at least 150 pipe bombs.
fasa99 16 days ago [-]
“We had two barrels of fertilizer, seventy-five pellets of gunpowder, five sheets of high powered C4, a salt shaker half full of nitro, and a whole galaxy of 50 cals, buckshot, slugs, tracers... and also a quart of kerosene, a quart of diesel, a case of grenades, a kilo of raw uranium and two dozen rockets.
Not that we needed all that for self defense, but once you get locked into a serious explosives collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can.”
-Osama Bin Laden
deactivatedexp 16 days ago [-]
[dead]
ty6853 17 days ago [-]
Right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. You could own cannons and warships when 2a was passed.
The real criminal in this case is feds depriving fundamental civil rights under color of law. The failure to register short barrel rifle pretext in particular is based on faulty precedent that military did not use short barrel arms thus the NFA stamp was 'constitutional'. ( then, lol, gov obliviously sold a bunch of surplus rifles to public breaking this same law on accident which is why rifles have lower limit now than shotguns).
neilv 17 days ago [-]
> The real criminal in this case is feds depriving fundamental civil rights under color of law.
The allegation is that this person made a veritable arsenal of pipe bombs and other explosives, with plausible domestic terrorism intent or inclinations.
The Second Amendment technicality you mention might come up in a legal defense, but I don't understand fixating on that as "the real criminal" here -- on a story of securing a very dangerous-sounding cache of pipe bombs, mishandled explosive material, etc.
ty6853 17 days ago [-]
The actual charge here is a tax violation (failure to buy a stamp for a short barrel rifle). Not paying $200 in NFA taxes.
The precedent is based on a lie the gov itself accidently violated during surplus sales to the public. The precedent exists because the Supreme Court took up a case against a dead guy with no representation, as a poison pill. The state argued the military didn't use short barrel arms, which was a lie. No defense was there to contest it, and this it is now binding on total fiction.
Of course the most hilarious part is 'short barrel' anything was just a measure to ban pistols, which congress changed their mind on last minute and allowed pistols while forgetting to nix the law on creating pistols from long arms. This guy is charged for essentially violating a historical vestigial accident upheld by bogus precedent against an undefended dead guy.
neilv 17 days ago [-]
There could be an interesting meta discussion here, of the kind that doesn't usually happen recently.
IIUC, you're focusing on that 2A aspect because it's a topic that you know and care about, and think needs to be mentioned?
And the other aspects of the story were already being discussed, and you had nothing to add on those?
If so, did you say "the real criminal" only as a figure of speech? Or do you think that nothing about the pipe bombs, etc., was criminal?
snypher 17 days ago [-]
Just to be clear, he was charged with a single firearms offense, and is presumed innocent of that. If other charges appear then they should be discussed.
>do you think that nothing about the pipe bombs, etc., was criminal?
Seems like the FBI don't, for now. Just like when someone is reported as having "an encrypted messing app" - fear mongering nonsense.
neilv 17 days ago [-]
> If other charges appear then they should be discussed.
The HN post is on the news story. The news story is not a trial, and is about more than whatever charges are filed against anyone thus far. Other aspects of the story are already in active discussion.
I'm trying to get at more substantial discussion than on Twitter, by understanding why someone was speaking the way they were, by asking them.
> Seems like the FBI don't, for now.
Does it actually seem like that, or does it seem like probably the FBI expects that there will probably be additional charges?
simoncion 17 days ago [-]
> I'm trying to get at more substantial discussion than on Twitter, by understanding why someone was speaking the way they were, by asking them.
You said:
> The allegation is that this person made a veritable arsenal of pipe bombs and other explosives, with plausible domestic terrorism intent or inclinations.
> The Second Amendment technicality you mention might come up in a legal defense, but I don't understand fixating on that as "the real criminal" here -- on a story of securing a very dangerous-sounding cache of pipe bombs, mishandled explosive material, etc.
Your slant there is that this fellow's possession of explosives was illegal... or maybe SHOULD have been.
If it was even vaguely-plausibly illegal, the fellow would have been charged. The cops searched his entire place and detonated some of his explosives, so it's not like the cops were unaware of the explosives. As mentioned in this thread [0] (and accompanying subthread), he's just being charged with a tax violation (and is currently out on bail) probably because possession of high explosives is usually entirely legal in the US.
Frankly, it should be illegal for police and other similar government agents to engage in character assassination. Statements from government agents like "This fellow was in possession of large-but-entirely-legal quantities of entirely-legal substances and materials. Be very afraid!" should absolutely leave the speaker personally liable for something akin to libel.
Nah, they’re holding him on the super easy to prove felony while they see if they can nail him on a bunch of other things.
giantg2 17 days ago [-]
They aren't really holding him. He's out on bail, right?
lazide 17 days ago [-]
Despite everything they’ve been saying (this was all in the court filings to try to deny him bail), he did still end up getting released on bond.
So it wasn’t enough. or the evidence they provided wasn’t credible.
ganoushoreilly 17 days ago [-]
Which should also be a red flag, if this individual was a credible threat they wouldn't have granted bail.
I can't even imagine the headlines that some of my neighbors would have "Man with Arsenal and stockpile of thousands of rounds of ammunition" presented in a slant. Meanwhile he had a few buckets of 22lr, and a half dozen rifles.
Given the evidence we've seen, the memes, and what would clearly pass as joking, there isn't really any "Here's my plan for x date" type smoking gun.
17 days ago [-]
bdangubic 17 days ago [-]
[flagged]
sleepybrett 17 days ago [-]
let me introduce you to the 'superseding indictment'. They charged him with the easiest thing. They'll follow it up later.
ty6853 17 days ago [-]
Illegal explosives are also usually NFA tax violations, fwiw.
ungreased0675 17 days ago [-]
The domestic terror intent seems like a real stretch. Guns, grenades and explosives are legal, if you do the right paperwork. This guy is being charged with not doing the right paperwork, with a bunch of inflammatory right-wing memes stacked on top.
ganoushoreilly 17 days ago [-]
Right, you could find memes from just about anyone and paint an extremist picture with the right context left in or out at your discretion.
I think that it's clear this wasn't the "credible" threat implied, simply by his bail.
wat10000 17 days ago [-]
I don’t think I’ve encountered anyone who thinks there should be a right to privately own nuclear weapons. Basically everybody agrees there should be limits on the Second Amendment, the only real disagreement is where.
solidsnack9000 17 days ago [-]
This is not really an interesting line of discussion because all the relevant regulations regarding classified information, materials handling, and industrial safety would be enough to effectively prohibit possession of nuclear arms, without any reference to arms at all. I'm not sure we even have any laws explicitly prohibiting possession of nuclear weapons -- most of the material I've found so far on the subject in the CFR is about "special nuclear materials".
Most of the interesting policy area regarding the right to bear arms is actually in bearable arms -- small arms and light weapons. Although it is legal to own a tank, for example, this is not of much practical impact.
magic_smoke_ee 17 days ago [-]
Yeah. I don't think even Brandon Herrera would advocate for privately-owned WMDs.
Perhaps the initial and continual suitable personal stability and trustworthiness for owning different categories of mass-casualty-capable weapons should be sensibility and increasingly regulated appropriately. Honestly, I think there should be a limited number of gun clubs that require continual vouching/sponsorship to retain access to certain categories of weapons. Letting randos amass 100 AKs with bumpstocks just seems insane.
ty6853 17 days ago [-]
You can amend the constitution to allow infringing on nuclear arms. Not super difficult if everyone agrees. Elon Musk has far worse than these explosives just by deorbiting at the appropriately scary trajectory.
sgarland 17 days ago [-]
There isn’t a chance in hell we’d get enough states to agree to modify 2A in any way, shape, or form. The amendment could explicitly say, “no private citizen may own or otherwise have in their personal possession nuclear weapons with a yield >= 1 kT,” and red states would still loudly complain that it was a slippery slope to banning personal firearm possession.
Jefferson was right when he said the Constitution should be rewritten once per generation.
wat10000 17 days ago [-]
If you think anything Elon Musk has would even come close to holding a candle to a W88, you’re out of your mind.
throwaway173738 17 days ago [-]
He could just put a bunch of metal rods in space and then drop them on his enemies, Bond-villain style. I’m not totally convinced he would though.
CalRobert 17 days ago [-]
IIRC this is basically the premise behind The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. I guess that makes it Heinlein-revolutionary style?
Aloisius 17 days ago [-]
It still wouldn't be remotely close to the power of any of our nuclear weapons.
Aloisius 17 days ago [-]
The Constitution also says the courts interpret the law and the Supreme Court has interpreted it to mean there are limits.
You can amend the Constitution to forbid the Supreme Court from interpreting it to allow for unhindered access to weapons of mass destruction. Not super difficult if everyone agrees.
Moreover, Elon Musk can not launch anything with enough mass to come remotely close to the yield on even a small nuclear weapon. Kinetic bombardment of say, a 200 Mg tungsten rod from orbit, impacting Earth, would have a yield equivalent to only ~350 tons of TNT.
eadmund 17 days ago [-]
> The Constitution also says the courts interpret the law
Which clause?
If you read it, I think that you’ll be surprised to find that it doesn’t actually state anything about interpretation. It was in Marbury v. Madison that the Supreme Court invented the doctrine of judicial review.
I actually agree that the power of interpretation is implied by having a judicial power at all, but it’s not in the black and white text.
solidsnack9000 17 days ago [-]
The courts can not apply the law without interpreting the law. There is just no way to do without it.
tsimionescu 17 days ago [-]
> Elon Musk can not launch anything with enough mass to come remotely close to the yield on even a small nuclear weapon.
To be fair to the Second Amdendment supremacist, he only compared the sattelite deorbit with the explosive arsenal of the wacko the FBI arrested, not tot nuclear weapons.
ty6853 17 days ago [-]
[flagged]
llamaimperative 17 days ago [-]
> courts that routinely violate rights
You should do a deeper reading of the Constitution and the role the courts play. I think you’re quite confused.
ty6853 17 days ago [-]
You seem confused. The founders believed right to keep and bear arms is god given and recognized this in the constitution as a backstop against tyranny of the courts or any branch of government. They did not anticipate the courts decision to necessarily be final or correct.
llamaimperative 17 days ago [-]
They did anticipate (and in fact mandated) courts to interpret the Constitution, which they did and they do. I didn't claim the courts' decisions are necessarily "final or correct."
I'm saying if you believe that courts are routinely violating rights then you don't know how rights are derived in this country.
hiatus 17 days ago [-]
> They did anticipate (and in fact mandated) courts to interpret the Constitution
FWIW judicial review was not a mandate in the constitution but was something the court decided it could do with Marbury v Madison.
Good point, "mandated" is probably overdoing it, though in practice to judge a case necessitates an interpretation of the relevant law.
Judicial review was officially challenged and affirmed in Marbury v Madison. That wasn't where it was "decided" they could do it. As the article you just posted (and a basic understanding of western judicial tradition) clearly explains, judicial review in America predates not just Marbury v Madison, but the Constitution itself.
The Marbury decision itself is predicated on the prior point: it is literally not possible to have a judiciary that doesn't interpret the laws themselves.
solidsnack9000 17 days ago [-]
I think that is really what it comes down to: courts can't do anything if they can't interpret the law.
The scope and extent of that interpretation should be fairly limited -- the tendency of the common law system to accumulate "judge made law" can lead to inconsistencies (and certainly has, with regards to the 2nd Amendment) -- but how could law ever be so thorough and systematic as to obviate the need for such interpretation entirely?
ty6853 17 days ago [-]
Founders didn't believe rights were derived from the courts or any part of government.
llamaimperative 17 days ago [-]
Philosophically sure, but note the rather elaborate system they created to encode that philosophical view into reality. They clearly did not think that God would do the heavy lifting. That's what we're talking about here.
wat10000 17 days ago [-]
You’re completely missing the point of the nuclear weapons here.
Their purpose in this argument is to show that the principled stand is a lie. It’s not about belief in a god-given right to bear arms without restrictions. Basically everyone on all sides of the argument believes there should be restrictions. The disagreement is just about what those restrictions should be. Some people who want looser restrictions pretend, maybe even believe, that their position is a principled, absolutist one. But it isn’t, any more than “ban all guns except single-shot pistols” is.
solidsnack9000 17 days ago [-]
What if the reason people can't own nuclear weapons has nothing to do with them as weapons?
The debate people have about 2A and nukes is usually pretty low resolution: I don't ever see any references to the CFR but there's plenty of stuff (in Title 10, I believe) that restricts nuclear materials for any purpose whatever.
jasomill 16 days ago [-]
I say sure, let private citizens own nuclear weapons, provided they comply with all pertinent laws, regulations, and treaty obligations, and are willing to foot the bill for all construction, maintenance, handling, and compliance costs.
In other words, all other things being equal, if wealthy private citizens want to fund the Departments of Energy and Defense over and above their tax obligations, who am I to complain?
It's not like the DoE doesn't already employ private contractors in a wide variety of nuclear security roles[1].
They don't want to draw a line because that's hard so they eliminate the line and we end up with ridiculous logic like the right to bear nuclear weapons.
magic_smoke_ee 17 days ago [-]
There exist private ownership of artillery field pieces and Bofors L/60 40 mm autocannon in America. The thing though is that any sort of exploding shell requires a DD NFA tax stamp for each.
giantg2 17 days ago [-]
"The real criminal in this case is feds depriving fundamental civil rights under color of law."
Which part is this?
bediger4000 17 days ago [-]
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, ....
magic_smoke_ee 17 days ago [-]
[flagged]
solidsnack9000 17 days ago [-]
What makes you say that? How do you think militia worked?
It was a system based fundamentally on privately owned arms and ammunition; the point of the 2nd Amendment was to protect the militia by protecting the armed citizenry.
DFHippie 16 days ago [-]
I think you're overlooking the word "explicitly".
solidsnack9000 16 days ago [-]
"...the right of the people to keep and bear arms..."
This is, pretty plainly, a right of people and not of governments, &c, &c. Some people say that, well, there is the militia clause, to try to support a reading where "the people" refers to their states or communities; but they rely on an incorrect understanding of the way militia worked to support that. Militia is not a synonym for army or gendarmerie.
magic_smoke_ee 16 days ago [-]
There's still ambiguity there that doesn't specify private persons individually, because it appears to read as "the people" collectively as part of a regulated militia, not as private persons. The 2a wasn't written explicitly enough, but it's kind of moot at this point because the interpretation and convention equates to largely unhindered private ownership of all but automatic, compact, and/or explosive weapons of war that can also be privately-owned in some jurisdictions with additional costs and hurdles.
solidsnack9000 16 days ago [-]
...because it appears to read as "the people" collectively as part of a regulated militia...
I'm not sure why anybody thinks a reading like that is plausible. I guess if you think of "militia" as a synonym for "army", it makes sense; but that's not how militia actually worked. If the 2nd Amendment had only been intended to protect a public or collective right to bear arms, it would have protected almost nothing and would not have prevented the militia from being disarmed.
There is a lot to say here but, in a nut shell, there was an obligation to be armed if one was in a militia, but there was no obligation to be in a militia if one was armed. There was no permit to purchase system or anything like that: the militia relied on ubiquitous availability of arms and ammunition in the private market. Although there were some town armories and magazines, this is not where the majority of service weapons were located -- the majority were in people's homes, as private property (property which they bought with their own money, retained when they aged out of service, and passed down in their estates).
This was a long standing institution in English society, having its roots in the 1181 Assize of Arms. I mean, it's not impossible that the founders were not thinking about this when they wrote the amendment; but it doesn't seem very plausible. If we consider how the militia actually worked, the militia aspect of the amendment and the private right aspect are aligned with each other.
Hnrobert42 17 days ago [-]
Yes. How dare the government of today decide to regulate firearms when the government of 250 years ago already did?!
/s
15155 17 days ago [-]
You're welcome to amend the Constitution and there's a prescribed process for doing so.
Hnrobert42 17 days ago [-]
The current interpretation of the second amendment is the issue. It has been completely severed from the "A well regulated militia" clause.
solidsnack9000 17 days ago [-]
It's interesting to me that people who make a big deal about that clause don't ever seem to know much about how the militia system actually worked. It was based fundamentally on arms and ammunition that were privately owned, widespread and extremely ubiquitous in society.
giantg2 17 days ago [-]
Even if that clause was tied to it, how would that affect things given US Title 10 ss 246? I've always wondered if they would enforce those restrictions - disarming disabled people, disarming people over 45, and disarming most women (not in the national guard). Likewise, would that mean I'm then able to own the same weapons individually that the organized militia uses for their duties? It makes for an interesting thought experiment.
adolph 17 days ago [-]
Was there some previous interpretation that was utopian?
15155 15 days ago [-]
Even Ruth Bader Ginsburg didn't make this tired, poorly-designed argument: the prefatory clause isn't a limitation, merely a justification. The jurisprudence surrounding the "militia" prefatory clause is long-since settled.
Even if you do the mental gymnastics to rework the English language to make this mean what you want it to mean, the militia is composed of all able-bodied men between 17-45 per 10 U.S. Code § 246.
At the time of this country's founding, private individuals owned cannonry, ships, and ordnance far beyond small arms.
What purpose would letters of marque and reprisal serve without weapons?
m2f2 17 days ago [-]
How about building some government you trust, check on their actions, ousting madmen from politics, and strictly regulate this 2a nonsense once for all?
Unless, of course, you really trust Trump less than any random wacko....
15155 15 days ago [-]
> strictly regulate this 2a nonsense once for all
Best of luck getting 34/50 state legislatures to agree!
jiggawatts 16 days ago [-]
Right wing 2A nuts immediately called the guy who tried to “stop a tyrant” by exercising his rights to bear arms against Trump a “Democrat terrorist”. If he hadn’t been fatally shot, they would have demanded he be executed.
There is no consistent logic here to debate.
15155 15 days ago [-]
Where does the right to keep and bear arms become the right to kill?
This is a meaningless non-sequitur, not the "logic" you think it is.
bdangubic 16 days ago [-]
you said 2A nuts and logic in the same sentence… :)
ty6853 16 days ago [-]
Trump is an 80s dem at best. Right wing 2A nuts generally consider Trump a tyrant exemplified by 'take the guns first and due process later' and banning bump stocks.
Trump won the hard right nuts votes merely by being seen as slightly not as bad on core issues as the other main candidate.
whoitwas 17 days ago [-]
[flagged]
lordofgibbons 17 days ago [-]
> The filing also references Spafford’s belief in “no lives matter,” an apparent nod to a far-right ideology that primarily coordinates through encrypted apps.
That's a scary sentence. I fear this might be used to mandate backdoors into encrypted apps.
asveikau 17 days ago [-]
To me the scariest part of that sentence is that multiple people would subscribe to a misanthropic statement like "no lives matter".
We should also object to telegram being called an encrypted app. It is not encrypted by default. When you optionally enable the cryptography it has, IIRC they rolled their own ciphers and it's not considered good by anybody serious.
e40 17 days ago [-]
The gal of post-modern propaganda is to make people believe in nothing. Nihilism through and through.
rickandmortyy 16 days ago [-]
[dead]
raddan 17 days ago [-]
“No lives matter” was also a tongue-in-cheek slogan for the “Cthulhu for President” campaign [1], which riffed on the absurdity of Trump running for president in 2016. Maybe it has morphed into something else since then.
> I am The Hill’s national security and legal affairs reporter [...]
So I assume the journalist wrote the piece themself, and knew how loaded that line was.
NotYourLawyer 17 days ago [-]
[flagged]
wakawaka28 17 days ago [-]
Your instincts are right. They parade the freaks in front of our faces to manufacture consent for all kinds of oppression.
>I fear this might be used to mandate backdoors into encrypted apps.
You mean above and beyond the multiple levels of surveillance now in place, including AI agents on your devices and god knows what backdoors into TLS? They already have more than most people imagine. They just don't want you to know for various reasons.
HeatrayEnjoyer 17 days ago [-]
The sentence is accurate nonetheless.
luckylion 17 days ago [-]
Technically yes since communication via most messengers, forums etc are encrypted.
But I assume that's not how most readers will understand that message, their mind will go towards something like encrochat, i.e. some app specifically made for illegal/terrorist/far right extremist communications. If you said "we should do something about that", that'll get a fair bit of agreement. If you said "we should do something about your browser being able to use encryption", you'll get less.
dotancohen 17 days ago [-]
Yes, implanting inaccurate ideas in peoples' worldviews via the use of not-innaccurate statements is an artform that is being perfected. This is a scary example of such.
dialup_sounds 17 days ago [-]
So saying true things is bad now?
dotancohen 17 days ago [-]
Saying true things has always been bad when done with bad intentions.
Implying that "coordinating through encrypted apps" is a property of "far-right ideologies" is a clear attempt to smear the usage of encrypted apps, assuming that the reader already has a negative association with "far-right ideologies".
gverrilla 17 days ago [-]
It was not implied it's a "property of far right", at all. All it's saying is "no lives matter" coordinate not in public networks.
dialup_sounds 16 days ago [-]
I don't think that's clear at all. You're both assuming "bad intentions" on the part of the author and that other readers are apt to make an association that you yourself wouldn't make.
But for the sake of curiosity: How would you rephrase the same facts to not be a smear?
llamaimperative 17 days ago [-]
I didn’t read it that way at all.
icameron 17 days ago [-]
As a teenager in the 90s I was a bit of a pyromaniac. The early internet allowed us to purchase long fuses, nitromethane from eBay, and “homemade C4” from Amazon. An FBI field agent had a knock and talk to the address we had ordered the fuses to. They don’t mess around! Not sure how they found out either.
geor9e 17 days ago [-]
That unique 90s time period where any kid could print out bomb making recipes on the school printer from alt.anarchy or whatever, but columbine hadn't occurred yet so we didn't really get in trouble when a teacher found out.
StanislavPetrov 17 days ago [-]
In the early 1990s a friend of mine ran a dial-up BBS. It was completely unmoderated (aside from spam), and ended up become a rather active board for (mostly black hat) hackers to post and trade information. My friend wasn't involved in any hacking directly - he simply ran the BBS which also hosted a bunch of doors (games) like TW2002 that were also quite popular. One day, a mutual friend of ours (who was an aspiring black hat hacker) got picked up by the FBI for a variety of phone phreaking offenses. During questioning, they asked him a bunch of questions about the BBS. As soon as he got out on bail, he relayed this information to my friend who ran the BBS. Needless to say, the BBS was shut down and all of the disks/hard drives trashed within an hour.
Thankfully there were never any legal implications for my friend with the BBS, but you can be damn sure there were quite a few sleepless nights subsequently as he waited for a knock on the door!
SoftTalker 17 days ago [-]
Or the '80s, when you could just order the Anarchist Cookbook from a willing bookstore (some would refuse).
At the time I recall that there were definitely kids into this stuff. Not literal anarchy or violence, they just liked making bombs and setting them off out in the woods somewhere. Homemade fireworks really. They got into the chemistry of it, just nerdy stuff. No harm intended.
jandrewrogers 17 days ago [-]
To be honest, the Anarchist Cookbook had some really dodgy recipes. It was arguably a collection of future Darwin Awards.
Spooky23 17 days ago [-]
The bookstore clerk told us that, and suggested that we purchase an army improvised munitions field manual. Lol
bboygravity 17 days ago [-]
The tennisball bomb definitely didn't work as advertised.
Just saying * looks around innocently *
0xDEADFED5 17 days ago [-]
so you also made a tennis ball rocket?
ganoushoreilly 17 days ago [-]
In the 90's almost all of us played with fireworks and m80's in the fields. We used to rig up long fuses with our estes rocket kits for remote detonation. Everyone turned out fine.
The pre No Child Left Behind / Zero Tolerance era of school, was a great time. I feel bad for kids today.
mrguyorama 16 days ago [-]
>Everyone turned out fine.
The mother of all survivorship biases. We have ample statistics demonstrating that no, plenty of people died.
Christ, can't believe I even have to point this out.
SoftTalker 16 days ago [-]
I think most of us, at least most males, can recall things we did as teens that could have killed us if things went wrong. Some people are also more reckless than others, and will find ways to get their thrills no matter what rules you try to lay down. Some people get unlucky, which is sad but always has been and always will be that way.
magic_smoke_ee 17 days ago [-]
In the 90's, Tower Records sold The Anarchist Cookbook no questions asked. Its recipes didn't appear very well researched and some seemed outright lethal or impossible.
ganoushoreilly 17 days ago [-]
On the bulletin boards there used to be all these horrible phone phreaking plans that were clearly not functional, like the blotto box that would electrocute someone across the phone lines.
We also had all those weekly world news tabloids.. i think some of it just made for weird entertainment.
pstuart 17 days ago [-]
I've heard the two gateways into becoming interested in chemistry are getting high and blowing shit up.
AuryGlenz 17 days ago [-]
A friend and I want to make a small amount of nitroglycerin in chemistry class in HS. The teacher was all for it, but it got bumped all the way to the superintendent who shot it down.
Boo.
magic_smoke_ee 17 days ago [-]
Anything fun in life is illegal, immoral, fattening, or dangerous.
In high school chemistry, I once superheated magnesium in a covered crucible and then blew on. That was fun.
magic_smoke_ee 17 days ago [-]
All chemists are pyros, by definition and by requirement.
ternnoburn 17 days ago [-]
I was also around then, and even then it had a reputation of being trash, not really anarchist, and probably dangerously poorly put together.
17 days ago [-]
jcims 17 days ago [-]
In the mid 80s my best friend brought in a select fire (aka full auto capable) mauser c96 with the case that doubles as a stock. His grandpa acquired in wwii, the teacher just asked if it was loaded.
macintux 17 days ago [-]
I have a very old, very fuzzy memory of someone telling a story about sending a completely meaningless, “encrypted” (garbage) snail mail letter to somewhere in the Soviet Union.
Despite taking great precautions to obscure their identity, they still received a visit from government law enforcement.
underlipton 17 days ago [-]
These kinds of posts are always fascinating to me, as someone who had to move heaven and earth to get a graphics tablet and a PC that could run XP and Blender c. 2006. It's not like we were in particularly dire straits financially, and were on the more rational side of "overly sheltered" (having known people who couldn't attend school clubs or who had a parent hovering over their shoulder every time they got online), but the freedom and access some of y'all had is just... hard for me to fathom. Like, whose credit card were you using??
boomboomsubban 17 days ago [-]
Before eBay acquired PayPal in 2002, buying something then mailing the person a check was fairly common.
ganoushoreilly 17 days ago [-]
For some of the stuff in the early days we could mail cashiers checks with the order number, bypassing need for credit card. Sure it took longer, but you could still buy a lot of stuff that way.
icameron 16 days ago [-]
You could buy western union money orders for 45 cents at the minimart, and mail it to the seller with the item number. Sometimes even send cash.
jokoon 17 days ago [-]
> Not sure how they found out either.
I surely hope they can find out, and the harder it is to know how they found out, the better it is since fewer people will be able to evade it.
fullspectrumdev 17 days ago [-]
I’m still not sure what this guy is meant to have done wrong beyond having a rifle that’s “too short” and blowing up some shit on his own property and I guess having some edgy political ideas.
None of which should be crimes.
surfingdino 17 days ago [-]
Making pipe bombs is not something you can defend in court, even if purchase and possession of explosives is legal.
magic_smoke_ee 17 days ago [-]
Pipe bombs can be legally owned by private parties with an DD NFA tax stamp. They probably require a certain type of BATF manufacturer cert to make as well.
tonetegeatinst 17 days ago [-]
This is correct. ATF permit to manufacture and use explosives, and Destructive Devices. Register the destructive device and any made explosives.
Normally each state has an explosives license that you must also have, some of which are almost impossible to obtain unless this is your main job, so hobbyists can't get a permit.
Also destructive devices have to be legal in the state.
And the use of the device has to be recorded via paperwork.
As someone who has an interest in energetics and law, the federal law is pretty reasonable if not just a pain in the ass to handle paperwork wise. The addition of every state having laws you need to comply with in addition can make this pretty easy or upright impossible unless your main day job is working in some mine or something similar.
magic_smoke_ee 17 days ago [-]
Had to look it up because I can't remember nitty-gritty details: DD manufacturer under class 10 FFL or class 2 SOT. I imagine the various types of insurance needed to operate such a business are expensive and painful too.
tonetegeatinst 17 days ago [-]
Correct. DD manufacturing the separate license from the ATF then an explosive manufacturing license and then if a pipe bomb is constructed it's considered a destructive device not an explosive device and has to be registered on paper as such and then you also need a separate license to use the device and then once used it has to be marked as used on paper.
giantg2 17 days ago [-]
And if you have the materials (short pipes, lots of caps, etc) to build the pipe bombs in the same area as your expolsive manufacture without the DD paperwork, you could still be charged with constructive intent. Same as if you have an unbuilt short barrel and a built lower with a stock they have charged people with intent to manufacturer an SBR.
tonetegeatinst 17 days ago [-]
Correct.
While I have the ability to read some legal text despite having 0 law education, it still is confusing and hard to interpret stuff.
While I understand the need for regulation, and safety, it seems almost if not impossible to navigate. Unless you have the money to pay for lawyers and someone to handle compliance, its very easy to make a mistake that could kill your career.
So your corporations or large businesses can afford lawyers and compliance consultant people so they ensure they are fine and dandy, but if you rural person wants to build explosives to mess around and experiment and research, their is no way they can afford this unless they are super rich.
Ordinance Labs somehow does this but they are Texas based, and make money off of consulting....so they are a great example of how hard this is. They also are being accused of violating ITAR and EAR which is serious.
giantg2 17 days ago [-]
"the federal law is pretty reasonable if not just a pain in the ass to handle paperwork wise"
I mean, that's how they get you. Make it so you have to jump through a ton of hoops, make the penalties to accidentally violating them felonies, then wait. That's how you discourage people from doing something - make the penalties for mistakes so high that people give up. That's part of why you see gun ownership numbers go down in places like NJ while they brag about gun safety laws working. The trick is, the laws like hollowpoint bans didn't actually improve gun safety, it simply reduced the guns per capita by reducing number of people willing to own a gun when harmless mistakes can ruin your life.
tonetegeatinst 17 days ago [-]
Correct.
I believe their is a term for it but basically they pass a "gatchya law" that is super difficult to follow and open to interpretation, then if someone gets caught doing something they have a reason to prosecute.
Example: speeding laws, ammo or firearm storage laws, tax laws etc.
Most people are reasonable when they drive, but don't always follow the speed limit. If they catch you and other charges fail they always have speeding as an excuse. Tax code is so complicated and constantly changing its a real joke. They even have people who exist to handle the bullshit because its so complex, just like how laws are written. CPA and lawyer do the same job in a sense, figure out the bullshit so you don't go to jail or commit a felony.
potato3732842 16 days ago [-]
The real evil is the people who give the power to the people who create this perversion of rule of law, saw that they did this and decided they were ok with it.
I don't care what the subject is, the law should NEVER be like this.
surfingdino 17 days ago [-]
Things I learn on HN... Thanks! I wonder if the guy had all necessary tax stamps or licenses?
jandrewrogers 17 days ago [-]
The one explosive they mention by name as "unstable" is actually a pretty professional primary for specialist applications. Easy to synthesize from common materials but not trivial for amateurs to make usable. In addition to being entirely unworkable as a main high-explosive it also tends to rapidly decompose (benignly) when in contact with many common metals and poor storage, so shelf-life can be an issue.
Hilift 17 days ago [-]
It's stable when pure. This guy made his own, and lost three fingers in the process. It seems to have developed a reputation with suicide bombers, probably due to the illusion of easy manufacture.
jandrewrogers 17 days ago [-]
The articles I’ve seen do not imply he lost his fingers working with it.
I’ve also never seen it associated with suicide bombers, you may be thinking of acetone peroxide chemistries (e.g. TATP), which are common low-grade explosives used by terrorists. Also highly inadvisable, TATP is a pretty shit explosive in almost all aspects (low power, low stability). Someone stupid enough to be using TATP should not be using HMTD, as the latter requires more discipline than TATP.
There is a technical gap between making HMTD and processing it into a form that can actually be used in practical explosive systems.
littlestymaar 17 days ago [-]
> The one explosive they mention by name as "unstable" is actually a pretty professional primary
There's no contradiction here, the main characteristic of a primary is it's (relative) instability.
bhouston 17 days ago [-]
A member of the far right No Lives Matter organization. First time I’ve heard of the group.
compass_copium 17 days ago [-]
It's loosely affiliated (or was anyway) with the 764/com groups that were in the news a little while back, and linked to MKY, a Russian terror group.
On what basis are you making that claim? Multiple sources link No Lives Matter back to an intentionally formed subgroup of 764, started by a specific Swedish 14-year-old.
Where do you read there there is an organization called that? The articles states 'The filing also references Spafford’s belief in “no lives matter,”'.
elmomle 17 days ago [-]
To finish the sentence you were quoting: '“no lives matter,” an apparent nod to a far-right ideology that primarily coordinates through encrypted apps.' First page of Google gives this: https://www.njohsp.gov/Home/Components/News/News/1430/2
wumeow 17 days ago [-]
> NLM states that “societal standards should not exist. They are to be crushed by any means possible. If they comply to the societal standards[,] they are mundane,” and encourages the “spread of terror to all who are mundane.” In April 2024, NLM publicly rejected further association with the online violent torture and sextortion network, 764. NLM stated that it “was originally formed as an ideology…for 764 to follow,” but the “alliance” with 764 was discontinued due to the network’s ties to Satanism and pedophilia.
Well apparently some societal standards should exist.
xsmasher 15 days ago [-]
"We are not the same. I'm an American, you're a sick asshole."
~ William 'D-Fens' Foster
tokai 17 days ago [-]
Yeah I obviously read that. Ideology != organization. I'm well aware of the slogan, its been popular in right wing circles for as long as black lives matters has been around. Thank you for the link. Which is still not about an organization but about a telegram group. Just wanted to know were GP got the organization bit from the shared link.
layer8 17 days ago [-]
From the link you read, they have a notion of membership with admission criteria and announced partnerships with European and Russian groups. They seem to at least consider themselves as a kind of organization.
bhouston 17 days ago [-]
I replied with quotes from the nytimes article.
bhouston 17 days ago [-]
I read another article, in this case one in the New York Times that said:
They found more pipe bombs in a bedroom inside Mr. Spafford’s house, loosely stuffed in a backpack that bore a patch shaped like a hand grenade and a logo reading “#NoLivesMatter,” prosecutors said.
No Lives Matter is a nihilistic, far-right ideology that largely exists on encrypted online messaging apps like Telegram. The movement’s adherents promote “targeted attacks, mass killings and criminal activity” and have “historically encouraged members to engage in self-harm and animal abuse,” according to a threat assessment released in August by the New Jersey Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness.
fullspectrumdev 17 days ago [-]
The patch shown in the indictment is literally a meme patch you can buy from a bunch of edgy shops that sell patches for like ten dollars.
It’s not like a membership badge or anything.
17 days ago [-]
fireflash38 17 days ago [-]
You know how many arguments are had about language and whether it's prescriptive or descriptive?
Same shit applies to symbols.
People self select and will display symbols to align with the groups they agree with.
llamaimperative 17 days ago [-]
Do you think Al Qaeda has membership badges or is it mostly just a bunch of people buying into the same set of memes?
What about vegans?
No one is mistaking this for a “membership badge.” They’re taking it as a signal for what a person believes, and acknowledging that extreme belief formation (even if cynical and “just a joke bro lmao”) is very often part and parcel with group identity.
IshKebab 17 days ago [-]
> Do you think Al Qaeda has membership badges or is it mostly just a bunch of people buying into the same set of memes?
Yes, Al Qaeda is obviously a real group with actual members, rather than a random meme. Was that a serious question?
llamaimperative 17 days ago [-]
Not really. Since 9/11 there is a very small core formal group, but no, the thing people refer to as “al Qaeda” is mostly people buying into the same set of memes. Decentralized network of networks of ideological affiliations.
They’re not “random” memes, obviously, but I understand you’re trying to spin with rhetoric a bit here :)
A great read, thanks for sharing. Many interesting thoughts about the movement joiners and also on the writer point of view on the situations
> Middle Eastern Muslim culture expert Marvin Zonis notes that Arab societies value the honor and dignity of the individual more than personal liberty. When the principles of honor and dignity confront the devastating failures of many Middle Eastern states to achieve prominence in the world, the result is a profound and omnipresent humiliation and rage that is palpable throughout the region.
wodderam 17 days ago [-]
[flagged]
energy123 17 days ago [-]
Read about O9A. There's a strain of neo-Nazism that cross pollinated with Satanism a few decades ago and they've maintained a small presence. They appreciate things like animal abuse.
pseudo0 17 days ago [-]
And of course, the main publisher of O9A extremist propaganda is a multi-decade FBI informant...
It seems the only thing this guy blowup was himself! "Spafford lost three fingers in 2021 while apparently working on an explosive device"
compass_copium 17 days ago [-]
Interestingly, this guy was not apparently working or communicating with an undercover agent, which is very often the case on a bust like this. You hear a lot about plots where the would-be attacker is holding fake bombs supplied by an agent. Not many where the guy assembled a lot of explosives on his own. Glad he was caught.
declan_roberts 17 days ago [-]
It's incredible that the FBI releases this huge presser despite the arrest being peaceful and the guy only being charged with possession of short barrel rifle.
Meanwhile somebody crosses the border in 6,500 lb truck and 2 days later rams it into a crowd of people.
The FBI is addicted to PR arrests but seems incapable of stopping actual terror attacks.
wyldfire 17 days ago [-]
> defendant ... shared a conspiracy theory that missing children were taken by the federal government to be trained as school shooters.
This conspiracy seems like it would appeal to those who recognize that mass killings/suicides at schools are tragic and we are awful for not intervening. But if it turns out that The Government is perpetrating the evil, then we can absolve ourselves of the blame because no amount of legislation could stop their covert actions.
nkrisc 17 days ago [-]
They want to blame anything except the availability and proliferation of guns in this country.
hiatus 17 days ago [-]
How many school shootings occurred prior to the gun control act of 1968? Guns were even easier to acquire before that point.
jimt1234 17 days ago [-]
This is misleading. Wooden-handled, six-shooter pistols and pump-action rifles were easy to get back then - true, but high capacity, semi-automatics were definitely not easy to obtain. I grew up in the Midwest back then, probably the most gun friendly state besides Texas; people generally recognized that some guns should be available only to the military.
hiatus 16 days ago [-]
I appreciate the color but AR-15s were available for civilian purchase in 1963, though most school shootings are perpetrated with hand guns. [1] Even then, it seems it would be better to regulate large capacity magazines than any specific firearm. The comment to which I replied was decrying the proliferation of guns in general, not high capacity magazines.
Semi auto magazine pistols were common and easy to get in the 60s
wyldfire 16 days ago [-]
It is likely the case that multiple factors contribute to the frequency and lethality of mass shootings in the USA.
But the availability of firearms is likely one of those factors.
nkrisc 15 days ago [-]
That’s a deflection. The issue is school shootings that occur now, using guns, not time travelers perpetrating mass shootings.
What do all school shootings have in common? Guns.
Something has changed since then and now guns are a bigger problem.
potato3732842 16 days ago [-]
Based on the ratio of "stuff found" to "evidince of extremist beliefs and a willingness to act" it sounds like the feds just rolled up on some weirdo DIY explosives enthusiast.
I'm more worried about the guy with a lot of writing and messages and only a couple bombs.
tw04 16 days ago [-]
Yes, “weirdo diy explosive enthusiasts” frequently talk about political violence and use pictures of presidential candidates for target practice and partake in anti government groups.
If the guy just had a thing for blowing stuff up, you might have a point.
But the guy pretty clearly has more going on than just liking explosives.
yapyap 17 days ago [-]
wish there were pictures for this, new years must’ve been crazy if you celebrated with that guy
neom 17 days ago [-]
"and shared a conspiracy theory that missing children were taken by the federal government to be trained as school shooters." I'm so curious, how do people get indoctrinated like this? What is the discussion around the proverbial camp fire that can create this line of logic being accepted into someones reality? I honestly can't even imagine up a conversation.
mmooss 17 days ago [-]
Part of it might be the normalization of extreme and obvious paranoia, falsehoods, and anger. Even mainstream leaders do it - look at the Republican party talking about people eating cats, and what was (and is) said about toward trans people. Somewhat more fringe talk(ed) about pedophile rings in government, etc. Is the consipiracy theory you cite so far advanced from that?
ungreased0675 17 days ago [-]
After someone identifies the government and media working in coordination to mislead the public on whatever issue, they go looking for alternative sources of truth. Some of those alternatives are completely bananas.
brandonmenc 17 days ago [-]
Most of our popular entertainment since the late 20th century has been chock full of these far-fetched ideas as plot devices. Everyone is primed to employ the techno-thriller "what if?" tool when building narratives and sensemaking.
And the huge and opaque organization required to make the modern world work provides a fertile ground for imaginations to run wild.
I think at this point it's so deeply ingrained that we're all somewhat susceptible to it.
Stevvo 17 days ago [-]
Maybe, like millions of other Americans, he followed Alex Jones?
Jones spread equally ridiculous theories about school shootings.
ternnoburn 17 days ago [-]
I think it's an information diet thing. Once you accept Fox News as being truthful, you move on to at least giving some thought to what folks like Alex Jones are saying.
And the first thing fringe folks tell you is, "you are right, you are smart, you are clever. You've seen that they are covering up the truth, and you are wise to start questioning everything."
Once you get isolated by a bunch of media that tells you how impressive you are and tells you that anyone questioning you is trying to hold you back, you get separated from those who care about you. Once your loved ones give up on you, you turn to forums and chat groups of others in similar situations. They also tell you that you are smart and clever.
It's a classic abuser playbook, and unfortunately it's really really hard to unwind after a certain point. And we value freedom of speech too much to cut off the early on-ramps to this path. But we don't fund the education or the high quality information sources enough to help provide alternatives or defenses.
pixxel 17 days ago [-]
[flagged]
littlestymaar 17 days ago [-]
YouTube recommendations can be enough…
m0llusk 17 days ago [-]
It starts with sorting by moral judgements. Reactionaries are particularly sensitive to unfairness, betrayal, subversion, and degradation of sanctity. Weave these things with a narrative and you can capture interest.
mhh__ 17 days ago [-]
Some people are just very susceptible although I think it's probably worth saying that everyone interesting probably has some beliefs that seem quite odd if written down in a very matter of fact way by a journalist who doesn't like you.
I suppose the most concise answer is really just "ideology".
AuryGlenz 17 days ago [-]
I think there should probably a a rule adjacent to #34: if it exists, there’s a conspiracy theory about it.
In this case, I would imagine it’s: school shooting happens. Politicians use it to push for gun control. Therefore politicians made it happen, so they could use it.
Both sides of the political aisle do this, and plenty of people do it about less political things as well. It’s honestly my least favorite part of the public discourse right now.
layer8 17 days ago [-]
One needs to contemplate that the normal explanations for school shootings and similar topics of conflict likely causes them a greater cognitive dissonance.
rsynnott 17 days ago [-]
I think at a certain point, people who are into conspiracy theory stuff get so used to accepting ridiculous stuff that ridiculousness becomes a virtue for them, and you get this spiral into more and more extreme/absurd ideas being accepted.
surfingdino 17 days ago [-]
One vector is feeling that your life not being what you'd like it to be is somebody else's fault. Convenient explanations of the situation are easier to accept that those requiring an honest appraisal of the situation. Conspiracy theories fall into the easy explanation category.
deactivatedexp 16 days ago [-]
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deactivatedexp 16 days ago [-]
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NicholasGurr 16 days ago [-]
4chan echo chamber shit. I’d guess more than half of it starts as trolling, but some people run with it. Same way QAnon became a thing.
deactivatedexp 11 days ago [-]
if you don't mind me asking how many human traffickers do you think exist in your city?
ty6853 17 days ago [-]
[flagged]
d883kd8 17 days ago [-]
The NFA has faced multiple post-Bruen challenges, particularly regarding short-barreled rifles (SBRs) and suppressors. A key case was United States v. Dalton in Nevada, where the court found SBR restrictions unconstitutional based on lack of historical analogues. Cases like United States v. Price question the NFA's tax requirements and registration scheme through Bruen's historical tradition test.
The core challenge is demonstrating historical analogues for regulating specific firearm features from 1791 or 1868, as required by Bruen. Registration and taxation of firearms largely emerged in the early 20th century, making historical analogues difficult to establish for much of the NFA's framework.
However, lower courts remain split on these challenges, and the Supreme Court hasn't directly addressed NFA provisions post-Bruen. This area of law continues to evolve rapidly.
16 days ago [-]
rconti 17 days ago [-]
> The New Jersey Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness described the ideology as one that “promotes targeted attacks, mass killings, and criminal activity, and has historically encouraged members to engage in self-harm and animal abuse.”
The mentally ill having functioning health insurance to get proper treatment, support and medication could also be a solution.
I also think that your second point that paraphrases to "don't bite the hand that slaps you because it might slap harder" is not good advice.
qwertox 17 days ago [-]
Your theory would be valid if there were no mentally ill people in those European countries which offer good access to healthcare. Just google "Magdeburg attack", if you want a recent and very good example for this.
macbr 17 days ago [-]
It’s not like mental health is going super well in European countries either
Germany [1]:
> The average waiting time from the initial consultation to the start of therapy is 142.4 days.
I don't think any solution will be perfect at eliminating all crime, ever. A statement doesn't have to be all or nothing to be valid, and I might also just be completely wrong. That being said it seems like a good thing, for my definition of good, to help the mentally ill.
qwertox 17 days ago [-]
Sure, but in that spirit you then wouldn't need to mention that healthcare access would help. There will always be those crazy enough who will not make use of access to healthcare but prefer to make a plan on how to "seek proper justice on their own", which is what OP was referring to. The inhibition of that signaling is then a more adequate solution and should be part of the repertoire (as well as offering good healthcare).
eadmund 17 days ago [-]
> health insurance to get proper treatment, support and medication
Health insurance is mis-named: it is not a health care product meant to provide health care; it is a financial product, meant to smooth the cost of health care. It should probably be called health care cost insurance.
Providing the indigent with health care is a different thing from health insurance. Mandating that the mentally ill receive treatment is a different thing from health insurance.
Health insurance is just that: insurance against a financial catastrophe.
Amezarak 17 days ago [-]
It's pretty common to read of mass shooters that they were in therapy and/or on psychiatric medication.
It seems like an ounce of prevention is worth several tons of cure. We don't really have good treatments.
marcusverus 17 days ago [-]
The murder of Brian Thompson has been such a mask-off moment for the left. This comment is a perfect example. One can't even suggest, in a neutral way, that political violence is bad without a left wing nutjob showing up to suggest that you're not giving political violence a fair shake!
vasco 17 days ago [-]
It's funny that on this forum I'm both called a neolib and a left wing nutjob from time to time depending on who gets triggered. Something to be proud of.
marcusverus 15 days ago [-]
It's not much but I guess a nutjob has to take what he can get.
CGamesPlay 17 days ago [-]
Removed: I misunderstood what GP was referring to.
vasco 17 days ago [-]
> What about ostensible threats against CEOs and other powerful people being used as a pretext to give them special protection by the state, and corresponding encroachment on the liberties of others? Could this elevate a fascist overclass even more?
Here's the quote, readers can decide for themselves.
deactivatedexp 16 days ago [-]
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luckylion 17 days ago [-]
You don't have to signal to the mentally ill, they believe whatever they believe, you're not changing that one way or the other.
Somebody that is suffering from paranoia doesn't get triggered by reading about some surveillance program, they get triggered because they see a single package or their favorite brand of chocolate in their dairy aisle and the only explanation they can come up with is that somebody put it there for them to find it.
Animats 17 days ago [-]
> militant mentally ill
Hey, those guys vote.
What happens to Q-Anon and all those militia guys now? Especially if Trump pardons the Jan 6th leaders.
pixxel 17 days ago [-]
Look up ‘Susan Rosenberg’.
hiatus 17 days ago [-]
They go on to teach at John Jay College?
eadmund 17 days ago [-]
Or Bill Ayers. Or Oscar Lopez Rivera.
pjc50 17 days ago [-]
She was left-wing, hence the different treatment.
paganel 17 days ago [-]
[flagged]
neilv 17 days ago [-]
Can you say more directly what you mean?
(People can guess at the gap between what you're responding to, and what you said, but why not spell it out.)
ganoushoreilly 17 days ago [-]
If you want to go down a rabbit hole, lookup videos on youtube of clearly paranoid schizophrenics that believe the fed has them under watch. I randomly fond one once and it was wild the mental gymnastics being done to justify her belief. I really felt bad for the woman.
In this case, I figured the person who said "Is already open season on the non-millionaire populace, it has been for a long time." was referring to various inequities (for example, the effects of regulatory capture).
(Not some literal murderous hunting of the lower classes for sport by the elite, nor some black helicopter conspiracy theory.)
But they were responding to a message about political murders that included "[...] you don't want to signal to the militant mentally ill that it's open season." So they left a gap between the prompt and the response, for the reader to figure out what was implied.
One guess of the reader about the gap could be that the speaker is simply taking the opportunity to point out, or complain about, the inequities.
Or, a different guess of the reader about the gap could be that the writer is hinting that they think the inquity situation has escalated, or should escalate, to political murders. Maybe they mean that, or, I'd guess more likely, they just feel disempowered by the inequities, and suggesting that the citizenry has power provides some hope or relief.
Since the writer didn't say, the gap is closed by the reader's own biases or suspicions of what the writer intended.
Assuming that the writer is a normal individual (not psyops), then saying what they mean by the gap would help them communicate.
I suppose that saying what they mean might also help their message not be lost in the massive flood of social media point-scoring noise.
bboygravity 17 days ago [-]
What do you mean?
I'm one of the majority non-millionaires and I'm not feeling any threat of being murdered daily?
What do you mean?
17 days ago [-]
shipscode 16 days ago [-]
.
scoofy 16 days ago [-]
I think there are plenty of folks, like myself, that are pro-gun but anti-assault rifle, or at least anti- guns-in-public-life.
There is a basis for the second amendment, and that is a defense against tyranny, but that means we're talking about civil war levels of resistance. In that scenario, I think it really doesn't matter whether you're using an AR-15 or a M1 Garand, because there will need to be literally millions of people with these weapons.
I think many of us quietly support gun rights for the type of weapon that can be used in a civil war in mass, but can also be opposed to the type of weapon that supports a high capacity magazine that lets one nutjob kill dozens and dozens of people without ever having to reload or giving people a chance to flee. I also would prefer to live in a society where guns need to be locked and separated from the ammo, so that anyone with a visible gun in public can be immediately detained.
marvin-hansen 17 days ago [-]
What was the crime here besides illegal possession of a firearm?
- storing explosives - mostly legal.
- self build bombs? There weren't used, so hard to make a case.
- Spreading misinformation? AFAIk, that's protected under the first amendment unless you really cause tangible damage i.e. Infowars style
One way I can think a case can be made is by portraying the guy as a danger to public safety. In Europe, that would warrant a psychiatrist making an assessment for the court. In the US where people posses more firearms than the total population, I am not so sure of that argument survives in court. And then there is the ancient constitutional right to bear arms...
To be clear, I totally support the FBI locking up an apparent maniac before he goes insane and starts using his bombs. I'm just pointing out that the US legal system doesn't seem to be well equiped for those cases.
For example, the guy who ran the FPSRusia YouTube channel from Georgia, US, was sitting on well over a quarter million worth of firearms and even owned a small tank (!). Apparently that is also legal in the US. Yet authorities only took action when somebody died on his property in what seemed to have been a shooting accident.
Let responsible people have a gun or two given these are legal, have passed background check and did proper safety training, but please keep disarming the apparent crazy ones. Nobody can make a sane case why a single person needs a dozen pipe bombs in a backpack or dozens of automatic firearms and a tank.
magic_smoke_ee 17 days ago [-]
The short-barrel shotgun (SBS) (modified or original) without an NFA tax stamp is the holding charge. They're working on determining if was just unlicensed destructive devices (DDs) or there were specific terroristic plans. That's why.
wyldfire 17 days ago [-]
> Spreading misinformation? AFAIk, that's protected under the first amendment unless you really cause tangible damage i.e. Infowars style
Jones is a horrible person but committed no crimes. He wasn't taken to criminal court by the people, he was sued by the victims of his defamation.
pfdietz 17 days ago [-]
I'm surprised there aren't more defamation lawsuits on the internet.
I've thought it could be a moneymaker for social media firms to automate defamation shakedowns, just like copyright trolls automate copyright shakedowns. Help those defamed find and the messages and send out "Pay $N thousand and this defamation lawsuit goes away now" messages. Back up some of the lawsuits with $$$ to show the threat is real.
JKCalhoun 17 days ago [-]
> self build bombs? There weren't used, so hard to make a case
Is that right? Building a bomb is okay if you don't use it? Wild that this is not applied to drugs, unlicensed sawed-off shotguns, etc.
potato3732842 16 days ago [-]
>Wild that this is not applied to drugs, unlicensed sawed-off shotguns, etc.
It ought to be.
bdangubic 16 days ago [-]
what about child pornography? that cool to as long as one doesn’t use it?
In the one photograph they do have of this firearm, they intentionally crop it so that it is not possible to evaluate.
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.vaed.56...
You might be referring to this image? Which is fairly clear, but I'm not sure how they measure barrel length here, but to my eyes it is 13" (unless the last 3 are a suppressor of some sort that isn't counted).
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.vaed.56...
This is from the probable cause affidavit, which I guess is used to obtain a warrant?
https://cdn11.bigcommerce.com/s-lpuqsi1cy6/images/stencil/12...
Additionally, this is _also_ considered a pistol with a "stabilizing brace" (which are subject of much contention and confusion)
https://www.sb-tactical.com/wp-content/uploads/sbpdw-install...
The GP's complaint is that the linked photo contains insufficient context (for us, at least) to determine if the firearm in question is, from a legal standpoint, an SBR.
The issue is that it is entirely legal to have an AR-15 configured as a pistol with a very short barrel, without any tax stamps. That is, not having a stock attached to it. The image provided does not prove that he has a short-barreled rifle, because you cannot see whether it has a stock.
That said, 13" is also a short-barreled rifle length. If this is indeed a rifle, and not an AR pistol.
The buffer tube extends off the rear, which has been cropped from the image.
Men love this kind of stuff. If TNT was legal to own there would probably be a collector for it.
The more dense the population, the more heavily restricted in general.
You're grossly representing what regulation covers or means.
In this context, regulation means things like health and safety. Those who feel the need to buy explosives need to transport them around and store them. This means sitting in traffic next to someone carrying them in the trunk, or living next to someone sitting on a supply. Society is fine with you blowing up your tractor, but not killing your neighbors, employees, or any passer-by due to your gross irresponsibility. Consequently, if you really want to buy explosives then you must learn and prove that you know how to safely handle them.
Do you think that is too much to ask?
As an explosive it's relatively stable .. but those health risks are exactly why the regulations around it are strict and why the "bomb girls" in WWII factories turned yellow and died young.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canary_Girls
Simply:
~ https://wwwn.cdc.gov/TSP/PHS/PHS.aspx?phsid=675&toxid=125I replied with an excerpt from a (US) Federal regulatory body?
Who's 'we' kemosabe?
This isn't a Yevgeny Zamyatin novel and you're not the One State.
No. We were talking about regulation.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42572449
And the DOT regulation doesn’t apply to things made and used on site? (Aka not transported)
( upthread @ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42567255 )
US OSHA regulations do apply to agricultural operations.
https://www.safeagsystems.com/blog/osh-act-and-agriculture
Arguably, even subsistence farming is a commercial endeavor (per the Supreme Court) and requires an ATF license anyway. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn]
Some governments and regulators attempt to enumerate every possible conceivable bad thing and outlaw it. Problem is it's not enumerable, there will always be dozens of missed loopholes, which the regulations will steer people into. Parallels the warping and skewing of trying to fix an economy through proclamation versus distributed capitalism.
You're talking out of ignorance. I recommend you do a cursory read of the basic applicable regulation to understand both how you are wrong and what is actually covered by regulation.
These societies may deceitfully claim to follow a rule of law, while objectively being rule by law.
They generally believe that if you can't use the law to coerce people to some form of arbitrary action after-the-fact through blackmail, the law is useless, and they glory in their power and control of others (privately).
This is why they write law ambiguously enough so it can apply to just about anything, and twist it later just like how it is written in Animal Farm.
Safety is just one of many propaganda narratives used, its all for the benefit of society where everyone is equal, some people in such societies are more equal than others.
Corruption is generally not done by the brightest, it often neglects rational principles for long-term survivability. The problem is these people become delusional warping things until collapse under a de-facto state of non-market socialism drives ecological overshoot into a great dying, if no other crises takes them first.
The chancellor will have his butter while everyone else starves, right up until he can't.
You can't have capitalism under a money printing fiat regime, where the majority of the market cooperates. Economic calculation requires independent adversarial decision-making, and for production in the economy to continue, in general, it requires producers and consumers to make more than enough to cover costs (in purchasing power, disconnected from currency debasement), a profit.
Fractional reserve issued debt, with no fractional reserve (0%) is money printing, its been that way since 2020. Basel III uses valuation as a capital reserve, so when valuations based in fiat change suddenly to the negative, the few banks left can collapse without warning. Value has credibly been shown to be subjective, it changes for every person, so you have to ask who decides the value. The same people issuing the debt as a reserve get to decide, which is a recipe for delusion, and chaotic collapse.
A conflict of interest like this never results in fraud /s...
Government has long been trying to make the public helplessly dependent on them so that no matter what they do (even if they break oaths and the constitution), they'll still retain power through a corruption by dependency. Its sad that such evil blind people have been allowed to get into these positions of power.
Survival will in the near future come down to whether or not we can oust such people from those positions or if people will complacently just follow them to their deaths believing lies.
Lies of omission, even unknowingly and without intent, are still lies, and result in the same destructive outcomes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2nb4x9BiQY
It also seems EXCEEDINGLY unlikely the FBI would make a giant press release before anyone verified if the rifle in question was actually violating any laws. There would be almost nothing to gain, and a LOT of egg on everyone's face if the guy walks because nobody at the FBI knew the difference between an SBR and an AR pistol.
They can literally just lie about the law and confuse the ignorant jury as they did for matt hoover. In a couple years he'll get released on appeal, who cares, they already destroyed his business and relegated his wife and childs mother to begging for money on YouTube.
When you create an account just to post in this thread endlessly defending what appears to be at minimum someone who probably shouldn’t own guns in the first place, it’s difficult to believe you’re here for anything other than stirring the pot.
Oh, I found it. He was literally selling a machine gun conversion kit and claiming it was a business card. It very clearly wasn’t. And it wasn’t a “drawing” it was the metal pieces to convert an AR to fully automatic by breaking out the pre-cut pieces with a pliers.
https://www.gunsamerica.com/digest/atf-arrests-florida-man-s...
The distinguishing feature between this and a metal business card is the speech on it makes ATF sad face.
That is the attempt to pull the wool over everyone's eyes. Even the seller was marketing their machine-gun conversion kits as AR-related devices that the ATF wished didn't existed.
The seller even posted puerile pseudo legal disclaimers such as don't use them to do anything illegal
It's baffling how these puerile arguments boil down to expecting everyone to be binded to a very specific and far-fetched literal interpretation of a specific part of the law while keeping to themselves the fact that it is actually a blatant violation that's kept as an in-joke. When their poorly-thought-through stunt blows up on their face and see the law still applies, they clutch their pearls claiming they demand law enforcement should be stupid and incompetent enough to fall for their gimmicks.
https://www.scribd.com/document/772241091/AutoKeyCard-Case-A...
I repeat:
> When their poorly-thought-through stunt blows up on their face and see the law still applies, they clutch their pearls claiming they demand law enforcement should be stupid and incompetent enough to fall for their gimmicks.
And here you are, whining that others didn't fell for that pathetic gimmick.
I don't know who do you think you're fooling, or if you think everyone around you is a utter moron. The guy was selling machine-gun conversion kits. More specifically, he was selling lightning links which turns a semi-automatic AR-15 into a fully automatic machine gun.
You are asserting every single ar-15 is an illegal machine gun. You should read the testimony and about hammer follow to find out why you're wrong and why his case will absolutely be overturned.
I feel you're grossly and purposely misrepresenting the case.
The case you're referring to was over unregistered machine-gun conversion devices. The guy was selling them online and was caught with over a thousand machine-gun conversion kits.
What makes this case noteworthy is the dissimulated way kits were being marketed and sold, such as bottle openers, pen holders, or business cards.
The guy also marketed his machine-gun conversion kits as an AR-related device and "the parts ATF wishes never existed".
I believe you are well-aware of this fact. Yet, you chose to misrepresent it.
It's a metal business card shape with a drawing of the parts of a lightning link on it, that the state admitted didn't even function as one when dremmeled out using the blueprint. Even if you cut into the shapes, ATF could not get it to induce automatic fire. This is primarily a first amendment case and will get overturned as soon as a non-lukewarm IQ judge sees it. It's inevitable.
That's a personal assertion you're stating, and one that ignores and contrasts with all facts presented in the case.
I won't waste my time debating this.
A kit is usually sold to make it easier to do something. In this case the kit makes it even harder to induce hammer follow than simply using the parts already in an ar. Some kit, lmao. It is scary speech on the same kind of metal plates that sometimes instead have business card type speech.
https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/779/561/67c...
give up guys.
And, as I’m sure you know, the term “regulated” as written in 2A does not mean the same thing as “regulated” in terms of “government regulation”. In context, it means approximately “well-functioning” or “reliable”.
An individual right to participate in a well regulated militia.
Beyond that, the right is entirely unconnected with service in a militia. That clause at the beginning “A well-regulated Militia …” does not scope or bound what comes next; it offers one explanation for why that right is protected.
SCOTUS explained the historical meaning of these words in more detail in District of Columbia vs. Heller, including an in-depth examination of the language as part of its opinion that the right is an individual right.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Hell...
The SCOTUS decision itself is quite readable.
https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep...
Notably:
> Held:
> 1. The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.
> (a) The Amendment’s prefatory clause announces a purpose, but does not limit or expand the scope of the second part, the operative clause. The operative clause’s text and history demonstrate that it connotes an individual right to keep and bear arms.
In current federal legal context, the "militia" is all men between like age 18-45, plus all people in the national guard, or something like that. That's what the US CFR says.
Because that seems absurd given their rather large population of slaves.
In the US, the militia is explicitly independent of the government. Even if one were to accept your narrow reading, which no court has, I don't see how it would materially change anything given that any random group of blokes without any government involvement is a militia as a matter of law.
Those clubs, or militias, could own tanks, drones, explosives.
Ie, all those things that aren’t allowed today in the hands of private owners.
These are all allowed today in the hands of private owners.
What are you even talking about?
The people who want to harm our country don't seem to have any difficulty doing it.
Though obviously the amount of explosives per device is going to modify the risk profile.
There is occasionally discussions if we should ban trucks that carries dangerous materials from driving near large cities. The main counter argument is that the number of people who has access to trucks with dangerous goods in them is so few compared to the number of people with access to a car. Thus the more logical solution to mitigate risks is to address car access to areas with crowds.
This is incorrect, ammonium nitrate is intrinsically high-explosive. It is mixed with other ingredients to improve performance and/or sensitize it but this is not required. There are several famous examples of stored ammonium nitrate exploding e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Beirut_explosion
Most of those other blasts, including Beirut, involved lots of contamination of the AN + large fires + very large quantities of ammonium nitrate.
In truckload or less quantities, and when not contaminated with specific substances, ammonium nitrate is pretty much impossible to detonate without a sizable quantity of some other high explosive.
If you’re going to assume they have access to significant explosives to actually detonate pure ammonium nitrate, then you also need to consider flour and other ‘safe’ compounds due to the potential for even larger fuel air explosions.
There’s no mention of the guy using smokeless powder just hexamethylene triperoxide diamine which is an actual high explosive.
0: https://ktla.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/FBI-pipe...
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erythritol_tetranitrate
86 deaths, 434 injured
The poser referred to a “6,500lb truck” vs “19-tonne Renault Midlum cargo truck” used in that attack.
the 9/11 attackers went though flight school to be able to hijack planes. meanwhile getting a CDL is like $6k for out of state, $2k for in state, and ~$400 if you can demonstrate need / poverty. the classes are readily available at any community college, and can be done by anyone who can drive, basically.
Vehicles are used to kill a great number of people per year, but it’s really unusual to find someone who actually killed 50+ people through a vehicle alone. Meanwhile there’s significantly more people who used bombs to reach those numbers, despite how much more difficult it is to access significant quantities of explosives.
We see the examples of successful attempts at harm, most of us don't pay much attention to the failed attempts, which makes it difficult to draw conclusions about how hard it go from "attempted harm" to "actual harm".
>Investigators also found hexamethylene triperoxide diamine, which the agency described as “an explosive material that is so unstable it can be exploded merely as a result of friction or temperature changes.”
I mean, I don't even have to look that chemical up to see that it is explosive.
Actually looking at it, it's a cage of nitrogens and peroxides. Cricky.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexamethylene_triperoxide_di...
>Cases of detonation caused by the simple act of screwing a lid on a jar containing HMTD have been reported
I don’t know the line but it seems this would obviously warrant investigation regardless of if this person broke a law. I say that as someone who believes in limited government.
Is it fair of my neighbor to instill fear in his fellow neighbors? What if his stash was kept secret for decades, are all those bombs good for the neighborhood? What if he dies and then his stash is discovered in some kind of explosive event?
However, instead of going after those criminals, the FBI has placed its focus on sending a SWAT team to arrest someone who downloaded the wrong 3D print file or ordered a spicy plastic gun accessory on the Internet. That’s a disingenuous application of the law by people who have an agenda, not an approach that’s actually intended to reduce harm.
Why do you think the fbi is giving a pass to drugs? There's ample evidence that they devote a lot of resources to it.
Again, and please read this slowly, to be a decent, caring, good neighbor is not to have them worried about what you're building in your garage. Your reply cares nothing if one of his kids or neighborhood playmates happens upon one of his bombs that could lead to a potential explosion.
The problem of listening and reacting to public outbursts is that there are enough people on all sides of this that there'll be an outburst whatever happens.
The Algorithm makes us a pile of hyper-reactionary babies.
If the FBI had all this information and didn't act on it, then he e.g. went into a tower and murdered dozens of people in the street, there is not going to be a substantial number of people saying "oh well ya know they didn't have a basis to intervene when they were first informed of his 1) probably-illegal firearms, 2) extreme violent views and 3) growing stockpile of explosives."
I personally don't think there's enough public consultation on rights. For some reason America relies on an increasingly political supreme court to set those boundaries rather than what The People actually want.
And all of this is entirely impossible to derive from online conduct because it's just wall-to-wall strife, disagreement and suffering. A system continuously telling us to be angry with other people, rather than how to enjoy these short, little lives we have. Weird if you ask me.
All of that is absolutely, obviously true.
My original point got a little lost by my second post. That there are angry people shouting about something doesn't mean they're right. Being loud shouldn't earn you opinion being rebroadcast, but that's exactly what today's social media does. And it's what the traditional media did before it. Sell engagement through outrage.
If we want to have qualitative conversations about what homeland security really looks like to stop an attack like the one here —that nobody is even suggesting was planned— I'm not sure people will be so "absolutely, obviously" on one side. Only once you have those conversations can you reasonably barter with the limits of rights.
As it always is, people are always on some spectrum for an activity.
I'm generally on the side of intended use mattering more than mere possession of things. However, it seems there may be evidence in this case of violent intentions and destructive devices intended to kill. The comments about the SBR are mostly based on the mental contortions one must do to say an SBR is somehow more dangerous than a braced pistol (even if one is clearly illegal and the other is legal, the question is why).
If the US intends to stick to the freedom-first philosophy with regards to possession, then it would behoove everyone to have a more nuanced legal view of intent.
E.g. graduated escalating consequences for 'Making threats and remarks of a violent nature' to 'Taking actions that indicate preparation for violent action' etc.
Like you, I think if people want to mess around with homemade explosives, and they have enough land to do so, then that's their business.
BUT! There should also be a pattern of behavior, evidence, and witnessed statements where we say 'This particular individual has ceded the right to access dangerous things.'
So essentially being able to charge and convict someone (with due process) of 'violent intent', with no financial or incarceration penalties, but temporary addition (5 year?) to lists that preclude their being able to access dangerous material (guns, explosives, etc).
Of course, the NRA has historically been the biggest lobbyist blocker to anything of that nature, given their paranoia that any legal government consequences will spiral into a panopticon.
Unfortunately, that view doesn't solve the fact that there are very troubled individuals out there, and we'd all be able to be afforded greater freedom if we did a better job in managing those particular people's access to lethal things.
I'm not sure what you're getting at on this one. This individual faces potential incarceration. He is on bail and would be denied access to dangerous things... in theory. Of course he manufactured explosives, so it's not like he has to pass a background check to come into possession of them again.
"and we'd all be able to be afforded greater freedom if we did a better job in managing those particular people's access to lethal things."
Do you have some examples of additional freedoms we're missing currently?
"Of course, the NRA has historically been the biggest lobbyist blocker to anything of that nature, given their paranoia that any legal government consequences will spiral into a panopticon."
I'm not exactly sure what you're referring to that they oppose. But the legal term for a slippery slope is the Overton Window. Speaking of gun regulations generally, it's not hard to understand why a pro-gun group would be against the types of additional regulations that are already present in other states that arguable do not improve safety or could even reduce it in legitimate use circumstances (eg hollowpoint bans, etc).
Freedom from gun violence for thousands of US children annually?
that ship has sailed the moment United States of America collectively decided that it is acceptable to slaughter children in schools. when you make that decision as a society it is over.
bringing up inner city gun violence to a gun debate is more than funny to me :)
The current US justice system is based around conviction of a crime (which usually requires having already committed it, or a VERY high bar for having intended to do so) in order to impose consequences (usually severe).
Or limitations on individuals' rights after conviction of the above.
There's no lesser standard of 'at higher risk to commit a crime', aside from a patchwork of short-duration city/state red-flag type laws, most of which are being challenged in court.
> Do you have some examples of additional freedoms we're missing currently?
Access to NFA-controlled devices? [0]
E.g. a breach-loading potato gun
> I'm not exactly sure what you're referring to that they oppose. But the legal term for a slippery slope is the Overton Window.
The Overton Window isn't a legal term: it's a PR/clickbait term.
The NRA has and currently opposes red-flag laws [1], even when constructed with due process procedures, because of its mistrust of any government firearm regulation.
If they instead switched their lobbying approach to productively crafting due process procedures that would allow targeting individuals with a history of threats, abuse, and violence, the rest of us could benefit from greater freedom to dangerous devices.
Instead, their tunnel vision on absolute freedom requires repeatedly casting a blind eye to inconvenient situations where disturbed individuals leverage that freedom to kill others.
Solving problems requires clear-eyed appraisals of the risks and benefits of various approaches to arrive at optimal outcomes.
The NRA has fueled the exact opposite, by leveraging histrionics and fear mongering, not least for its own financial gain. Fuck em.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Title_II_weapons
[1] https://www.nraila.org/search/?t=79503
I would bet that the NRA will propose ammendments to any national red flag legislation introduced, just as they helped shape the 1968 legislation once it looked inevitable. That's all a part of the political game. Sure, the Overton Window is associated with some clickbait, but it's a real and valid concept in politics. This is why groups aren't going to volunteer to help implement things that are counter to their goals, be it the NRA or Everytown. Do you really think Everytown would support something like national reciprocity in exchange for red flag laws? No, as they are also a hardliner and playing the game.
"Solving problems requires clear-eyed appraisals of the risks and benefits of various approaches to arrive at optimal outcomes."
So what's the solution? What's the optimal outcome?
The NRA's blanket opposition to red flag laws is simply one example their willingness to ideologically fight even the simplest approach to a priori restrictions.
> So what's the solution? What's the optimal outcome?
In my ideal world, the US would lean more heavily into universally-accessible but universally-required certification for access to dangerous devices.
Similar to motor vehicles, the default should be that no one has access to these things, but everyone has a right to obtain certification to have them.
As an example, that would look something like national "must issue" concealed weapons permits, but contingent on completing a non-trivial safety course and passing a background check (to ensure the individual isn't spending their free time talking about murdering people online / to their neighbors, appealable ofc).
Instead, we've spent ~60 years wringing our hands to try and square the circle between {everyone deserves access to dangerous things} and {some people are too irresponsible to have dangerous things}.
Why not just start with those facts and craft a viable system from there?
The way the current system is set up, it's supposed to weed people out before they get access to the more dangerous stuff. As juveniles, if they get convicted of certain offenses, they will be prohibited, at least until 35. We have eroded various aspects of this with selective enforcement, plea deals, and the promoting the continuation of childhood with delays in freedoms and responsibilities. Then for the of-age group we have stuff like conspiracy, voluntary/involuntary commitment, terroristic threats, and all manner of prohibiting offenses. There's certainly some room for improvement, but it hard to say what an effective improvement would be.
The contradiction is that that’s literally the content and purpose of the 2A of the US Constitution. It’s not the right to bear arms for hunting deer, or the right to go target shooting. The language is pretty explicit, if it isn’t clear enough the founders took the time to explain the purpose of it in the Federalist Papers after they fought an armed revolution against their own government.
My take on unstable people is that if you’re not stable enough to own guns you’re not stable enough to participate in society. If the person in this case made credible threats, they should charge him with a crime other than possession of a firearm accessory. There are plenty of other ways that deranged people hurt others (Like driving a vehicle into a christmas market). The only way we can claim to live in a free society is by maintaining a system of due process.
The literal text is ambiguous to a degree that commas change its meaning:
>> A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Relying on contemporaneous ancillary (and unratified with consensus) documents should be an obvious sign that textual clarity is lacking.
Furthermore, the ability of an 18th century individual to craft weapons of mass destruction was vastly inferior to our modern access.
> My take on unstable people is that if you’re not stable enough to own guns you’re not stable enough to participate in society. If the person in this case made credible threats, they should charge him with a crime other than possession of a firearm accessory.
Not only stability! Just normal common sense.
~20% of English-proficient Americans can't do basic numerical tasks in English [0].
I wouldn't trust anyone that dumb around a loaded 6-lb trigger pull.
As the aphorism goes, some people ain't got the sense God saw fit to give a squirrel.
And while they and unstable people are fully entitled to live their lives however they want, it would behoove society at large to say 'Maybe we're not going to hand you things that require the highest amount of safety and carefulness.'
But I'm from the generation where you started out firearms ownership with a hunter safety course at the local firehouse, followed by supervised use with your family, eventually progressing to independent use by high school.
[0] https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2020/2020025.pdf
We don’t gatekeep rights based on someone’s perceived intelligence. The same logic was used to keep southern blacks from voting in the civil rights era and was promptly struck down. If you’re an American, it’s your inalienable right.
> The literal text is ambiguous to a degree that commas change its meaning
The people who wrote the amendment literally wrote essays explaining their thought process. It’s not like we’re deciphering ancient greek artifacts, we all know exactly what the founders meant when they wrote it. The Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed this extremely obvious interpretation.
If no, you acknowledge there is a line. We’re allowed to bear arms, but not any and all arms.
If yes, maybe your views are consistent but you’re utterly insane.
Since the second amendment itself doesn’t contain any express instructions as to who can bear which arms—which is a necessary consideration once you’ve accepted that everyone shouldn’t be able to bear every arm—we’re now solidly in the realm of political debate rather than second amendment absolutism.
Nuclear weapons are an intentionally-absurd example to force a concession that there obviously must be limits. Frequently people will even acknowledge that the 2A probably doesn’t cover them (or at least oughtn’t be interpreted in a way that it does). From there it’s generally pretty easy to walk reasonable people backward towards MANPADs, and then further on down to things that aren’t quite so difficult to acquire.
Exactly. Prison or full rights, guns, voting, living beside a school, all of it. Get rid of all this inbetween crap.
Oh, the prisons are too crowded you say? Well perhaps criminalize less things.
We can also focus on actual rehabilitation or fewer heavy handed sentences for non-violent offenders. A lot of things that are currently prison sentences could potentially be probation and fines.
You may consider it hypocritical, but the vast majority of the founders ( Jefferson was an exception) were very very anti armed rebellion! That's the context for the Constitution replacing the articles of confederation. Having recently fought one they didn't think we needed any more revolutions and didn't want any more revolutions! And didn't appreciate several violent incidents like Shays rebellion.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/75z37x/what_...
> Shays’ Rebellion was an armed uprising led by former Massachusetts militiamen and veterans of the American Revolution which took place between 1786 - 1787. Daniel Shays led several thousand ‘rebels" to fight against the economic injustices that were facing farmers and agrarian peasants all across America. (3) These farmers were experiencing extreme poverty following the end of the Revolutionary War. All across America, farmers saw their lands foreclosed on in unfair property seizures, and they wanted to fight back. They were also trying to fight taxes which were beginning to be levied against them.(4) People in rural American fought these perceived injustices in a few ways, with Shays' Rebellion being the most violent. Shays' Rebellion would ultimately be put down, but it startled the gentry who feared further uprisings throughout the United States.
> While we call it a “rebellion" today, these men did not label themselves this way. They called themselves “regulators,” specifically they called themselves the “Massachusetts Regulation,” modeling off of the North Carolina Regulators that we saw just a moment ago.(5) This was the larger part of a trend of poor Americans fighting back against economic injustice. The idea of “civilian regulation” was catching on and becoming a popular idea for ending government corruption. They believed that if the government wasn't regulating itself on behalf of "We the People", then "the People" had the right to regulate, or take back the government – to take it back and do what they believed was right. They didn't see themselves as a rebellion, but rather the gentry labeled them as such in order to de-legitimize their cause. By calling them "rebels," neutral Americans would see these men as insurgents who needed to be stopped. But this regulation was not the only type of fighting Americans across the country participated in. Many states saw widespread revolts ...
> By the time the the constitutional convention convened, America was under extreme duress. In Terry Bouton's article "A Road Closed: Rural Insurgency in Post-Independence Pennsylvania" he masterfully explained the fighting and rebellion that took place in the rural country sides of Pennsylvania that mirrored what had happened in Massachusetts.(7) The gentry were terrified that they were losing control of rural America, and as a result they would not be able to seize foreclosed land and collect taxes, which they needed. Empowering militias to be trained and carry firearms allowed the gentry to call up these men in times of need and suppress these rebellions that were taking place. The Founders knew that the only solutions were to call up militias as they had done in North Carolina and Massachusetts.
...
> Multiple other bills of rights from other states had already protected a militia's right to bear arms (such as Section 13 of Virginia's Declaration of Rights) and many of these states were fighting to have the federal government protect this as well. Here their declaration stated:
> > SEC. 13. That a well-regulated militia, or composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.(8)
> This wording is even more carefully crafted then in the national Bill of Rights. Here, they define “well-regulated” meaning they were trained my military officers. You also see that they define the purpose of it as being necessary to “defend” the state (implying against people in rebellion) and they of course explain why they feared a standing Army. Now if you examine the wording of the Second Amendment, we can see some clear similarities:
> > A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
> Like in Virginia, “well regulated" is the key phrase. They are referring to militias led by people like Benjamin Lincoln and his Massachusetts Militia, not Shays and his "rebellion". The idea that people need firearms to protect themselves from the government is not accurate. It was a message propagated by anti-gun control advocates of the 1980s. This “right” was crafted when rebellions were happening everywhere and the only way the government could maintain control was to make sure they could call up their militias.
Do you also believe you should not need a driving license, or an electrician should not have any certification?
Because an average person can watch a YouTube video and wire a circuit, or learn to drive by themselves, but their chances of making explosives without posing a danger for themselves or others are far, far lower.
This should be a licensed activity where you need to demonstrate at least basic competence and mental stability.
If an individual is endangering only themselves in a way that poses no risk to others (e.g. blowing up stumps on their own large property), then that's a responsibility they should be given.
Which does suggest stricter limits on higher density areas (read: cities), given the proximity of people and lack of empty, fuck-around space.
Bluntly, it’s also the hacker community, or at least this hacker community, being kind of poor at generalizing things to an overall population and confusing their own emotions about something for a reasoned defense of it. We’re arrogant, overconfident in our ability to reason about things, undervalue others’ reasoning, experience, and history, regularly mistake our ability to reason through a technical issue for expertise in things outside our wheelhouse, and are profoundly gifted at self-motivated reasoning, so the idea that anyone else might have a valid opinion on why we shouldn’t do something we really want to do strikes us as tyranny.
Regulations actually in place to protect people are fine. Most regulations on this sort of thing are overbearing. A lot of the licensing and recordkeeping are targeted towards companies and commercial producers and apply ham-fistedly to individuals. One example is distillation of spirits. It's illegal for me to distill. I'm not even allowed to get a license to do it because my property is residential and not commercial even though I want to do it for myself. There's really no valid reasoning for. The courts are starting to agree - there was one court that said making the permit impossible to get as an individual in a residential property is a violation of some right.
The point is, we should challenge regulations that don't make sense. If there is a valid reason, then we learn. If there isn't a valid reason, then maybe we can correct some injustice. Even as hackers/programmers/etc, we miss edge cases and have to amend our code, it's really not much different for policies, probably even worse than the spaghetti code with of us has seen.
Where do we draw the line of ridiculousness?
Fortunately, this guy commited over 150 crimes. Bail was denied. We can lock him up and throw away the key. It really doesn't matter if he were to be an imminent threat or not.
In a legal context, and also the real world sans a legal context, words do have meaning and words do matter. I don't see anything in the article that Spafford terrorized anyone.
Whether Spafford intended to terrorize anyone in the future is another matter, and a matter of legitimate and serious concern. But we must not confuse this with "terrorized" (past tense) if we are going to discuss the matter in a sane and sober way.
BUT
.. apart from Jan 6 and a few milita incidents, nobody ever combines these three into politically targeted violence. The mass murders are always either strangers, workplace, or schoolchildren. Politically motivated, but not targeted at any kind of power structure. It's been a long time since the Unabomber. All the elements are in place for a really serious deterioration of civil safety, but so far the glue is holding.
Your other points are valid but this one has been so highly politicized that inner city gang violence is classified as mass shooting, which is a completely different social issue that’s being co-opted in with the political violence issue and the mental health crisis. All of those problems are complex and have different root causes, implications and magnitudes, but activists like Everytown want to lump them together to portray a “Gun Problem” to pitch their forced solution, which is making it harder for law-abiding citizens to own guns.
As a non American, I am unfamiliar with your inner city gang violence.
If it involves guns being used to kill multiple people in one incident, this seems tautologically "mass murder", even if it's specifically also gang war.
(Then again, perhaps I should add "gang war" to my list examples of things where people sincerely argue if it counts as murder, along with normal war, assassination, abortion, and meat).
We can't stop drug importation. What makes you think that we can stop guns?
> and we had less of them we would have a safer less violent society.
"less of them"? We can take away all of the deer rifles and not change US violence at all. A collector with 100 guns is not more dangerous than one with 25.
The vast majority of US gun violence is committed by people who are already involved in other illegal activities involving other illegal substances. It is absurd to think that they can be disarmed by legal means.
It takes about 1% of the "by physical volume" drug smuggling to provide them with a new gun per crime.
If anything guns are harder to ban than drugs (because they're easier to make and smuggle), and that was true before 3d printing became a thing.
Hello, I'm British.
Better solutions don't have to be perfect, as the country of my birth demonstrates: still has drugs smuggled in, sometimes even has firearms, even a few mass shootings.
But firearms are banned so effectively that even the police don't routinely carry them — the handful of officers I've ever seen armed in the UK, in person, were all in airports.
The four nations of the UK combined had around 700 homicides in total in each recent year, which is about the same as Philidelphia plus half of Baltimore. It's not just because the US is more populous, the per-capita homicide rate in the UK is about 80% lower in the UK than in the US.
I know the UK is unusual — I'm in Berlin now, and the cops here have what looks like a pistol, not that I'd be able to distinguish it in the holster from a taser or a pistol shaped pepper spray — but there's a whole world of other ways to do things than what each of us takes for granted, and we can learn from each other if we don't shut out the possibility.
The elements will always be in place for disturbed individuals, just look at the number of "Cars running over crowds" stories, such as yesterday in New Orleans. The question and premise for a lot of the battles are, do we take away rights or abilities of those that won't do it, on the off chance that someone could?
Clear laws, enforced consistently would help a lot here. I would also posit, though not likely a popular opinion, there are people that cannot be a part of a functioning society and we have to collectively agree on that. We need to bring back functioning mental health facilities for long term care and accept that some people will be placed here and not leave.
That's my point: there's loads of "apolitical" school shootings and much less "political" violence.
PS- Just one recent example: The plot to kidnap Gov Gretchen Whitmer managed to break thru to corporate media. This wiki has a smattering of the misc terrorist groups involved. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gretchen_Whitmer_kidnapping_pl...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Matthew_Crooks
Indeed. But since they're right wing guys attacking Trump, it seems to have faded from the conversation. Also they failed.
I wont speak more on it here but I can think of atleast 6 people i've known closely who've just gone completely dark online + in their community after anti-govt organization. I assume they're dead.
Reading more about this, it seems to have come after a several year investigation. Yet he is out on bail as for some reason the only thing he's being charged with is owning a short barreled rifle. Which seems bizarre. https://www.vpm.org/news/2024-12-31/norfolk-homemade-explosi...
A short-barreled rifle, on the other hand, it is strictly forbidden without an appropriate Federal tax stamp.
One of the reasons that high-explosives are widely legal is that they have several common applications for individual use. Despite the availability and consumption of high-explosives in the US, misuse has been very rare in practice.
One of my rural buddies told me how he spent a summer mixing diesel and fertilizer to clear fields, approaching it like a lab experiment and keeping detailed notes.
Honestly, both sounded like a lot of fun.
https://www.amazon.com/Island-Bush-Pilot-Founder-Airlines/dp...
Going to see how well it works soon though; a few weeks ago had a ~2ft diameter stump left when my 65ft spruce snapped in a wind storm. Turns out about halfway up it had branched off into two trunks, and that junction was rotting, the wind storm caused that junction to snap half way up. In looking, my neighbor has a tree with the same dual-trunk situation, though hers is more likely to land on her house.
As to how much it matters or not? No clue.
Yeah, like AR-15 and high explosives, surprisingly violent death rate is much lower here…
The US also regulate chemicals, and knives are free to sell everywhere, it's just forbidden to be carried in public.
Many things which were common in my youth are vanishing forever.
How can otherwise reasonable people come to believe nonsense like this just because it fits their worldviews will always remain a mystery for me.
AR-15s are actually not banned in many parts of the EU.
The dude showed of this EU compliant collection.
Multiple pistols and rifles, and what some state would classify as weapons of war, an SBR, or a assault weapon.
All obtained legally via permits and a local cop signing off on the paperwork.
It's actually interesting to met that, in the American discourse, we never discourse an EU-style classification system. Whenever people in the US propose new gun regulation, it always a maximalist approach -- banning the AR-15 completely.
The European system, broadly speaking, is not like that.
There are federal classes for dealers and manufacturers -- manufacturers of silencers, of automatic weapons, of missiles and rockets, &c, and dealers of these articles -- but that also is not like the European classification system I am talking about, which is for end users.
The NFA, which does apply special regulation to silencers, short-barreled rifles and some other items, which allows them to be owned by end users, and that is kind of similar but there is a real difference: you file for a tax stamp and wait for a background check to complete, without having to worry about taking a particular course and getting a certain grade.
Speech, in both the EU and the US is free under the limits set by law, the US isn't an “absolute free speech land”, you will definitely be jailed for speech that goes against the law (for instance death threats, see [1]).
> equity compensation...
What are you talking about, I've been given equity more than once…
[1]: https://nypost.com/2024/12/12/us-news/florida-mom-arrested-f...
The compounds generally are. The applicable use is where the laws come into play. Things like pipe bombs, devices marked "lethal", etc are not legal without special permits and would be deemed destructive devices.
Maybe the charge would get thrown out at some point, but not including it in the indictment seems odd.
Though it would be helpful to know which state, because I don’t know of any that are quite that easy to deal with.
BATF to my knowledge does still require a license (albeit easy to get if you meet the requirements) for commercial use, anyway.
Seems fairly clear cut. You could argue the term "business" means they need to be selling the stuff, but the definitions clarify "manufacturing" includes for personal use.
edit it never occurred to me he may be licensed. Still, this particular explosive seems to have no approved use, and the licensing seems to be for specific explosives. I may be wrong on that though.
And it's Virginia, the Isle of Wight is a county in Virginia.
The dealer would be the one with the license.
Also, manufacturing and using on site for non-commercial purposes is exempted (albeit not explicitly). Which is why tannerite and personal explosives research is fine and widespread.
While I get some things are exempt like tannerite, I find it highly unlikely someone could just manufacture TNT or rdx and use it in their back yard without breaking a ton of laws.
Even if you used it within the 24 hour requirement so it didn't have to be stored(iirc from my memory of old legal readings)
Specifically, “Persons manufacturing explosives for their own personal, non-business use only (e.g., personal target practice) are not required to have a federal explosives license or permit under 27 CFR, Part 555”
The issue is the law is clearly written to regulate commercial activites, and the fed gov’t (at least in theory) only has jurisdiction over commercial activities (those involving trade). There is a lot of court precedent on this, some of it confusing. So while the law doesn’t explicitly exempt personal, non-business use, the courts (and constitution), and the law, doesn’t cover personal, non-business use either. So, legal.
also, there is zero chance they could stop it.
However, it may be that the suspect violated a different section of the law:
It shall be unlawful for any person to store any explosive material in a manner not in conformity with regulations promulgated by the Attorney General.
The suspect may also have violated the NFA, by manufacturing destructive devices without appropriate permitting or record keeping.
The definitions, which were on the previous page. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/841
I'm not sure if we can take that to mean "engaged in the business of manufacturing" includes non-commercial activity.
it’s not explicitly called out in the law, like you’re noting. rather that personal, non-commercial use just isn’t covered by the law. So legal/exempt.
Other situations, like non-personal, non-commercial use are covered - distribution requires licensing even if not paid, same as import/export, doing business in explosives, etc.
Where some YouTubers and the like have gotten in trouble is when they start making money off what would otherwise be personal use (like showing videos of tannerite usage, or some other synthesis), but funny enough if they get demonitized and aren’t using it for some business purpose, they’re fine.
Feel free to check the law yourself if you’d like.
Then, during the pre-trial phase, a superseding indictment can be added as more evidence is gathered and a stronger case is put together.
This happened with Paul Manafort, who was first indicted for “conspiracy against the United States”, but then the superseding indictment included all sorts of tax and bank fraud.
Note that it's not totally unregulated. If you are only an occasional user, you get a permit from the ATF for $25. Plus whatever your state/county wants.
https://www.atf.gov/explosives/federal-explosives-licenses-a...
I suspect a far greater many are injured from fireworks.
Get out of here with your ridiculous 1823 hyperbole. These explosive can be very efficient and useful when managing multiple acres.
If you're clearing multiple acres you use a track hoe and a large bulldozer. Source: the 60 acres of grown up crp we finished clearing last month.
I know the Internet wants you to think that rural life is all guns and explosions, but that's sometimes not the case. Why do you think every small town has multiple excavator companies?
Because the law is such an expensive PITA to comply with that nobody does it. People blew up rocks and stumps all the time before the mid 1970s.
Different experiences for different folks.
About once a week I get pissed off that I'm on Craigslist looking for expensive tractors and expensive attachments instead of just a drill bit and explosives all because some leftists blew up some bathrooms in the 1970s and the 1970s equivalent of people like you wrung their hands over it.
Source: Clearing acreage the hard way in my spare time
It's fairly common for tannerite to be used for target shooting.
Gunpowder is commonly available for reloading.
I doubt this is common and should probably be illegal if it isn't already because it's horrible for the environment. However, blast fishing is apparently actually a thing! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blast_fishing
Remember FPSRussia went down for paint on a serial number and a few vape pens but the arrest bulletin made him sound like a madman.
[1] https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/8228342/parties/united-...
This appears to be the actual case: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69482949/united-states-...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FPSRussia
It’s an explosive, full stop. I have no problem with the premade targets that have a small amount, but honestly, the larger quantities should require at a minimum a background check.
Almost all popular precursor chemicals for drugs and explosives are heavily controlled in Europe.
[1] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:...
I mean if someone wants to cause mass causulty and terror its going to happen, be it a gun or a knife or explosive. Hell I'd argue cyber attacks could also do the same.
Sure, the general idea though is to raise the barrier - both to make it more difficult to get the weapon in question and to have better chances of red flags popping up somewhere along the chain.
Same for gun background checks outside of the US, for requiring CDLs to rent trucks capable of plowing through assemblies of people, or for requiring at least a CPL if not an ATPL to pilot a plane capable of dealing a large amount of damage.
The higher the damage potential in the hands of someone abusing a thing for terrorism, the higher the barriers to entry should be.
Because the vast majority of these guys are all talk. For every Ted Kaczynski there are a thousand Dale Dribbles: backyard tinkerers who give up all notion of resistance when the cops actually show up. The cops cannot tell the difference and so must treat them all as potential Teds. Once safely in custody, the Dales will quietly plead guilty to vastly reduced charges.
The difference is that the Dale Gribbles don't go out of their way to harm anyone whereas the uncle Teds do.
You don't need a Waco for many people to die a violent death.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_City_bombing
-Osama Bin Laden
The real criminal in this case is feds depriving fundamental civil rights under color of law. The failure to register short barrel rifle pretext in particular is based on faulty precedent that military did not use short barrel arms thus the NFA stamp was 'constitutional'. ( then, lol, gov obliviously sold a bunch of surplus rifles to public breaking this same law on accident which is why rifles have lower limit now than shotguns).
The allegation is that this person made a veritable arsenal of pipe bombs and other explosives, with plausible domestic terrorism intent or inclinations.
The Second Amendment technicality you mention might come up in a legal defense, but I don't understand fixating on that as "the real criminal" here -- on a story of securing a very dangerous-sounding cache of pipe bombs, mishandled explosive material, etc.
The precedent is based on a lie the gov itself accidently violated during surplus sales to the public. The precedent exists because the Supreme Court took up a case against a dead guy with no representation, as a poison pill. The state argued the military didn't use short barrel arms, which was a lie. No defense was there to contest it, and this it is now binding on total fiction.
Of course the most hilarious part is 'short barrel' anything was just a measure to ban pistols, which congress changed their mind on last minute and allowed pistols while forgetting to nix the law on creating pistols from long arms. This guy is charged for essentially violating a historical vestigial accident upheld by bogus precedent against an undefended dead guy.
IIUC, you're focusing on that 2A aspect because it's a topic that you know and care about, and think needs to be mentioned?
And the other aspects of the story were already being discussed, and you had nothing to add on those?
If so, did you say "the real criminal" only as a figure of speech? Or do you think that nothing about the pipe bombs, etc., was criminal?
>do you think that nothing about the pipe bombs, etc., was criminal?
Seems like the FBI don't, for now. Just like when someone is reported as having "an encrypted messing app" - fear mongering nonsense.
The HN post is on the news story. The news story is not a trial, and is about more than whatever charges are filed against anyone thus far. Other aspects of the story are already in active discussion.
I'm trying to get at more substantial discussion than on Twitter, by understanding why someone was speaking the way they were, by asking them.
> Seems like the FBI don't, for now.
Does it actually seem like that, or does it seem like probably the FBI expects that there will probably be additional charges?
You said:
> The allegation is that this person made a veritable arsenal of pipe bombs and other explosives, with plausible domestic terrorism intent or inclinations.
> The Second Amendment technicality you mention might come up in a legal defense, but I don't understand fixating on that as "the real criminal" here -- on a story of securing a very dangerous-sounding cache of pipe bombs, mishandled explosive material, etc.
Your slant there is that this fellow's possession of explosives was illegal... or maybe SHOULD have been.
If it was even vaguely-plausibly illegal, the fellow would have been charged. The cops searched his entire place and detonated some of his explosives, so it's not like the cops were unaware of the explosives. As mentioned in this thread [0] (and accompanying subthread), he's just being charged with a tax violation (and is currently out on bail) probably because possession of high explosives is usually entirely legal in the US.
Frankly, it should be illegal for police and other similar government agents to engage in character assassination. Statements from government agents like "This fellow was in possession of large-but-entirely-legal quantities of entirely-legal substances and materials. Be very afraid!" should absolutely leave the speaker personally liable for something akin to libel.
[0] <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42562969>
So it wasn’t enough. or the evidence they provided wasn’t credible.
I can't even imagine the headlines that some of my neighbors would have "Man with Arsenal and stockpile of thousands of rounds of ammunition" presented in a slant. Meanwhile he had a few buckets of 22lr, and a half dozen rifles.
Given the evidence we've seen, the memes, and what would clearly pass as joking, there isn't really any "Here's my plan for x date" type smoking gun.
I think that it's clear this wasn't the "credible" threat implied, simply by his bail.
Most of the interesting policy area regarding the right to bear arms is actually in bearable arms -- small arms and light weapons. Although it is legal to own a tank, for example, this is not of much practical impact.
Perhaps the initial and continual suitable personal stability and trustworthiness for owning different categories of mass-casualty-capable weapons should be sensibility and increasingly regulated appropriately. Honestly, I think there should be a limited number of gun clubs that require continual vouching/sponsorship to retain access to certain categories of weapons. Letting randos amass 100 AKs with bumpstocks just seems insane.
Jefferson was right when he said the Constitution should be rewritten once per generation.
You can amend the Constitution to forbid the Supreme Court from interpreting it to allow for unhindered access to weapons of mass destruction. Not super difficult if everyone agrees.
Moreover, Elon Musk can not launch anything with enough mass to come remotely close to the yield on even a small nuclear weapon. Kinetic bombardment of say, a 200 Mg tungsten rod from orbit, impacting Earth, would have a yield equivalent to only ~350 tons of TNT.
Which clause?
If you read it, I think that you’ll be surprised to find that it doesn’t actually state anything about interpretation. It was in Marbury v. Madison that the Supreme Court invented the doctrine of judicial review.
I actually agree that the power of interpretation is implied by having a judicial power at all, but it’s not in the black and white text.
To be fair to the Second Amdendment supremacist, he only compared the sattelite deorbit with the explosive arsenal of the wacko the FBI arrested, not tot nuclear weapons.
You should do a deeper reading of the Constitution and the role the courts play. I think you’re quite confused.
I'm saying if you believe that courts are routinely violating rights then you don't know how rights are derived in this country.
FWIW judicial review was not a mandate in the constitution but was something the court decided it could do with Marbury v Madison.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/about/constitutional.aspx
Judicial review was officially challenged and affirmed in Marbury v Madison. That wasn't where it was "decided" they could do it. As the article you just posted (and a basic understanding of western judicial tradition) clearly explains, judicial review in America predates not just Marbury v Madison, but the Constitution itself.
The Marbury decision itself is predicated on the prior point: it is literally not possible to have a judiciary that doesn't interpret the laws themselves.
The scope and extent of that interpretation should be fairly limited -- the tendency of the common law system to accumulate "judge made law" can lead to inconsistencies (and certainly has, with regards to the 2nd Amendment) -- but how could law ever be so thorough and systematic as to obviate the need for such interpretation entirely?
Their purpose in this argument is to show that the principled stand is a lie. It’s not about belief in a god-given right to bear arms without restrictions. Basically everyone on all sides of the argument believes there should be restrictions. The disagreement is just about what those restrictions should be. Some people who want looser restrictions pretend, maybe even believe, that their position is a principled, absolutist one. But it isn’t, any more than “ban all guns except single-shot pistols” is.
The debate people have about 2A and nukes is usually pretty low resolution: I don't ever see any references to the CFR but there's plenty of stuff (in Title 10, I believe) that restricts nuclear materials for any purpose whatever.
In other words, all other things being equal, if wealthy private citizens want to fund the Departments of Energy and Defense over and above their tax obligations, who am I to complain?
It's not like the DoE doesn't already employ private contractors in a wide variety of nuclear security roles[1].
[1] http://www.publicdomainfiles.com/show_file.php?id=1397444401...
They don't want to draw a line because that's hard so they eliminate the line and we end up with ridiculous logic like the right to bear nuclear weapons.
Which part is this?
It was a system based fundamentally on privately owned arms and ammunition; the point of the 2nd Amendment was to protect the militia by protecting the armed citizenry.
This is, pretty plainly, a right of people and not of governments, &c, &c. Some people say that, well, there is the militia clause, to try to support a reading where "the people" refers to their states or communities; but they rely on an incorrect understanding of the way militia worked to support that. Militia is not a synonym for army or gendarmerie.
I'm not sure why anybody thinks a reading like that is plausible. I guess if you think of "militia" as a synonym for "army", it makes sense; but that's not how militia actually worked. If the 2nd Amendment had only been intended to protect a public or collective right to bear arms, it would have protected almost nothing and would not have prevented the militia from being disarmed.
There is a lot to say here but, in a nut shell, there was an obligation to be armed if one was in a militia, but there was no obligation to be in a militia if one was armed. There was no permit to purchase system or anything like that: the militia relied on ubiquitous availability of arms and ammunition in the private market. Although there were some town armories and magazines, this is not where the majority of service weapons were located -- the majority were in people's homes, as private property (property which they bought with their own money, retained when they aged out of service, and passed down in their estates).
This was a long standing institution in English society, having its roots in the 1181 Assize of Arms. I mean, it's not impossible that the founders were not thinking about this when they wrote the amendment; but it doesn't seem very plausible. If we consider how the militia actually worked, the militia aspect of the amendment and the private right aspect are aligned with each other.
/s
Even if you do the mental gymnastics to rework the English language to make this mean what you want it to mean, the militia is composed of all able-bodied men between 17-45 per 10 U.S. Code § 246.
At the time of this country's founding, private individuals owned cannonry, ships, and ordnance far beyond small arms.
What purpose would letters of marque and reprisal serve without weapons?
Unless, of course, you really trust Trump less than any random wacko....
Best of luck getting 34/50 state legislatures to agree!
There is no consistent logic here to debate.
This is a meaningless non-sequitur, not the "logic" you think it is.
Trump won the hard right nuts votes merely by being seen as slightly not as bad on core issues as the other main candidate.
That's a scary sentence. I fear this might be used to mandate backdoors into encrypted apps.
We should also object to telegram being called an encrypted app. It is not encrypted by default. When you optionally enable the cryptography it has, IIRC they rolled their own ciphers and it's not considered good by anybody serious.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cthulhu_for_President
[0] https://youtube.com/watch?v=hlk7o5T56iw
> I am The Hill’s national security and legal affairs reporter [...]
So I assume the journalist wrote the piece themself, and knew how loaded that line was.
>I fear this might be used to mandate backdoors into encrypted apps.
You mean above and beyond the multiple levels of surveillance now in place, including AI agents on your devices and god knows what backdoors into TLS? They already have more than most people imagine. They just don't want you to know for various reasons.
But I assume that's not how most readers will understand that message, their mind will go towards something like encrochat, i.e. some app specifically made for illegal/terrorist/far right extremist communications. If you said "we should do something about that", that'll get a fair bit of agreement. If you said "we should do something about your browser being able to use encryption", you'll get less.
Implying that "coordinating through encrypted apps" is a property of "far-right ideologies" is a clear attempt to smear the usage of encrypted apps, assuming that the reader already has a negative association with "far-right ideologies".
But for the sake of curiosity: How would you rephrase the same facts to not be a smear?
Thankfully there were never any legal implications for my friend with the BBS, but you can be damn sure there were quite a few sleepless nights subsequently as he waited for a knock on the door!
At the time I recall that there were definitely kids into this stuff. Not literal anarchy or violence, they just liked making bombs and setting them off out in the woods somewhere. Homemade fireworks really. They got into the chemistry of it, just nerdy stuff. No harm intended.
Just saying * looks around innocently *
The pre No Child Left Behind / Zero Tolerance era of school, was a great time. I feel bad for kids today.
The mother of all survivorship biases. We have ample statistics demonstrating that no, plenty of people died.
Christ, can't believe I even have to point this out.
We also had all those weekly world news tabloids.. i think some of it just made for weird entertainment.
Boo.
In high school chemistry, I once superheated magnesium in a covered crucible and then blew on. That was fun.
Despite taking great precautions to obscure their identity, they still received a visit from government law enforcement.
I surely hope they can find out, and the harder it is to know how they found out, the better it is since fewer people will be able to evade it.
None of which should be crimes.
Normally each state has an explosives license that you must also have, some of which are almost impossible to obtain unless this is your main job, so hobbyists can't get a permit.
Also destructive devices have to be legal in the state.
And the use of the device has to be recorded via paperwork.
As someone who has an interest in energetics and law, the federal law is pretty reasonable if not just a pain in the ass to handle paperwork wise. The addition of every state having laws you need to comply with in addition can make this pretty easy or upright impossible unless your main day job is working in some mine or something similar.
While I have the ability to read some legal text despite having 0 law education, it still is confusing and hard to interpret stuff.
While I understand the need for regulation, and safety, it seems almost if not impossible to navigate. Unless you have the money to pay for lawyers and someone to handle compliance, its very easy to make a mistake that could kill your career.
So your corporations or large businesses can afford lawyers and compliance consultant people so they ensure they are fine and dandy, but if you rural person wants to build explosives to mess around and experiment and research, their is no way they can afford this unless they are super rich.
Ordinance Labs somehow does this but they are Texas based, and make money off of consulting....so they are a great example of how hard this is. They also are being accused of violating ITAR and EAR which is serious.
I mean, that's how they get you. Make it so you have to jump through a ton of hoops, make the penalties to accidentally violating them felonies, then wait. That's how you discourage people from doing something - make the penalties for mistakes so high that people give up. That's part of why you see gun ownership numbers go down in places like NJ while they brag about gun safety laws working. The trick is, the laws like hollowpoint bans didn't actually improve gun safety, it simply reduced the guns per capita by reducing number of people willing to own a gun when harmless mistakes can ruin your life.
I believe their is a term for it but basically they pass a "gatchya law" that is super difficult to follow and open to interpretation, then if someone gets caught doing something they have a reason to prosecute.
Example: speeding laws, ammo or firearm storage laws, tax laws etc. Most people are reasonable when they drive, but don't always follow the speed limit. If they catch you and other charges fail they always have speeding as an excuse. Tax code is so complicated and constantly changing its a real joke. They even have people who exist to handle the bullshit because its so complex, just like how laws are written. CPA and lawyer do the same job in a sense, figure out the bullshit so you don't go to jail or commit a felony.
I don't care what the subject is, the law should NEVER be like this.
I’ve also never seen it associated with suicide bombers, you may be thinking of acetone peroxide chemistries (e.g. TATP), which are common low-grade explosives used by terrorists. Also highly inadvisable, TATP is a pretty shit explosive in almost all aspects (low power, low stability). Someone stupid enough to be using TATP should not be using HMTD, as the latter requires more discipline than TATP.
There is a technical gap between making HMTD and processing it into a form that can actually be used in practical explosive systems.
There's no contradiction here, the main characteristic of a primary is it's (relative) instability.
M. A. Argentino has good articles about this set:
https://www.maargentino.com/nihilism-and-misanthropy-unleash...
764 members have been getting arrested periodically. One was arrested earlier in December:
https://cyberscoop.com/baron-martin-arrested-for-child-abuse...
https://nordictimes.com/the-nordics/sweden/stockholm-attacks...
Well apparently some societal standards should exist.
They found more pipe bombs in a bedroom inside Mr. Spafford’s house, loosely stuffed in a backpack that bore a patch shaped like a hand grenade and a logo reading “#NoLivesMatter,” prosecutors said.
No Lives Matter is a nihilistic, far-right ideology that largely exists on encrypted online messaging apps like Telegram. The movement’s adherents promote “targeted attacks, mass killings and criminal activity” and have “historically encouraged members to engage in self-harm and animal abuse,” according to a threat assessment released in August by the New Jersey Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness.
It’s not like a membership badge or anything.
Same shit applies to symbols.
People self select and will display symbols to align with the groups they agree with.
What about vegans?
No one is mistaking this for a “membership badge.” They’re taking it as a signal for what a person believes, and acknowledging that extreme belief formation (even if cynical and “just a joke bro lmao”) is very often part and parcel with group identity.
Yes, Al Qaeda is obviously a real group with actual members, rather than a random meme. Was that a serious question?
They’re not “random” memes, obviously, but I understand you’re trying to spin with rhetoric a bit here :)
https://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/SR236Venhaus.pdf
> Middle Eastern Muslim culture expert Marvin Zonis notes that Arab societies value the honor and dignity of the individual more than personal liberty. When the principles of honor and dignity confront the devastating failures of many Middle Eastern states to achieve prominence in the world, the result is a profound and omnipresent humiliation and rage that is palpable throughout the region.
https://www.wired.com/story/the-dangerous-exploits-of-an-ext...
Meanwhile somebody crosses the border in 6,500 lb truck and 2 days later rams it into a crowd of people.
The FBI is addicted to PR arrests but seems incapable of stopping actual terror attacks.
This conspiracy seems like it would appeal to those who recognize that mass killings/suicides at schools are tragic and we are awful for not intervening. But if it turns out that The Government is perpetrating the evil, then we can absolve ourselves of the blame because no amount of legislation could stop their covert actions.
[1]: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/...
But the availability of firearms is likely one of those factors.
What do all school shootings have in common? Guns.
Something has changed since then and now guns are a bigger problem.
I'm more worried about the guy with a lot of writing and messages and only a couple bombs.
If the guy just had a thing for blowing stuff up, you might have a point.
But the guy pretty clearly has more going on than just liking explosives.
And the huge and opaque organization required to make the modern world work provides a fertile ground for imaginations to run wild.
I think at this point it's so deeply ingrained that we're all somewhat susceptible to it.
Jones spread equally ridiculous theories about school shootings.
And the first thing fringe folks tell you is, "you are right, you are smart, you are clever. You've seen that they are covering up the truth, and you are wise to start questioning everything."
Once you get isolated by a bunch of media that tells you how impressive you are and tells you that anyone questioning you is trying to hold you back, you get separated from those who care about you. Once your loved ones give up on you, you turn to forums and chat groups of others in similar situations. They also tell you that you are smart and clever.
It's a classic abuser playbook, and unfortunately it's really really hard to unwind after a certain point. And we value freedom of speech too much to cut off the early on-ramps to this path. But we don't fund the education or the high quality information sources enough to help provide alternatives or defenses.
I suppose the most concise answer is really just "ideology".
In this case, I would imagine it’s: school shooting happens. Politicians use it to push for gun control. Therefore politicians made it happen, so they could use it.
Both sides of the political aisle do this, and plenty of people do it about less political things as well. It’s honestly my least favorite part of the public discourse right now.
The core challenge is demonstrating historical analogues for regulating specific firearm features from 1791 or 1868, as required by Bruen. Registration and taxation of firearms largely emerged in the early 20th century, making historical analogues difficult to establish for much of the NFA's framework.
However, lower courts remain split on these challenges, and the Supreme Court hasn't directly addressed NFA provisions post-Bruen. This area of law continues to evolve rapidly.
wait, what?
https://www.maargentino.com/nihilism-and-misanthropy-unleash...
I also think that your second point that paraphrases to "don't bite the hand that slaps you because it might slap harder" is not good advice.
Germany [1]: > The average waiting time from the initial consultation to the start of therapy is 142.4 days.
[1]: https://www.bptk.de/pressemitteilungen/psychisch-kranke-wart... (German article)
Health insurance is mis-named: it is not a health care product meant to provide health care; it is a financial product, meant to smooth the cost of health care. It should probably be called health care cost insurance.
Providing the indigent with health care is a different thing from health insurance. Mandating that the mentally ill receive treatment is a different thing from health insurance.
Health insurance is just that: insurance against a financial catastrophe.
It seems like an ounce of prevention is worth several tons of cure. We don't really have good treatments.
Here's the quote, readers can decide for themselves.
Somebody that is suffering from paranoia doesn't get triggered by reading about some surveillance program, they get triggered because they see a single package or their favorite brand of chocolate in their dairy aisle and the only explanation they can come up with is that somebody put it there for them to find it.
Hey, those guys vote.
What happens to Q-Anon and all those militia guys now? Especially if Trump pardons the Jan 6th leaders.
(People can guess at the gap between what you're responding to, and what you said, but why not spell it out.)
(Not some literal murderous hunting of the lower classes for sport by the elite, nor some black helicopter conspiracy theory.)
But they were responding to a message about political murders that included "[...] you don't want to signal to the militant mentally ill that it's open season." So they left a gap between the prompt and the response, for the reader to figure out what was implied.
One guess of the reader about the gap could be that the speaker is simply taking the opportunity to point out, or complain about, the inequities.
Or, a different guess of the reader about the gap could be that the writer is hinting that they think the inquity situation has escalated, or should escalate, to political murders. Maybe they mean that, or, I'd guess more likely, they just feel disempowered by the inequities, and suggesting that the citizenry has power provides some hope or relief.
Since the writer didn't say, the gap is closed by the reader's own biases or suspicions of what the writer intended.
Assuming that the writer is a normal individual (not psyops), then saying what they mean by the gap would help them communicate.
I suppose that saying what they mean might also help their message not be lost in the massive flood of social media point-scoring noise.
I'm one of the majority non-millionaires and I'm not feeling any threat of being murdered daily?
What do you mean?
There is a basis for the second amendment, and that is a defense against tyranny, but that means we're talking about civil war levels of resistance. In that scenario, I think it really doesn't matter whether you're using an AR-15 or a M1 Garand, because there will need to be literally millions of people with these weapons.
I think many of us quietly support gun rights for the type of weapon that can be used in a civil war in mass, but can also be opposed to the type of weapon that supports a high capacity magazine that lets one nutjob kill dozens and dozens of people without ever having to reload or giving people a chance to flee. I also would prefer to live in a society where guns need to be locked and separated from the ammo, so that anyone with a visible gun in public can be immediately detained.
- storing explosives - mostly legal. - self build bombs? There weren't used, so hard to make a case. - Spreading misinformation? AFAIk, that's protected under the first amendment unless you really cause tangible damage i.e. Infowars style
One way I can think a case can be made is by portraying the guy as a danger to public safety. In Europe, that would warrant a psychiatrist making an assessment for the court. In the US where people posses more firearms than the total population, I am not so sure of that argument survives in court. And then there is the ancient constitutional right to bear arms...
To be clear, I totally support the FBI locking up an apparent maniac before he goes insane and starts using his bombs. I'm just pointing out that the US legal system doesn't seem to be well equiped for those cases.
For example, the guy who ran the FPSRusia YouTube channel from Georgia, US, was sitting on well over a quarter million worth of firearms and even owned a small tank (!). Apparently that is also legal in the US. Yet authorities only took action when somebody died on his property in what seemed to have been a shooting accident.
Let responsible people have a gun or two given these are legal, have passed background check and did proper safety training, but please keep disarming the apparent crazy ones. Nobody can make a sane case why a single person needs a dozen pipe bombs in a backpack or dozens of automatic firearms and a tank.
Jones is a horrible person but committed no crimes. He wasn't taken to criminal court by the people, he was sued by the victims of his defamation.
I've thought it could be a moneymaker for social media firms to automate defamation shakedowns, just like copyright trolls automate copyright shakedowns. Help those defamed find and the messages and send out "Pay $N thousand and this defamation lawsuit goes away now" messages. Back up some of the lawsuits with $$$ to show the threat is real.
Is that right? Building a bomb is okay if you don't use it? Wild that this is not applied to drugs, unlicensed sawed-off shotguns, etc.
It ought to be.