FBI interested on what you purchase at Hobby Shop

tmacklin said:

Can you give citations or sources for your contention that these measures have in fact been implemented? Thanks.

Click to expand...

They are in Canada for sure , they event have something to ID the AN pallets as pure AN or not to help the law enforcement to see the difference without lab equipment.

o1d_dude said:

Airsoft and paintball can be viewed as terrorist training tools if you think about it.

Giant RC airplanes can be viewed as explosive delivery systems.

Rocketry almost by definition is a military technology.

Click to expand...

And all cars are potential car bombs...

Paranoia reigns when giant bureaucracies fear they'll be caught with their pants down yet again by what are in the US, in fact, extremely rare acts of violence that are then blown entirely out of proportion by the mass media. Even 9/11, while huge as a terrorist event goes, was a statistical blip in the annual US death statistics. Cognitive bias then leads to unreasonable fear and those giant bureaucracies with virtually unlimited budgets gradually build the infrastructure for, as Snowden called it, a "turn-key police state."

Terrorist nuclear and biological weapons are definitely things to fear because the impact of their use could be so great, but their components aren't going to be bought at a local hobby shop. From my reading of the news and some books on the recent history of terrorism, the vast majority of terrorists are as dumb as the average criminal, and that's pretty darned dumb.

dave carver said:

After McVey did his thing in Oklahoma City the Feds had the makers of AN add a substance that inhibits the fertilizer type from exploding. It kind of melts and clumps and that's about all. The type used in ANFO explosives do not contain this inhibitor and normal people can not get it, only those with an explosives permit. ANFO comes premixed or in bulk, for mineing purposes the truck drives up to a hole and a screw feed augers the mix down the hole then they move onto the next hole. It's hard to imagine an explosive that can handle the augering with no problems.

Click to expand...

Explosives grade AN was sold to McVeigh as fertilizer because the area he purchased it in was in adequately close proximity to the plant that manufactured it and in those times was sold in that area to farmers as fertilizer. The clay prill coating you describe has long been added, long before McVeigh et al, to prevent clumping of the highly hygroscopic AN prills and as a flow agent. The proximity of the fertilizer plant to the location McVeigh bought it and the place it was intended to be almost immediately used as fertilizer made that coating less necessary. Finally, note:

West Fertilizer Company explosion (Apr 17, 2013)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Fertilizer_Company_explosion

Unfortunately some of the stuff in hobby shops could be used in a malicious way. Imagine a FPV rigged up to a 120" wingspan rc plane strapped with explosives. You'd have a home made missile.

So I can see an unusual interest being zero interest and then all of a sudden showing up at a hobby store and asking random questions: "how far can this fly? How much could it carry? Is it easy to take off?" Etc.

Just playing some devils advocate here. It's always concerned me that there isn't more regulation around the rc planes. Really more the larger stuff. I like the level certification system in rocketry. I think something like that in planes could go a long way.

blueapplepaste said:

Unfortunately some of the stuff in hobby shops could be used in a malicious way.

Click to expand...

You can do that with stuff from just about every kind of store. A nail gun loaded with 16p nails and powered by a CO2 cartridge makes a very effective weapon. The chemicals used in bathroom or oven cleaners are quite potent.

The point is that as soon as we start looking at everything with an eye for how something might be misused, we'll all end up walking to work, and eating dinner with chop sticks, because cars and flatware will be deemed illegal due to potential misuse.

Doug

.

Exactly. TSA for example. Why are computer cords allowed? You can easily go up to somebody, and strangle them with a computer cord. A computer can be used as a club (Swing it at somebody HARD, it will hurt them). Why does TSA not cut our hands off before we travel? One could EASILY kill someone with a punch to the adams apple. Or, you could slam the back of their head into the ground 2-3 times hard. Dead.


They don't understand, you can't ban everything trying to keep people safe. A new idiot will come up with a way around the rules.


Sorta like gun control... :kill:

blackbrandt said:

Exactly. TSA for example. Why are computer cords allowed? You can easily go up to somebody, and strangle them with a computer cord. A computer can be used as a club (Swing it at somebody HARD, it will hurt them). Why does TSA not cut our hands off before we travel? One could EASILY kill someone with a punch to the adams apple. Or, you could slam the back of their head into the ground 2-3 times hard. Dead.


They don't understand, you can't ban everything trying to keep people safe. A new idiot will come up with a way around the rules.


Sorta like gun control... :kill:

Click to expand...

They aren't there to prevent anything, just give everyone a warm fuzzy feeling that the government is there for you.

blueapplepaste said:

Unfortunately some of the stuff in hobby shops could be used in a malicious way. Imagine a FPV rigged up to a 120" wingspan rc plane strapped with explosives. You'd have a home made missile.

So I can see an unusual interest being zero interest and then all of a sudden showing up at a hobby store and asking random questions: "how far can this fly? How much could it carry? Is it easy to take off?" Etc.

Just playing some devils advocate here. It's always concerned me that there isn't more regulation around the rc planes. Really more the larger stuff. I like the level certification system in rocketry. I think something like that in planes could go a long way.

Click to expand...

A long way to what? Fixing a "problem" that isn't? That's the sort of thinking that gets ridiculous levels of regulation for no real benefit for a non-problem. You can "imagine" all kinds of problems for all kinds of things that can be turned deadly. Then, some rare event will occur that gets the attention of a mass media always looking for out-of-the-ordinary sensational events and there'll be a call to regulate, gladly accepted by huge bureaucracies trying to prove their "value," ending up with something that won't even fix a statistically irrelevant non-problem because their isn't a practical fix for the "problem" in the first place.

Yes, very large rocket motors in an unguided ballistic-flight vehicle have a significant potential to cause fires or move too quickly for people to get out of their way if they are unstable. However, how many terrorist events or fatalities occurred with them prior to the current certification requirements? How many fatalities are there every year due to RC aircraft in the US? I know of one stat related to the use of very popular and powerful RC helicopters used for "3D" stunt flying turning large, deadly blades at typically low altitudes - TWO deaths worldwide in 2013.

Now, I can agree that UAV/FPV ("drone") RC aircraft operation beyond visual range should have safety standards imposed upon them primarily because of their potential interactions with manned aircraft. The FAA will be working on that in the near term.

This thread has tap-danced along the "politics" line, and I think is getting closer to it.

I'm going to close it before it crosses it.

-Kevin