Slashdot Mirror
Home Chemistry An Endangered Hobby in U.S.
Disoculated writes "Wired is running an article entitled "Don't Try This at Home" discussing how that increasing paranoia about terrorism and liability is making it nearly impossible to become involved in any chemistry related hobby in the United States. Sure, the innovative will try to work around these types of limitations, but are we teaching our kids to be afraid of science?"
From TFA :
Suddenly police officers and men in camouflage swarmed up the path, hoisting a battering ram. "Come out with your hands up immediately, Miss White!" one of them yelled through a megaphone, while another handcuffed the physicist in his underwear. Recalling that June morning in 2003, Lazar says, "If they were expecting to find Osama bin Laden, they brought along enough guys."
The target of this operation, which involved more than two dozen police officers and federal agents, was not an international terrorist ring but the couple's home business, United Nuclear Scientific Supplies, a mail-order outfit that serves amateur scientists, students, teachers, and law enforcement professionals.
"Freedom and Justice for All" is a registered trademark of The United States Govt Inc. Not available in all areas.
You can in fact go out and buy caustics (sodium hydroxide, calcium hydroxide) from the local hardware store, supermarket or builder's merchant. You can accidentally create chlorine gas quite easily using common household products. You can buy lethal poisons almost anywhere. It would be BETTER if more people had practical chemical experience because at the moment Joe Public is mostly totally unaware of the risks he runs. He is afraid of "acid" because he does not know that acidity alone is harmless. He is unafraid of bleach, caustics, solvents, and any alkali which comes in a brightly coloured plastic box. And your solution is?
Pining for the fjords
Way to rip off The Onion. It's called karma for a reason, dude.
That's what it comes down to. If you're supposed to have some chemical, some copany is already doing it by the ton. Making it yourself is most likely more costy than simply buying it.
Now, there's also the "illegal" part. Namely explosives and drugs. So yes, the government has a definite interest in keeping its people dumb, or at least educate them only in a fashion suitable for the government. Pol Pot forgot that last part. It's been refined now. Someone who does not know how to create a problem is no problem.
You see the same development in IT. Fewer and fewer people know how to program (I mean program. NOT writing code! I mean knowing how the things work, not knowing how to write a few lines of code and rely on the magic of the compiler). Thus fewer and fewer people are able to actually make things work in a "non intended" way.
We're being reduced to being consumers. You get what you should have. Not what you want.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The lawyers at the CPSC tell us that by stopping sales of some chemicals, they believe they will stop the illicit "M-80" trade. We in the pyrotechnics hobby disagree.
For those that don't know: There is a "booming" business in making and selling illegal salutes. Sales of large (greater than 50 mg) salutes (the proper name for a noisemaking device which functions by the deflagration or detonation of flash powder) to the general public has been illegal since 1966. BATFE is the organization that sees to that enforcement. CPSC is not charged with that duty; they see mainly to products that are intended to be sold to consumers. However, the Federal Hazardous Substance Act grants them authority to regulate hazardous substances in certain limited situations. The CPSC is attempting to stretch their FHSA authority to cover the chemicals used in the manufacture of salutes. Currently, this is mostly finely divided metals (aluminum, magnesium, and "magnalium"; Al-Mg alloys) and potassium perchlorate, but there are other oxidizers that occur in some flash formulae.
CPSC has a persuasive powerpoint deck that shows lots of nasty injuries from illegal explosives. None of us, least of all the pyro hobbyists, want to have people lose fingers, hands, eyes, or lives over some pyro; we agree on that. However, we in the pyro community believe that hobbyist suppliers of pyro chemcicals aren't the source of the chems used in illicit trade; those come from traditional chemical supply houses, mostly.
Firefox Enterprises is currently in litigation with the CPSC over this. Go to their website http://www.firefox-fx.com/ and click on the CPSC link for details. Skylighter, my local supplier http://www.skylighter.com/ has been visited by the CPSC, but so far he (Harry Gilliam, proprietor) hasn't been enjoined to stop sales. He has very tightly restricted sales of salute-making chemicals however; so maybe that will hold the dogs at bay for the moment.
In the US, it is legal, at the federal level, to make your own fireworks without a license. State and local laws may indeed restrict you, but the feds (BATFE) allow it. We in the hobbyist pyro community would like to see that continue. Help us. Join the fireworks alliance, at no cost. http://www.fireworksalliance.org/ Read the information that Dave, Tom, and John put together there, and agitate your legislators. Buy something from one of the vendors above; there is a surcharge that goes to the CPSC defense fund. Donate directly to the fireworks foundation: http://www.fireworksfoundation.org/.
To help out and enjoy some great fireworks at club-sponsored events, Join the Pyrotechnics Guild International: http://www.pgi.org/membership.aspx. Join a local (or distant; some of our members are states away) pyro club: http://www.pgi.org/fireworks-clubs.aspx My club is The Crackerjacks http://www.crackerjacks.org/; but join any you like. We'd be happy to teach you how to safely construct individual fireworks, how to choreograph a disply, or just how to make your backyard fuse-lighting a better experience.
Novapyro