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Backyard Rocketeers Keep the Solid Fuel Burning
Jamie Clay points out a New York Times article about one sticky wicket faced by
members of the Tripoli Rocketry Association, whose members are some of the private citizens trying to bust into the space-launch business (or just having fun) by financing and building their own rockets.
An excerpt: "On Tuesday, lawyers representing Tripoli and the National Association of Rocketry and officials of the firearms bureau will head to Federal District Court in Washington to resolve the seven-year-old dispute over the hobbyists' use of a flammable propellant, ammonium perchlorate composite, or APCP. The chemical is the main ingredient on the space shuttle's solid rocket boosters. ... The firearms bureau classifies APCP as an explosive and, amid post-Sept. 11 security concerns, requires that anyone who uses more than two ounces of propellant undergo federal background checks."
9 1 1 changed everything! Not sure what you're complaining about, this is brave new world we're living in. Get used to it, or are you an al-queda sympathizer? Your obstinance raises red flags all over the board!
..of a headshot. (FEAR, of course)
If you are so stupid to think that banning everything is the answer, ask the Jews how the whole firearm regulations thing worked out in Nazi Germany.
Try the Ham sandwitches, they're delicious...
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
>We're *not* talking about someone handling dangerous materials in violation of the law.
Oh yes we are. TFA insists we are going to NFPA placards and background checks for handling.
>If you want to talk about someone handling dangerous substances when they shouldn't, again, act on gasoline.
>10,000 times more people are burned playing with gasoline (intentionally playing with it, not an accident) than
>solid rocket fuel.
If you want to persuade your lawmakers to require special licensure for handling gasoline, go right ahead. Likewise, if you want to persuade the lawmakers who have put the screws to the rocketeers in TFA, go ahead and do that too. But stop trying to persuade me that rocket fuel and gasoline are equivalent, or that gasoline is more dangerous and that I should therefore be perfectly happy to have someone messing with rocket fuel next door.
>If you're that big of a fire-code man, look at where the real problems are, and solve those. Don't run around
>like a chicken with its head cut off, getting involved in every emotional, knee-jerk situation that you can
>think up.
I didn't think it up. TFA brought up a scenario that I think is reasonble. Others, like you, are playing headless chicken.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
>Homeowners insurance covers most of the likely problems under the liability sections for damage you do to
>others. Why do my neighbors need to have a say in everything I do on my own property ?
They don't, except when you start doing things on your property that are illegal. Transporting the materials in question, is an ATF violation. It's a crime, which makes it your neighbors' business, just like they would be interested if you were stockpiling firearms or operating a meth lab.
If it wasn't illegal, it would be nobody's business but your own, and none of your neigbors.
But TFA makes it quite clear that there are legal requirements that the hobbyists either cannot or refuse to meet.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.