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Rocket Hobbyists Prevail Over Feds In Court Case
Ellis D. Tripp writes "DC District Court judge Reggie Walton has finally ruled in the 9-year old court case pitting the model rocketry community against the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The ruling is a 'slam dunk' for the rocketry community, stating that the BATFE ignored scientific evidence and overstepped its bounds by classifying ammonium perchlorate composite propellant (APCP) as an 'explosive.' Effective immediately, the BATFE has no legal jurisdiction over hobby rocket motors, and a federal Low Explosives User's Permit will no longer be needed in order to purchase APCP motors. The full text of the Judge's decision is reproduced at the link."
For most of my adult life it felt like we were constantly taking steps backward. It's nice to see freedom win over "safety," for a change. May this be the first of many rulings that empower people and encourage the academic spirit.
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
How about we just realize that life is dangerous and grow the fuck up.
Otherwise we should ban cars, liquor, cigarettes, saturated fat, and the jonas brothers... cause these have caused far more strife, suffering, and death, than the terrorists could ever hope for.
how long has it been since such primitive weapons as promoted by the NRA has actually really defended a country. .... The Israeli's depend on missiles
Take away the Israel's rifles, and I guarantee that the terrorists will stop resorting to bombs. They'll just get the rifles, and make sort work of anyone who gets in their way.
A rifle is used EVERY DAY to defend a country. It's only one tool in the box, but it's an important one. I wager that, still, more battles were won by rifles in Iraq or Afghanistan than were won by missile strikes.
Because something is potentially dangerous it needs to be regulated?
God, I hate that mentality.
When has regulating anything done anything to stop potential terrorist or other criminal activity? Almost never. When has regulating made it an absolute pain to do something? Always.
We should not regulate or ban things just because they have potential destructive uses. Heck, even if someone just wants to see a rocket shoot up into the air very fast, let them. Most useful scientific research doesn't happen from lab technicians in sterile environments doing everything exactly to the scientific method, it comes from people who just wonder "What if....".
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
You realize you can buy black powder, by the pound, in cash, with no identification, right?
Yes, I am a smart ass; it's better than the alternative.
My girlfriend (cue +5 Funny reply) told me about her home state of Virginia moving the fences along the freeways back to 50 feet, because they were concerned about kids climbing over them on a dare. Since they didn't figure they could stop this behavior, they decided to make it safe ("over the fence" is no longer a traffic zone).
Then and now, I don't see why they have fences in the first place. Without fences, a kid will die... and then everyone will know the story about the kid who died, and the idiocy will be stopped cold for at least five years (i.e. one high school rotation).
With fences in place, in the public eye it's the fault of the fence-builders for building insecure fences, not the kid for winning a Darwin. It's an outrage, not a lesson. And due to a false sense of safety, people get just as hurt just as often.
Even the ATF isn't stupid enough to try to ban peeing without a license.
Don't be too sure about that... Never underestimate the stupidity of a government agency.
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
Extracting ammonium perchlorate from APCP wouldn't be too difficult--the AP is basically just mixed in with a bunch of other compounds that control the rate of deflageration.
However, I think you're missing the point here. APCP is not an explosive. That is the issue. The BATFE does not control chemicals that can be used to make explosives. In fact, binary explosives, ammonium nitrate, and black powder in quantities of less than 50 pounds are all supposed to be out of their jurisdiction. Why then, should they be investigating a mixture that doesn't even detonate?
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be a convenience store not a government agency.
You're thinking small. Why miniaturize the laser, when we could instead enlarge the sharks? -John Searle
I dunno, do we really need to allow you to drive beyond the city limits? I mean, if freedoms are defined as "what you really need to get along", why I bet I could deprive you of pretty much all your freedoms.
Freedom means having to put up with things that may be inherently dangerous. There's an old saying by a guy named Benjamin Franklin about that, but then again, since I'm thinking of removing your freedom to use the Internet or look at books, I don't suppose you'll ever know about it.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Well here, let me use a few more catchphrases for you:
"An armed society is a polite society."
"When you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns."
And what is wrong with this?
2nd amendment + heller decision = The [individual] right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. If you want to ensure the security of the States and the Union without giving up essential liberty, logic dicates that you educate citizens in the way of the modern warrior and arm them accordingly.
---- Liquid was a patriot ----
You mean to say, don't underestimate the dangers of the native population using guerrilla tactics against an invading force.
They get a bonus for knowing the land. They get a bonus for not identifying themselves as combatants. They get a bonus for being able to accurately identify their enemies, who are loud and obvious. They get a bonus for being sneaky.
The odds are stacked against us, even with all of our equipment and training.
We can take care of any traditional army in the world without much trouble, barring larger countries like China and Russia. We cannot, however, easily quash a pissed off and unorganized army in a small shit hole of a country. Russia learned this years ago, as they made the same mistake, and they were better prepared than we were!
The moral of the story is that snipers, IEDs, and guerrilla warfare, are all coming together in places like Iraq and Afganistan. A single civilian with a rifle or a 150mm shell can take out an entire squad of Marines and still make it home for lunch.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
And right there, that comment fully sums up the stereotype the rest of the world sees about US gun laws/ideals.
And yet for all the gun control in Germany they still have mass casualty school shootings. For all the gun control in Russia they still have one of the highest murder rates on the planet.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
The 2nd amendment guarantees your right to a militia. What's needed is a new amendment to guarantee your right to a strategic arms program.
Actually, that was all but explicitly understood until fairly recently when anti-gun crazies took power. People are all too much in a hurry to forget, not so many years ago, your neighbour might have a CANNON in his garage for the local militia. His neighbour, in turn, might have a mortar...so on and so on. Let's not also forget many powerful warships were actually privately held, and in many cases, owned by private merchant consortiums. Please keep in mind, warships were the strategic arm of their day.
Even as recently after WWII, it was common for soldiers to retire with their weapon - which include BAR machine guns, .45 cal "Tommy Guns", and .45 cal pistols. Additionally, during WWII, civilians living on strategic coast lines were trained and ISSUED artillery to be used against any enemy ships or submarines found off the coast. And let's not forget CAP pilots, flying privately owned aircraft, dropped military issued bombs on U-boats off the coast, inside US waters.
The simple fact is, our Constitution guarantees military grade weapons are to be available to militia. Its only been in fairly recent times anti-gun, anti-Constitution, anti-second amendment nuts have been empowered enough to spit on our forefathers with the ignorant applause of the majority. Simple fact is, our forefathers would be the first to spit in the face of these anti-gun, crazy people.
And to clarify, many, many different types of weapons are categorized as "strategic arms" - which even includes air planes. Simple fact is, according to our forefathers and the US Constitution, militias have this right. And up until not so many years ago, this right was implicitly understood.
why, however, the ACLU generally pretends the second amendment doesn't exist perplexes me
This is the main reason I'm not a card carrying member of the ACLU. Bunch of fucking hypocrites.... American Civil Liberties Union, eh?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Simple fact is, our forefathers would be the first to spit in the face of these anti-gun, crazy people.
Though likely a good number of them would also be the first to spit in the face of black's or women's right's activists.
This has always been one of my least favorite lines of defense. Why not base your arguments on what we find to be right at the current time? The founding father's certainly don't have a monopoly on good ideas, and they never had to fit them into conditions that exist in the present.
If your smart, you fight the ATF with lawyers. It might take 9 years but they won. If you are dumb you shoot at ATF agents, barricade yourself in armed cult compound and have the nerve to be surprised when Janet Reno shows up and kicks your butt.
"Rifle" is the general term for a longarm that has a rifled barrel. Hunting has never had anything to do with classifying something as a rifle. Rifles have been standard military issue for longer than the NRA has been around. At the time of their founding the the issued weapon for a US soldier was a singleshot breachloaded rifle (the springfield). It was popular for those with the funds to replace this weapon with a 16 shot, Lever Action, Henry Rifle. This was the state of the art, medium range, antipersonnel weapon of its day and it was a civilian weapon. Today it would be like being able to buy a SAW machinegun compared to an issue M-16. In 1871 there were no restrictions. Put a canon in the front yard? No prob. Mount a Gatling gun on your coach? Good idea. But we were coming out of the Civil War and there was a strong push to increase Federal powers over individual freedoms and the NRA was formed to oppose this.
So I don't think the NRA has expanded the scope of their purview. If they were to have lobbied for a citizen's 2nd amendment rights to equal what we had when they were founded in 1871, we could all own our own Abrams tanks and Apache helecopters for the daily commute. They stuck to lobbying pro infantry weapons, because what you want in a militia are people that know how to shoot infantry weapons. Frankly, given their charter I think they're way behind in what they should be pushing for.
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The National Association of Rocketry argued that ammonium percholorate is not an explosive (it is in fact an oxidizer) and appended massive amounts of technical information to show that it is not.
The BATF replied "we don't give a damn about the facts, we will regulate it and you can't stop us."
And, after nine years, the judge ruled that the facts actually are relevant, and the BATF is allowed to regulate only the things that they are legally allowed to regulate.
Congratulations, NAR.
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