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Explosive-Laden California Home To Be Destroyed
wiredmikey writes with this snippet from an AP report:
"Neighbors gasped when authorities showed them photos of the inside of the Southern California ranch-style home: Crates of grenades, mason jars of white, explosive powder and jugs of volatile chemicals that are normally the domain of suicide bombers. ... Now authorities face the risky task of getting rid of the explosives. The property is so dangerous and volatile that they have no choice but to burn the home to the ground this week in a highly controlled operation involving dozens of firefighters, scientists and hazardous material and pollution experts. ... Some 40 experts on bombs and hazardous material from across the country and at least eight national laboratories are working on the preparations. They have analyzed wind patterns to ensure the smoke will not float over homes beyond the scores that will be evacuated. They have studied how fast the chemicals can become neutralized under heat expected to reach 1800 degrees and estimate that could happen within 30 minutes, which means most of the toxins will not even escape the burning home."
It's all answered in TFA. You're welcome. :)
One side of me says: "What if you had a bunker under your house that you could escape to if some army was attacking you. Then you could blow up your house to defend your person as a last ditch effort."
But that's really reaching.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
No it isn't. The closest thing I could find to an explanation was this Reuters article, and even that isn't much to go on. Both mention that the guy is "anxious to tell his side of the story", though. It'll be pretty interesting to see what he comes out with.
Also of interest is the fact that, according to Yahoo, "The home has been declared a public nuisance and therefore the county does not have to reimburse the owners, who were renting the house to Jakubec."
If you're volunteering to fetch potentially trip-wired explosives from a building with so many explosives that they'd have a hard time finding all the pieces of you afterwards then good luck with that.
There's got to be a live feed of this that's planned...any hints as to who would be carrying it?
Sounds familiar.
There aint no pancake so thin it doesn't have two sides.
Sounds like a completely bullshit reason.
Get a military ordinance disposal team in place and demolish it if you really have to, but burning it? That's just looking to create a disaster.
What is funny in TFA is the estranged wife's comment. "he became increasingly unstable since losing his job several years ago." I am from the South and around here we call what he did either batshit crazy or really pissed off.
I understand it's a rental property and the owner is not to be compensated, because it was declared a "public nuisance". DOH! Should've kept up with those annual inspections!
We clearly don't have all of the information on that decision. Nevertheless, in reading the article, not compensating the owners struck me as just being mean. The property should be taken by eminent domain (to protect the public welfare), owners compensated fair market value, the structure buried under a heap of dirt to protect the neighbours and the contents extracted by robot, slowly, with the explosive bits being neutralized a small bit at a time, in a controlled way.
Burning the entire house, when the authorities do not know what nastiness might be hiding in unlabelled bottles, is not a controlled disposal. I, for one, do not believe that explosives will burn for 30 minutes, and that no toxicity will be released. The house may burn for 30 minutes, but the explosives are going to incinerate a whole lot faster, assuming none of them achieve detonation conditions. Am I the only one who is given pause by the implicit assurance of a so-called controlled burn that none of these explosives are going to detonate?
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
The way they discovered it was a gardener simply stepping in some reside, and it blowing up.
They probably figure there are a few things in there that will go even if they are just jostled, sending up the remaining stuff...
So basically it's just too much risk, even using a robot - since it's likley to go up anyway if they try to clear it out, better just to control the burn-down and secondaries as best they can.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I just hope they film this. It could be the next 'Exploding Whale'.
Not really. I'm guessing that they're dealing with a large number of relatively low explosive devices. If it were a small number of highly explosive devices, they'd disarm. But if you've got that many devices, it's a lot safer to just burn the place down knowing that you'll have to shield the surrounding buildings. .
You are sure its a lot safer? I'm so relieved.
What could possibly go wrong.
Explain how going in, picking up one item, walking out to the bomb disposal truck, rinse repeat, for a couple weeks (if necessary) is going to be so hazardous.
How much evidence as to sources of these materials will be destroyed in the burn down and inevitable explosion?
(Yeah, I've seen the silly containment fence. Laughable!).
In fact one wonders if the destruction of evidence isn't part of the motivation here. After all, someone's ass is on the line for that crate of live military grenades, right? Some one sold that guy all this stuff. Was it the government?
Not after its all gone. No way to pin it on any agency then.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Other articles (better than the TFA) have noted that the place is so packed with junk - both explosive and non explosive) that the bomb crews cannot work in their usual protective gear - there isn't enough room.
They are also worried about booby traps and just plain explosive / dangerous crap. They are going through a lot of expense to do it this way. They are building a perimeter fence, coating a house with fire retardant foam, bringing in all manner of people. It appears that this is the safest of a number of unsafe choices.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
If he had home made nitroglycerin (the article only said "home made explosives") I can understand why the cops want nothing to do with it. Nitro can be manufactured at home with a minimum of difficulty. Nitro also has the property where physical shocks can detonate it. This property is great in small quantities like flash power and bang snaps. This is also a good property for remote mining: You plant your explosive charge and then bury a string of explosives 10 feet apart apart to the staging area. When the first charge in the string is detonated the rest of the string detonates because of the vibration, which in turn detonates the main charge at the mine.
Having a house with this kind of sensitivity to vibration is asking for someone to drop/knock over a bottle of something sensitive and have it detonate. And then have that explosion trigger a sympathetic explosion, etc etc etc.
Architectural plans are like computer source code with a couple of differences: You only compile once.
"This is a truly unknown situation," said Neal Langerman, the top scientist at the safety consulting firm, Advanced Chemical Safety in San Diego. "They've got a very good inventory of what's in there. Do I anticipate something going wrong? No. But even in a controlled burn, things occasionally go wrong."
Are you serious? The tenant is responsible, the landlord did nothing wrong.
If it does go wrong, this could be one incredible fireworks display though!
"And the bomb technicians claimed that having to perform the burning operation on new years eve at midnight was totally coincidental..."
Don't ask a cop. Then again, don't ask a lawyer either. Both will give you overly conservative anwers.
Very often a cop is not required to know whether certain 2A activities are legal, and will arrest you anyway. Sure, the charges might not stick... But this IS California that the article is about.
And yes, I live in NorCal.
FTFA:
"Little is known about Jakubec, a 54-year-old unemployed software consultant. His estranged wife has told the San Diego Union-Tribune that he became increasingly unstable since losing his job several years ago. "
"unemployed software consultant" is the key phrase here.
Why is the landlord at fault? When I owned a rental property, I only visited the property once every 6 months or so, more than enough time for someone to build a meth-lab or accumulate explosives.
Should I be required to invade the tenants privacy more often and visit the tenants monthly? Weekly? Daily?
and highly toxic chemicals!
And they're going to set it on fire.
What could possibly go wrong?
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4651126
----- In Your Cubicle No One Can Hear You Scream...
The problem lies in the fact that they discovered this when the gardener stepped into some of the residue left over from the creation of some of these explosives, and went "BOOM!".
Tell me how many weeks you think they'd be able to play the lottery and not have the whole thing go off in their face as they are attempting to carry stuff out?
Try reading the article again. The 30 minutes is not how long they expect it to take for the house to burn down. 30 minutes is how long they expect it to take before the fire is hot enough to break down toxins before they can escape the house in the plume of smoke.
As for the detonation issue, a lot of explosives will merely burn quickly unless they are very hot and are triggered by a shock wave (such as from a blasting cap) to detonate. It's quite reasonable for them to expect to be able to burn a lot of the explosives without detonation occurring, and even if a lot of the stuff does detonate, they've calculated that debris would only be sent flying 60-70 feet.
Everyone is an expert.
In spite of the fact that "some 40 experts on bombs and hazardous materials from across the country and at least eight national laboratories..." have decided on this course of action, all of us World of Warcraft players and PHP developers have concluded it's a bad idea to handle it this way.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
One, this happened over a period of years, not weeks.
Second, if the tenants destroy your property creating a meth lab, the government would not reimburse you. For all intents and purposes these tenants destroyed the property. I as a tax payer should not compensate the landlord for his loss.
No, the government is destroying this house. The tenants only stored unusual materials that the government has deemed dangerous.
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
More specifically, Americans can (without a special license, although registration is usually necessary) own handguns up to 12.7mm in caliber, semiautomatic and manually-operated rifles up to 12.7mm in caliber, shotguns with a valid sporting purpose (only a few military-grade shotguns are prohibited), and flamethrowers (they were exempted apparently because they are the only sure defense from Africanized honeybees).
With a proper license, one can also own an automatic weapon or a large-bore weapon, although these are rather rare. Note that a license is also necessary to "conceal" a weapon (if it isn't immediately and completely visible, it is concealed), there are significant restrictions on purchasing a gun (background check, waiting period, etc.) and transferring ownership of a weapon is heavily taxed. Not to mention that walking down the street with a semiautomatic rifle WILL get police attention, and pretty much nobody practices "open carry" in urban or suburban areas - just in rural areas where hunting is ubiquitous. Finally, the concealed-carry license, depending on your state, may only be issued if you can demonstrate "reasonable need", while others may issue one unless they find a reason not to.
Have you been on Youtube lately? Blowing crap up is a pretty common hobby among Americans.
The house still has value, if the contents would be removed.
Instead of removing them and leaving the house standing, the government CHOSE to burn down the structure. They are in fact the ones who are causing the loss of value by destroying the house.
If they took explosives out by robot and something exploded, then the tenant would be the one who caused full loss of value.
As it stands the tenant is only really responsible for the dangerous content, I don't think you could sue him for destroying the house.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
One side of me says: "What if you had a bunker under your house that you could escape to if some army was attacking you. Then you could blow up your house to defend your person as a last ditch effort."
Thereby cleverly revealing your formerly hidden bunker's trapdoor?
Filling your house with live bobcats might be more effective. Then, if the army doesn't arrive, you get bonus bobcats.
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
Sad but true. And in the process they'll confiscate as many firearms as they think they can under the guise of "evidence" and "just cause" then refuse to return them or "lose" them despite court cases confirming that legally they must return the firearms. Or, they'll flat-out tell the defendant that "sure, the law says X, but you'll have to have a case to prove you're innocent of it. If you just forfeit your guns, we'll drop the charges." which is corrupt, through and through.
Most cops I know arrest on what they feel "should be" illegal because regardless of actual legality, the poor sap will be severely inconvenienced, drained of savings, and possibly have their reputation/career destroyed in the process for daring to do something the cop doesn't like.
SCOTUS is out of it's mind. It's fairly clear that when the Bill of Rights was ratified, they meant arms of the type you would use to defend yourself from a corrupt government.
Of course the 2nd amendment doesn't mean you can't be required to keep and bear those arms in a manner that doesn't endanger the community. The guy in TFA certainly fails there.
Knowing the MythBusters, they'd have to evacuate everything within a 30-mile radius of that house, since they'd likely just load it up with even more explosives so they could top their cement truck detonation.
"There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge." - Bertrand Russell.
Should I be required to invade the tenants privacy more often and visit the tenants monthly? Weekly? Daily?
Body scanners/pat-downs at every entrance. Every time a door opens, in or out.
It's the only way to be safe.
*Still* negative function...
Are you saying that it isn't possible to keep explosive materials safely? Then I guess somebody better tell the military, and all the cities with military bases should burn them down because they're a public nuisance. See how absurd that sounds? This guy had been building up an explosives cache for years and had not blown himself up. Therefore, one can only conclude that he was taking sufficient safety measures to prevent premature detonation. This, in turn, means that it should have been possible to destroy the explosives without endangering the property. Therefore, the tenant didn't destroy the property.
What we actually have here is a situation in which the tenant created something that the government isn't willing to spend the time and money to dispose of safely, so instead of doing it the right way, they're just burning down the house. That's a choice by the government, not an imperative. The home is no more a public nuisance than any other home with any smaller amount of explosives or weapons in it; the risk to the person removing the explosives is identical whether it's enough to kill that person or enough to blow the side off the house. More importantly, if the house had enough explosives in it to pose a significant risk of harm to the nearby houses, they would not be burning down the house because they would run too much risk of causing an explosion and taking out the neighborhood. Therefore, one can only conclude that the decision to burn down the house is merely one of expediency. With that in mind, the city should be required to allow the homeowner sufficient time to hire a cleanup crew to dispose of the explosives in lieu of ordering the structure burned to the ground. If they have not done so, one could legitimately argue that the onus is on the city to pay for the cost of reconstruction.
So instead, you as a home owner's insurance payer will compensate the landlord. Really, you're likely to pay a larger chunk of the cost by not having the government cover it unless you don't own property....
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Poor guy was just preparing for some massive debugging.
Bears are better. The second amendment clearly protects your rights to bear arms and by extension the rest of the bear.
The tenant did the destruction.
That's probably not how the insurance company sees it. There's every likelihood that the landlord was covered against 'damage by tenant', but not 'seizure by government'.
Frankly, I am tired of everyone wanting to be a gov't welfare case.
In general: the system's broken, it'd be naive to expect people not to take advantage. That said, I really don't think that's applicable here - market value reimbursement for seized property is hardly welfare.
My favorite part about this story is that they are burning the house down without due process of law. Apparently CA policemen are now judge & jury as well as cops.
Secure the house, and let this guy have his day in court first.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Try reading the article again. The 30 minutes is not how long they expect it to take for the house to burn down. 30 minutes is how long they expect it to take before the fire is hot enough to break down toxins before they can escape the house in the plume of smoke.
As for the detonation issue, a lot of explosives will merely burn quickly unless they are very hot and are triggered by a shock wave (such as from a blasting cap) to detonate. It's quite reasonable for them to expect to be able to burn a lot of the explosives without detonation occurring, and even if a lot of the stuff does detonate, they've calculated that debris would only be sent flying 60-70 feet.
Assuming things like (1) an accurate and complete inventory of the materials in the house has been made (highly doubtful given that the article claims a robot cannot navigate the piles of junk), (2) no booby traps are going to be accidentally triggered by the fire, (3) no explosive devices are going to be accidentally triggered by the fire -- not the chemicals, but a mechanical triggering due to heat deformation of the triggering mechanism, (4) no unanticipated chemical reactions are going to take place that might release *really* nasty stuff into the atmosphere, (5) the models are correct, etc.
This guy was sufficiently unhinged that he decided to store materiel at home and make a mini bomb factory. With that as a starting point, burning the house would not seem the prudent choice.
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
Then the landlord can sue the tenant. Simple solution.
A gunman is holding a little girl, using her as a living shield.
"I'll kill her,man! I'll really do it!"
ED-209 kills the girl to end the hostage situation, and impress the need for the criminal to surrender. OPC lawyers offer to help the distraught father sue the newly arrested criminal, but disavow any responsibility on the part of OPC or the police.
Your observations are clearly the work of an informed, educated, and enlightened mind.
Every mans' island needs an ocean; choose your ocean carefully.
200 years ago, people could buy cannons, though. And they did. Privately owned cannons were the majority of the artillery fielded by the fledgling navy and continental navy, so I really fail to see why howitzers should be a problem today.
The main thing keeping people from buying howitzers is the same thing keeping people from buying cannons 200 years ago: A giant milled tube of steel isn't exactly inexpensive to manufacture, and then you have to find a place to keep it.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
The guy lived in the house for YEARS!!!
What part of that don't you understand?
Even the most careful person would stumble once in many years. If there was anything rigged or that sensitive he would have blown himself to pieces years ago.
This is just more security theater which all you so called experts can't see thru.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Who is the house owner and why this amount of explosives?
One thing is for sure, he's definitely not muslim.
Else the country would be at "red" threat level and the 24-hour news channels would have live coverage on site since the minute anybody found out about it and the politicians like Gingrich and Giuliani would be preening on camera.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Some things dont add up.
How the hell does someone buy crates of real live grenades? It's not like the sporting goods stores carry them, and from what I know about firearm laws, there is NO way in hell they were purchased legally. so Who the hell is selling grenades?
Honesty, if the things were in the wild, we would be seeing a lot more dead cops when they attack drug houses and pimps.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
That doesn't mean they can't exercise discretion about how they do their jobs. You know, when the gardener manages to trip an explosion from residue in the back yard, I'd say that's enough evidence that the place is not safe, totally outweighing the time spent without accidents.
If they blew that place sky high while clearing it out, everybody would be calling them idiots for attempting to clear it.
they come from new jersey.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
right here. raises hand.
every anarchist is a baffled dictator. Benito_Mussolini
Thanks for adding me to your freaks list.
How is this stupid? The landlord entered a contract with the tenant. The tenant created a situation where the hose has to be demolished. The same thing happens when a meth lab springs up in an unoccupied house. In some cases the house has to be destroyed because it is unfit to live in. The government does not reimburse the owner.
How is that different?
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Actually, you CAN buy them, but you'd need to go through a background check, extensive paperwork, get approval from local law enforcement, pay a special registration tax on each one... and of course, you'd need a good reason for needing one in the first place, which it's highly unlikely any civilian will have. But if you can clear those roadblocks, have at!
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
sue the tenant...that is an unemployed bank robbing bomb maker. That could go wrong in so many interesting ways.
music lover since 1969
How the hell does someone buy crates of real live grenades?
I blame Costco. You just can't buy small quantities of essentials there.
Have gnu, will travel.
The house still has value, if the contents would be removed. Instead of removing them and leaving the house standing, the government CHOSE to burn down the structure.
Perhaps it is cheaper to burn and rebuild the house than repeat the process of remove, transport and deal with each piece a robot can carry out?
The guy knows where he put stuff.
The guy knows what the stuff is.
Maybe he just started messing with the unstable stuff in the last few weeks he was there?
Yes, it's likely that they could just cart the explosives out pound by pound and dispose of it normally. But they don't have perfect knowledge and think it's too risky.
It's not security theater because it isn't security. It's just bomb disposal, which you clearly know more about then all their exports. It's the opposite of security theater since force evacuating people from their houses and burning down a house isn't going make people feel more secure, it's going to make them feel less secure.
Sure burning down the house isn't nice for the owners, then again it's California the various chemicals already there probably mean the site has to cleansed with lava before dogs are allowed near it anyway.
Nope, at the federal level you just need a Type-10 FFL ($3000/3 years) and have to pay for your Special Occupational Tax Stamp at $500/year and you can avoid the making tax for DD's. Also there is no background check beyond the normal NICS gun ownership check and it requires no justification. Local and state laws may further restrict you but that's a per jurisdiction situation so way to complex to get into.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Looong story short: Random guy in a parking lot clames my dad's classic Toyota Land Cruiser was stolen from him 10 years ago. Police confiscate. Within just over a week guy is discredited and found to be full of it. Car is still wrapped up in bureaucracy. Dad manages to piss off the "stolen car task force" [police] with his (understandable) frustration. Appears in court and is arrested on the spot on felony charges related to some technicality of VIN registration/engine/frame code mathcing etc (totally obscure technicality). Spends night in jail. Changes are thrown out at next court date. Car is never returned and instead father has to pay shop rate to have any components wanted removed before it is CRUSHED. Cop responsible for the bullshit kills himself 1.5 years later because he is discovered to be involved in some huge scandals. Go figure.
To have stockpiled this much explosive material in the house he lives in indicates that they guy is either insane or criminally dangerous. He is now likely facing life in prison so he has very little to live for. Only on slashdot would someone suggest letting the guy back in the house with all the explosives. What could possibly go wrong?
Where's the kaboom? There was supposed to be an earth-shattering kaboom!!
200 years ago, people could buy cannons, though. And they did. Privately owned cannons were the majority of the artillery fielded by the fledgling navy and continental navy, so I really fail to see why howitzers should be a problem today.
The main thing keeping people from buying howitzers is the same thing keeping people from buying cannons 200 years ago: A giant milled tube of steel isn't exactly inexpensive to manufacture, and then you have to find a place to keep it.
Antonin Scalia (current Supreme Court Justice) came to visit Harvard Law a couple years back. After the end of his talk he accepted questions, which ranged from the intelligent to the inane. My favorite part: One kid, who may or may not have been affiliated with Harvard (looked like an MIT student to me), claimed that he had visited a military contractor and attempted to buy a missile launcher. But (for some strange reason) the contractor declined to make the sale. The kid asked Scalia what had happened to the right to bear arms. Scalia proceeded to tear into the kid, opening with the line: "First of all, you can't bear a cannon..."
How the hell does someone buy crates of real live grenades?
Well, here goes another Craigslist category shot down in flames...
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
Using bears to patrol your illicit operation is no joke
My next sig will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush
You can get around the law enforcement approval by incorporating as an LLC or establishing a trust.
While the form asks for a reason, I've never heard of one being rejected because of it. In fact, I've seen a Form 4 returned with the stated reason being "Zombies", approved. It was a joke, but they approved it.
More difficult will be finding a manufacturer willing to sell grenades to you. Plus the $200 tax on each one.
Learn about Photography Basics.
You're more right than most, but wrong a few things:
Outside of a few states, there is no registration of any firearms. You might make an argument for dealer sales records being registration, but I can buy from a private party to avoid that if I really want to.
Flamethrowers are not exempt, and considered destructive devices under the NFA. "Brush control devices" - which look an operate in an eerily similar fashion to flamethrowers - are fine. That said, I'm a huge gun nut and know lots of other gun nuts, and I don't know anyone that owns a flamethrower as a weapon.
Automatics and large-caliber wepaons ("Destructive devices") do not require a license. They require a background check and a $200 tax stamp at a minimum.
While some states have waiting periods, most do not. The background check takes less than 5 minutes, and out the door you go, with the gun. There is no special tax on firearms, and you can in fact pay cash for a weapon from someone on the street, exchange no information, and be perfectly legal.
Walking down the street with a rifle in urban and suburban areas will draw some response from a raised eyebrow to getting shot by police, depending on where you are. Open carry of handguns is commonplace in many states, even in urban areas - see Phoenix, Arizona.
All in all, guns just aren't a big deal in most places. There are some cities which do their best to ban them - namely, Chicago and New York City - and some states with very draconian laws (by US standards), but in most cases, no one thinks about it.
FWIW - I'm part owner and webmaster of Shooters' Journal, a small gun-related webmagazine, and a long time member of the firearms community. If I don't know the answer to a gun question, I know who to ask.
Learn about Photography Basics.
The Talmud (basically, the Jewish law codex) contains an interesting discussion about this. Consider one man dropping a pot from the top floor of a building, and before the pot hits the ground, a man walking in the street hit it with a stick and breaks it. Now, who is responsible for the vase breaking? The man on the ground actually broke it, but even if he didn't, it would have broken a second later when it hit the ground.
Similarly, when somebody fills a house with so many explosives they can no longer be gently disarmed, he already caused it to be destroyed. The fact it has not yet been destroyed, and the actual destruction will be caused a bit later (perhaps by a policeman lighting a match) doesn't change the fact that it was the tenant who started the inevitable destruction, not the police.
If we need weapons to protect us from a corrupt government, then nuclear weapons should be available on the open market, since that's ultimately what you're up against.
It's a bit silly to trot this out in the current day and age of automated drone bombers, tactical nukes, etc.
Coz eternity my friend, is a long *ing time.
Crates of grenades, mason jars of white, explosive powder and jugs of volatile chemicals that are normally the domain of suicide bombers
No. Stop. You fail at logic, even if you excel at propaganda.
Probably 0.0001% of Americans who have these things are terrorists. Perhaps they're misguided, but 'normally' is pure troll.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)