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Commercial Flamethrower Successfully Crowdfunded
ColdWetDog writes: You've always wanted one, of course. Zombies, the occasional alien infestation. The neighbor's smelly roses. You just need to be prepared for things. You can get freeze dried food, AR15's, enough ammo to start a small police action (at least here in the U.S. -- YMMV), but it has been difficult to get a modern, portable flamethrower until now. CNET has a brief explanation on the XM42, which doubled its Indiegogo funding target in just a few days.
Having fun isn't necessarily stupid. Having fun with flamboyantly dangerous things isn't necessarily stupid. It's endangering unwilling bystanders that's stupid.
Some people like to build and shoot powerful crossbows, or even replicas of medieval siege weapons. These are extremely dangerous and useless things. The dangerous power of a trebuchet to throw an upright piano 150 yards is part of the charm.
But a trebuchet is something that takes certain amount of thought and sacrifice to obtain and use. This flamethrower thing is more like a powerful handgun. There's been a recent fad for ridiculously overpowered handguns, which pack superfluously fatal power into a convenient, affordable form factor. The recent brouhaha over "armor piercing" ammunition was a side effect of a manufacturer selling a cut-down semi-automatic carbine as a "handgun", even though if you look at videos of people using them they're obviously terrible as handguns. This raised the question of whether 5.56 NATO ammunition should be regulated as "handgun ammunition", and in the end I think the decision not to was reasonablee. These aren't cop-killing or military handguns. They're extremely dangerous toys designed to get your rocks off.
There are some who'd say that because these guns are dangerous and impractical they should be banned. But I don't agree. "Impractical" isn't the same as "useless" because getting your rocks off is a legitimate use for a thing. I think people should be able to enjoy their ridiculous firearms as long as they do it at some kind of appropriate range. I also think there's a real danger though from stupid people who will go plinking in the woods with the things like they were BB guns.
That's really the only problem I have with this flamethrower, whether it's gold, chrome, or gunmetal gray. Any idiot can buy one, but it'd take someone reasonably intelligent and determined to find a place where it can be used safely. I'm not against people buying them, but I am for coming down hard on people who use them where they're a danger or public nuisance.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Let's be clear, absolutely no-one is going to be using this as a weapon. It's not even a "last line of defense" weapon for home invasion, because while some may want to watch the world burn, they have different feelings about their own home specifically.
There are actually some pretty valid uses for this thing - farming an pyrotechnic displays being just two. There are a lot of people in the U.S. with large properties that could have very good uses for these things.
But basically, this is just fun, because fire is fun. Anyone who fails to see that has had irrational fear of EVERYTHING so deeply ingrained into them I cannot possibly see how they can function in real life.
People always accuse people who like guns, and now fire, of being fearful. But it seems to me like instead, those afraid of such things are the ones always afraid, and without any real joy.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
1. If I recall correctly they were very popular in South Africa as a self defense weapon at one point. So, not quite uniquely American
2. The "clearing snow" thing might be a reasonable usage case. Depends on the efficacy.
3. Regarding deadliness, there are flamethrowers and then there are flamethrowers. Glancing at the pics and vids, I'm not seeing any burning fuel on the ground. If this thing spews a fireball that burns itself out instantly without coating anything with the still-burning fuel, it's probably not something you can accidentally maim someone with. Singe their hair off and give them second degree burns, sure, but it's not napalm. Barring fuel tank rupture, I'd say this thing appears to be significantly safer than a gun.
4. I appreciate the desire to stop bad ideas before they snowball, but having a society based liberty (and generally averse to the idea of a nanny state) means asking "why not?", not "why?" Europe is safer in a lot of ways, but there's a reason why it's not the main driver of innovation despite having a higher GDP and a population 50% higher than the USA. The side effect of letting people innovate is that sometimes someone goes and starts selling flamethrowers. Oh well.