Rocket Hobbyists Prevail Over Feds In Court Case 546
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."
BATFE is redundant (Score:5, Informative)
If only the UK were more sensible (Score:3, Informative)
Re:BATFE is redundant (Score:2, Informative)
The BATF (when did they add the E anyway?) was never supposed to be a law enforcement agency. They were created as revenuers, all they were originally supposed to do is make sure the moonshiner's were paying their booze tax.
Re:second amendment rights (Score:5, Informative)
Because of snipers using these weapons, they have to essentially 'corral' their strykers, and shoot smoke in the air when they 'mount and dismount.' The main personal hatch is at the rear. Without these tactics, they're picked off one-by-one when exiting. He said they only made that mistake once.
I'm not downplaying the dangers of IED's but don't disregard the danger of one quality shooter, with a 60 year-old weapon.
Re:In defense of the BATF? (Score:5, Informative)
How hard would it be to synthesize ammonium perchlorate from APCP?
Pretty difficult. APCP consists of AP and a powdered metal (Al or Mg) locked in a matrix of synthetic rubber. The material has about the consistency of a pencil eraser. Anything that would dissolve away the rubber binder would most likely react with the AP.
Besides, AP itself was not regulated by the BATFE, except for a VERY finely granulated (If it is not overly difficult, the BATF has every reason to be worried that mass distribution of this without licensing could open a channel for acquiring explosives materials domestically and in bulk under the guise of "hobbyist".
First of all, this whole court decision was based on the fact that APCP is NOT an explosive. Even contained in a sealed metal pipe, it is pretty worthless for building a bomb. And second, these motors will not exactly be "mass distribution" type items you will find on the shelves at Walmart or whatever. Purchase will STILL require certification through one of the 2 national rocketry organizations (NAR or Tripoli), HAZMAT shipping (which can only go to a valid address, not a PO box) and legally using them still requires airspace waivers from the FAA.
It wouldn't be the first time -- pseudoephedrine can be readily broken down to ephedrine, which is one of the components needed for methanphetamine production (and derivatives).
Which makes for a major PITA for law-abiding citizens who now have to get the 3rd degree from a pharmacist to get a pack of allergy pills. Meanwhile, the meth keeps pouring in from the "superlabs" south of the border. At least we're all safe from those evil packages of Sudafed, though!
Re:second amendment rights (Score:5, Informative)
No. Read up on Thailand and Israel, where either teachers have guns or armed guards patrol the schools.
The solution to criminals with guns is citizens with guns.
Re:In other news (Score:5, Informative)
You know, the Branch Davidians had a large number of weapons, all LEGAL, and were involved in firearms sales WITH A FEDERAL FIREARMS DEALER PERMIT. The Sheriff knew Koresh personally, and was positive that if ATF had simply asked him to meet with them, he would have shown up. As it was, Koresh was talking to the ATF agents, unarmed, in front of his building when ATF let loose and Koresh was injured.
So don't go blaming the ATF for the suicidal things nutballs do when the cops come to say no you can't have dozens of 12 year old "wives".
ATF has nothing to do with "12 year old wives". They are Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. Their search warrant had nothing to do with "12 year old wives", it was based on an allegation already dealt with by the local sheriff that someone had heard "automatic gunfire" coming from the compound. The Sheriff had investigated and determined that nothing illegal was involved. The ATF didn't tell the court this when they got their warrant. In other words, ATF lied.
Yes, I think it is quite reasonable to blame ATF for shooting someone who is unarmed and standing on their front porch talking to them. It is also reasonable to blame ATF for trying to entrap someone into building them a cut-off shotgun, and to then shoot that person's wife for no cause. (Ruby Ridge)
Because if you think we should just let people willing to kill themselves be a law unto themselves,
If you call following federal regulations regarding gun ownership and sales to be "a law unto themselves" because you don't like someone, pretty soon we'll have a society run by your wants and fears instead of the one run by rule of law. I'd say that you were "a law unto yourself" in that case. I know which one I prefer.
Re:second amendment rights (Score:5, Informative)
ATFE Blows Itself Up (Score:5, Informative)
In the figurative sense certainly, by hiring an 'expert' to do their testing who knew nothing about the field, produced results that were nonsensical and pretty much conducted scientific fraud at the behest of ATFE. Proper expert testimony was provided by rocket motor manufacturers who had worked in the field for the government and/or contractors, still consulted to the government, and worked on other projects like SpaceShip 1. Why ATFE didn't see this coming is a mystery.
They also nearly blew themselves up literally. They 'required' one of the motor manufacturers to sell them motors at market price (he had initially declined). They rented a van, loaded up their rockets and headed to the desert to do some testing. They intended to prove that high powered rockets could be used to bring down an aircraft. They ignored the rules that virtually all rocketers follow regarding distance between launcher and people, rockets and motors. They launched one out of the back of the van. The back blast lit their other motors in the van. Their rented van proceeded to burn merrily to the ground. They denied it, but it was proven otherwise. They started to try to get a gag order but apparently used their one and only Blinding Glimpse of the Obvious on this rather than one the case as a whole.
As for other regulation, high powered rocketry has been well regulated all along, just as its little cousin, model rocketry, is. The rules originated with G. Harry Stine, one time range safety officer at White Sands and pioneer of model rocketry. The high powered rules evolved over time, and have been considered acceptable in development and content by the FAA, the National Fire Protection Association, and similar relevant agencies. We have been trusted for 50 years to develop and follow our own regulations suitable to these agencies. Now we can ignore the arbitrary, stifling, baseless rules concocted by ATFE (put into force without due process) and carry on another 50 years. The regulations we have in place cover all airframes and power systems up through 200,000 newtons, where the FAA's office of space transportation takes over.
The standing regulations for high powered rocketry are available the National Association of Rocketry at http://nar.org/hpcert/NARhprintro.html [nar.org] Only high powered motors were involved in the ruling. Model rockets (including "large model rockets", up to 3.3 pounds loaded and 4 ounces of propellant) were not involved.
As for APCP, although it produces a large amount of exhaust gas which can be channeled through a nozzle to produce thrust (see the space shuttle's boosters for an example), it burns at about the rate of a piece of paper. Thus while it might "conflagerate" it is hardly worth bothering with as an explosive. It is actually more profitable to use small model rocket motors for explosives as they are black powder.
NAR #28965, High Power Certification level 1
Rocketeer since June 1964
Tannerite anyone? (Score:3, Informative)
You can buy binary explosives off the internet in 50 pound lots. You just have to mix it at the point of use on private property and not store it over 24 hours.
Google for boomer shoots and tannerite. Look at the National Firearms Act of 1934 for the definition of what fun stuff is legal with the right tax payment.
Re:terrorists? (Score:5, Informative)
This is simply not true.
First, the FAA (Office of Commercial Spaceflight, or AST) regulates rocketry unless it's intended to be a weapon. I.e., don't load it with explosives or flash powder, or fire it horizontally from a tube, and it's fine.
Second, guided rockets are fairly ok now.
The old FAA regulations for rockets treated guided rockets as needing permits or waivers for flights. Now, if you're under certain altitude thresholds and far enough from an airport, it's fine - hovering flight under guidance out on a ranch for example just requires calling the nearest airport and notifying them.
A flight out of one of the (few) unregulated airspace locations in the US (Black Rock desert, for example) to any altitude, with a rocket with less than 200,000 pound thrust-seconds of impulse (up to about a thousand pounds of propellant, give or take some performance normalizing) also requires no permitting or waiver, other than notifying the nearest airport a day ahead of time.
Larger rockets, or rockets flown near airports, or not far from innocent bystanders, are subject to increasing scrutiny for safety (of the general public and overflying aircraft).
Even if you do reach the size or performance that requires a waiver or permit, doing the paperwork is being found by experience to be less burdensome than doing a decent job of designing the rocket and testing it. It just isn't the hardest part of it. If you're spending six months to a year building it, what's a month or two's part time effort on the paperwork?
If you're in that performance regime and flying near where you could conceivably kill someone, the FAA will quite reasonably give you plenty of free advice on how not to do that, as will plenty of other amateur and semi-professional and professional rocketry people... John Carmack's Armadillo Aerospace has helped other companies and groups out a lot with advice and moral support, and he's far from the only one.
Re:terrorists? (Score:1, Informative)
Have you ever tried to buy a high power rocket motor? The BATFE did, and got shut down in 5 states. The hobby does a great job of policing itself, and certifies rocket fliers to use various sizes of rocket motors. There are written tests, approval committees, and the general rocketry community watching everything (we are protective of our hobby and make sure that motors are used safely and within NAR/TRA guidelines).
We have been fighting this ruling for 9 years. It's not like we are unmotivated and unskilled. One of the clubs I belong to has fostered a number of aerospace engineers through our programs, and several of them (from Japan) are now designing satellites to orbit Venus.
We have great fun flying our rockets, but we do real science, real engineering and real aeronautics. We do not need this heavy handed regulation squeezing the last remaining area of practical science and engineering from us or the young people we inspire.
You don't read very well (Score:2, Informative)
"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
The right is "to keep and bear arms", that first part is a justification. The sensible interpretation of the first part is that it's one example to justify the right. Anyone who thinks clearly will realise that it wasn't the only justification at the time, but it sure sounds important compared to shooting dinner or robbers and such.
Re:In other news (Score:5, Informative)
Re:In defense of the BATF? (Score:4, Informative)
You can also buy ammonium nitrate and diesel, by the truckload. Black powder is for pikers.
Field and Stream, the hunting and fishing magazine, once published an article showing how to build duck ponds to support duck populations. There, in black and white and color, in the library of my junior freaking high, was an article teaching you how to build bombs. It was great.
Re:second amendment rights (Score:5, Informative)
NO. THE PEOPLE HAVE THIS RIGHT. The militia aspect of the 2nd Am is a subordinate inclusive clause, whose presence or absence does not change a RIGHT of the PEOPLE.
Re:Build your own Quassam at home! (Score:5, Informative)
Nope, it doesn't. The Israelis do far better... in fact the kill ratio is 100-to-1 in their favor. During the Gaza adventure, IDF killed 1,434 Palestinians, while 13 Israelis were killed (3 by rockets fired.) [reuters.com] 5,303 Palestinians injured.
No wonder the Americans invest in Israel, they're the winning horse...
Re:In defense of the BATF? (Score:3, Informative)
How hard would it be to synthesize ammonium perchlorate from APCP?
Makes about as much sense as buying 4 cases of soda because you need 2 cups of sugar for a recipe.
All kinds of chemicals you can make explosives out of are mostly unregulated, why goof around trying separate AP out of commercial rocket propellent.
Re:second amendment rights (Score:3, Informative)
O RLY? [aclu.org]
I think what you meant to say was that their understanding of the 2nd Amendment differs from yours and is therefore invalid.
Re:second amendment rights (Score:4, Informative)
It so happens that a lot of fatal accidents with guns in the US are caused by guns kept 'under the pillow' as well
Citation?
In other words, the rest of us is comparing civilized countries where the rule of law is upheld to other civilized countries and the conclusion can only be: liberal gun laws get a lot more people killed than strict gun laws, if properly upheld
That's an interesting conclusion. How do you explain how Norway and Finland (two European countries with a lot of civilian guns) have a lower murder rate than Luxembourg (virtually no civilian firearms to speak of) or Poland (very few)? How do you explain how Wyoming and Montana have lower murder rates than New York or California? Could it just be that crime is caused by socio-economic factors and the access to firearms has very little to do with it? I find it interesting how "correlation is not causation" is a standard refrain around here in every argument except those put forth by the gun control crowd.
The anti-social behaviour of people wanting to be able to 'defend themselves', at great cost to society at large, is despicable.
A) You haven't demonstrated any "great cost" to society, B) This statement borders on trolling and I'm surprised nobody with mod points caught it. If you are interested in looking at a real study here [harvard.edu] is an interesting one from Harvard of all places. They set out to disprove the notion that more guns = more violence. It's a pretty compelling read.
Re:second amendment rights (Score:3, Informative)
They don't bother with the second amendment because there's another group NRA dedicated to that amendment alone.
Actually, no, they don't bother with the 2nd amendment because in their own words [aclu.org]: "In our view, neither the possession of guns nor the regulation of guns raises a civil liberties issue."
Thanks for playing though. Next time trying actually reading their position on the issue before opening your mouth.
Re:second amendment rights (Score:2, Informative)
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 posed the question to an ACLU member. His response was: "There is an entire well funded organization which specifically focuses on second amendment issues. If it were the case that citizens could not get free quality representation on such issues, we would likely cover more second amendment cases. Additionally, since the NRA is more focused they typically have more expertise." His response makes sense to me. Basically, there are many civil liberties which need to be protected. If one is protected exceedingly well by another well funded group, the ACLU should focus on others.