New Chemical Restrictions

[StarBreaker]

it`s already happening, and due to public Apathy (as usual in todays age) no-one says or does anything about it anymore and it creeps in like some incideous poison until you have no rights at all, and by the time you realise it, it`ll already be too late!

 

Well said. In USA, only a handful of people care anymore...only a handful of think anymore. Feed them cake society indeed. Im horrified of our future...

 

Unite as one.

 

We must draw the line somewhere... the persecution must end because thats what it is. They should concentrate on the real issues to health such as global warming, smoking, alcoholism...

 

I applaud your enthusiasm but...smoking and alcoholism create huge $ for them.

 

They have an extremely well drawn out game plan and its working. The enslaved have unwittingly become the enslavers, they dont have to worry about "heretics" anymore or any one standing up and saying "this is wrong, lets do something about it!" Our society has succesfully been brainwashed into "contentment."

[silkworm]

Looks like silkworm has a new enemy.

 

Just tell me who the CPSC is and I'm on it.

[insane_alien]

We could always use our ultimate weapon...

 

AzurePhoenix. Although there is the risk that she will assume power after wiping out all the leaders of the world and enslave everybody to do her bidding anyway.

 

... at least she won't be anti-science.

[Xavier]

Declaration of interests: I am not a home hobbyist

I work in an academic laboratory

I have, in the past, considered my work to put me at (slight) risk form animal rights activists of the sort who plant parcel bombs and car bombs.

 

1.) There is no clear mention of prevention of terrorism in the announcement that began this discussion. A CPSC press release states that

"The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission is charged with protecting the public from unreasonable risks of serious injury or death from more than 15,000 types of consumer products under the agency's jurisdiction."

and

"The CPSC is committed to protecting consumers and families from products that pose a fire, electrical, chemical, or mechanical hazard or can injure children."

 

2.) The connection between this issue and the rights to bear arms, smoke cigarettes and consume alcohol are that they are all potentially dangerous to others. The balance between personal freedom of action and risk of injury to others is at issue. In each case the merits and risks are debatable but the debate itself is clearly necessary.

 

3.) Home hobbyists in chemistry are not being singled out or victimised. As there are those with a cavalier attitude to home chemistry and others who deliberately use home chemistry for terrorist activities (NOT organised groups like Al Qaeda, but certainly individuals who try to blow up abortion clinics or who murdered a vivisectionist at the Porton Down Research Establishment in the UK a few years ago with a car bomb) there is a good argument for restricting access. A reasonable argument for allowing the continued access to potentially dangerous chemicals despite the risk is needed.

By way of analogy, after a high profile school shooting in Scotland the UK government tightened the law on firearm ownership. A casualty of this popular move was that battle re-enactment hobbyists would no longer be allowed to operate their muskets (muskets were licenced as shotguns, which licences had prevoiusly been readily granted). The re-enactors were able to claim that they were strongly self-policing, that training was provided, and insisted upon before their members were allowed the handle the weapons and that the use of the weapons, including firing them had a benefit to society in general as a part of both historic and educational activities. They were also able to point out that the muskets fired only powder, not bullets and so were not explicitly being used in their capacity as dangerous weapons. After some debate, some special case exceptions were made in the law that allowed the re-enactors to continue to use their muskets much as before.

Only if home chemistry hobbyists could make similar claims, particularly for effective self-policing and for some sort of general benefit to offset the residual risks could the rest of us seriously consider your wants.

 

4.) Establishment laboratories are almost overwhelmed with health and safety issues, risk assessments and audits. In my academic laboratory any order I place must be countersigned by the lab manager and a safety officer and I must submit a risk assessment for the use to which I will put all chemicals and often a COSSH statement - for something like potassium phosphate (I am required to wear a mask whilst making up my potassium phosphate buffers as any airborne powder is considered to be potentially hazardous!) This is the standard for sfaety in a state of the art facility (more or less) filled with professional scientists, sensors, alarms and safety equipment - you're not even allowed into the lab if you're drunk!

The difference between this and the home hobbyist is the equivalent, in gun control, of advising that amateurs should not deliberately point their guns at their hosts face whilst shooting randomly at anything that moves - but accidents will happen.

 

5.) You may believe that you are not one of those gung-ho pyromaniacs who do stupid things with chemicals at home and kill people but:-

a) How do you know; do you think those that are thought so

b) How can the rest of us know

c) How can you be sure that there will not be an unforseen reaction due to your lack of knowledge

d) Could an additional factor beyond your control cause a unforseen reaction (eg contaminated water, a domestic gas leak, a car crashing into your house, a burglar/pet/surprisingly enterprising sibling)

e) Could a miscreant gain acces to your stock and make use of them

f) How can the rest of us be sure

g) Do you have the facilities and procedures ready to mitigate any unforseen reaction

 

Many of you can, in all likelihood, answer these questions satisfactorily -except b) & f)- and I would encourage you to. Such statements might even underpin a 'code of practice' that would be the start of a self-policing initiative.

 

This is a Devils Advocates response; reply with a positive, reasoned rebuttal.

I suggest that you do not attack the argument too strongly as the home hobbyist is greatly in the minority and not well understood by the general public. Persuade me that the above represents only half of the argument and that my reservations should be put aside.

[gcol]

Thank you for that, very reasonably said.

But why do I have the nagging cynical doubt that this may be used as a

'foot in the door' regulation. It has happened before.

[rthmjohn]

The fact remains that if someone wanted to blow up an abortion clinic badly enough they'd find another way to procure the materials.

[RyanJ]

The fact remains that if someone wanted to blow up an abortion clinic badly enough they'd find another way to procure the materials.

 

Yes and I very much doubt it would be from a supplier that they could easily be traced from. Lets face it ban or not people who wan to do damage will. Buy lots of Asprin oer a long time and no-one would suspect a thing why ruin others hobbies when they could be trying to find these people instead?

 

Cheers,

 

Ryan Jones

[StarBreaker]

I happened accross this tonight and thought some of you would appreciate it as it applies to the general ignorance of the public, which is the real enemy. Hysterical! http://www.dhmo.org/facts.html

[raivo]

To Xavier: Most of your arguments are of such kind that one can not say you are wrong. Its question of general attitude.

 

One can also say that guns are dangerous and widely used to make crimes. How others can know that particula gun-owner does not intend crime or that He/She is responsible enough in every state of mind?

 

Almost the same can be sayd about cars or knifes and many many other things. Even common glass bottles have been used to kill a man and can hurt if carelessly or improperly used. I do not have proper statistics at hand but accidents by using lab chemicals at home are probably rarer than most other kinds of accidents.

 

There are some very dangerous chemicals that can never be effectively banned becuse they are needed in everyday life. Gasoline and nitrate based fertilisers for example. If one wants to blow something up then there will always be some chemicals available that he can use.

 

Bad deeds should be a crime, not ownership. It should be work of police and courts to make it clear who does bad things and who does not. Todays tendency on law-making (to make ownership a crime as it is done with red phosphorus) shows us that policeman want to make theyr work a lot easyer.

 

Amateur chemistry is kind of hobby like fishing or hiking that one just can not ban it. Those who like it will do it anyway. Proper way would be to make laws that let to do it more safely with budget that home chemist can use. Restrictions will make this hobby just more dangerous.

[YT2095]

Xavier, all sounds perfectly reasonable and indeed Would Be, IF we operate on the basis of Guilty until proven Innocent.

[rthmjohn]

Xavier, all sounds perfectly reasonable and indeed Would Be, IF we operate on the basis of Guilty until proven Innocent.

 

agreed

[YT2095]

and just for the record, All my potentialy dangerous chems (Energetic) are stored in NATO Issue Ammunition boxes (steel) and also locked, there`s no single item in there over 150ml or 150 grams, these are kept on site.

Off Site would be the Larger containers and gas canisters (flammables etc...) that these smaller containers are topped up with when need be. Off Site is more or less in the middle of nowhere, concrete building, also in locked steel boxes with equaly locked reinforced doors!

 

so no, no-one need worry about a thing in that respect. consider this, I have an 8 month old Daughter whom I love more than life itself, do you REALLY think I`de put or Allow her to be in ANY danger ????

[RyanJ]

so no' date=' no-one need worry about a thing in that respect. consider this, I have an 8 month old Daughter whom I love more than life itself, do you REALLY think I`de put or Allow her to be in ANY danger ????[/quote']

 

I would not think so

 

Mine are stored in my safe in sealed containers... mmy bothers would love to get their hands on them so they have to be kept out pf reach

 

Cheers,

 

Ryan Jones

[insane_alien]

my chemical supplies(few though they are at the moment)are in a twice padlocked steel box that used to be a largish container for handgrenades in WWII. i got it off my grandpa when i was really interested in the armed forces and was seriously considering joining the RAF but i failed the medical. so i study chemical engineering now. In hindsight i'm actually glad i failed the medical.

 

so anyway this box also has excessive chains around it so nobodys getting into that without the key(s).

[rthmjohn]

I appreciate that you guys are so safe in storing you chems (you definitely do a better job than I do), but I don' believe that it's the best way to argue against chem restrictions; it wouldn't be accurate to say that most people with chems store them as well as you do, especially considering all the k3wls out there.

[YT2095]

k3wlz will be K3wlz no matter What you try and ban, My reply was directed towars Xavier in response to his questioning of safety, to which I`de also that my chems and storage have also been seen by the police and found acceptable also!

[RyanJ]

k3wlz will be K3wlz no matter What you try and ban, My reply was directed towars Xavier in response to his questioning of safety, to which I`de also that my chems and storage have also been seen by the police and found acceptable also!

 

Its sad to have to say it this way but kewls normally learn from their first try and give up - most are injured if not killed. Only very few tryagain but those that do gt worse and worse.

 

Unfortunatly where they think there is potential for fun they will come flocking.

 

Ryan Jones

[insane_alien]

Police haven't seen my chems. i've only got some common acids(HNO3, H2SO4 and HCL) a couple of bases(NaOH and CaCO3) and various metals(Fe, Al, Mg, Cu, Zn) plus double the standard contents of a chemistry set. nothing very dangerous but still in individual plastic tubs incase of the unlikely event of the containers rupturing. D'you think i should maybe get my storage checked out by someone i mean it isn't exactly the most dangerous of stuff.

[woelen]

This is why certain chems are becoming more and more difficult to obtain in the Netherlands. Here are some k3wlz in action :

 

http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=explosieven

 

This was posted on a Dutch/Belgian chemistry forum by those k3wls and wow, the flaming response was really great. On that forum they hate k3wls like hell! After this post I've never heard of them again on that forum .

 

But to be serious again. In the Netherlands it is this kind of people who spoil the chemistry hobby and pyrotechnics hobby. I like a nice fireworks display, but what these boys do is just destroying things. No fun at all. In k3wl-dutch: Kn4LLUh & r0K3n :mad: .

[chemfreak]

tecnicly(acording to the constitution) arent we aloud to have weapons equal to that of the goverment?

[jdurg]

tecnicly(acording to the constitution) arent we aloud to have weapons equal to that of the goverment?

 

No. That is a common misconception. The right to bear arms simply means that we have the right to possess weapons needed to survive your everyday life and to maintain an established 'militia'. It does NOT mean that you have the right to possess nuclear, biological, or any other 'high level' weapon (including explosive devices).

[RyanJ]

But to be serious again. In the Netherlands it is this kind of people who spoil the chemistry hobby and pyrotechnics hobby. I like a nice fireworks display' date=' but what these boys do is just destroying things. No fun at all. In k3wl-dutch: Kn4LLUh & r0K3n :mad: .[/quote']

 

The word idiot seems to have been defined just to describe those people.

 

They should either use chemistry experiments for a paractial reason, e.g. learning or better still don't do them at all

 

Cheers,

 

Ryan Jones

[rthmjohn]

You know, it's funny because our country (the US) is so concerned about promoting science and math in today's youth education (this is noticeable in today's high school curriculum). Chemistry is a branch of science and by banning the possession of chemicals, the government is simultaneously preventing youth exposure to chemistry at home and ultimately, perhaps, limiting the amount of possible future chemists in our country.

 

It's also funny that the government would focus on such a small problem when there are much larger issues at stake. We home chemists are such a minority group that placing restrictions on us would make only the most minute difference in our nation's securtiy. Pushing for chemical restrictions, I think, is both a waste of the government's time and money. I think the government is just picking on us because we're an easy target.

[xeluc]

It's also funny that the government would focus on such a small problem when there are much larger issues at stake. We home chemists are such a minority group that placing restrictions on us would make only the most minute difference in our nation's securtiy. Pushing for chemical restrictions' date=' I think, is both a waste of the government's time and money. I think the government is just picking on us because we're an easy target.[/quote']

 

I don't think that the government is picking on us. Honestly, I don't see them caring about us. They're getting brownie points from the general public because they are too ignorant to understand that it's not even doing any good. They really believe that the government knows what's best for them and by golly the government says that this will get rid of terrorists so whats bad about it?! </sarcasm>