If you don't need to own a bunch of high powered semi automatic weapons in order to get an erection you've probably never heard of Tannerite. Most of it is made by Tannerite Sports LLC but there are, according to their web site, a bunch of inferior knock offs floating around. Actually, if you want, you can go to any number of survivalist web sites and find out how to whip up a batch right in your own home. One word of warning though--apparently if you use the same blender to grind up the different ingredients things might not work out quite the way you intended.
Tannerite is ammonium nitrate spiced with aluminum powder. Tannerite Sports puts this mixture in what they call binary bricks. One online advertisement brags it will sell you four of the bricks at the low, low price of $39.95. When you put a brick, or two down range and shoot them with your weapon of choice they will, to borrow a line from the old Second City TV show, "blow up real good." That's right, those bricks are basically explosive devices manufactured to entertain gun nuts who aren't satisfied with simply shooting holes in things.
So someone has to be regulating this shit right? Hey, let's face it, those bricks are nothing more than bombs for God's sake and in most cities it's illegal to even buy, or sell a firecracker. Well, according to a NBC story written by Jeff Rossen and Jovanna Billington no one is.
The FBI issued a warning a couple of years ago saying Tannerite has the, "potential" to be used in Improvised Explosive Devices by all manner of thugs, loons, and terrorists, but other than an advisory sent to retailers they are hands off on the sale of the stuff. One part of the advisory warns retailers to be suspicious of people paying cash and who are unwilling, or reluctant to produce a valid ID. Another section urged sellers to be alert to large purchases and inquiries about bulk sales.
Unfortunately the FBI didn't specify what they consider a large, or bulk purchase to be, not that some sales clerk is going ask questions anyway. In the story Rossen claims he went into a sporting goods store and bought 40 pounds of it and no one even raised an eyebrow. One of his assistants bought the same amount online and it was delivered to his house the next week--again--without him having to offer any sort of reason for the size of the buy. According to the report 40 pounds is enough to destroy a house.
A reasonable person might wonder why the ATF, which is supposed to be in charge when it comes to explosives, isn't all over this insanity. They aren't because, by themselves, ammonium nitrate and aluminum powder are unregulated. It is only when they're mixed together that they are considered an explosive. Tannerite Sports separates the two elements within the one package thereby skirting the law and making the potential IEDs as easy to buy as tubes of tooth paste.
In the report Tannerite Sports issued a statement which said, "No additional regulations are needed beyond current laws, because the product is safe when used correctly." The company went on to say, "The only injuries that have ever happened were the result of the shooter misusing the product."
Tragically, there has been a lot of that going around lately and very little of it is accidental. All you have to do to figure it out is turn on the news. Of course, as we've seen far too often, vast amounts of carnage and outrage zips right over the heads of NRA types and those who love to hoot and holler whenever they can shoot something that blows up. Rossen and Billington write Tannerite's final statement to them was, "Only girly-men want to regulate Tannerite rifle targets."
Perhaps, but the other side of that coin is only people who are developmentally stuck in the sixth, or seventh grade want it unregulated.
At this moment there is only one state in the union which requires someone to have an explosives permit to buy Tannerite. That would be Maryland.
Everywhere else cash talks and any fucking whack job who hears voices and wants to cleanse the planet of the swarms of banana people squirming inside his skull can legally buy it without a question being asked.
Ah yes, sleep well tonight, America.
3-23-15
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