<devils advocate mode on>

That's a pretty big assumption. Even if they are technically sane, they are rarely rational.

You can tell that the people who made the "five-mile-range weapons" statement don't have a clue about rocket design. :-)

From what I've seen, the high-altitude projects are minimum-diameter, *maybe* boosted-dart projects, with lightweight everything and no payload except some lightweight electronics. The more payload you put in, the lower your peak altitude becomes.

You'd think that they'd talk to somebody who knows these things... not the DOJ or the ATF, who don't... before shooting their mouths off.

THAT'S IT! Just another guvernment-cover-up-blindsided-the-american-public-won't-figgur-out trick! :-)

KMJK

snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com (Scott) wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@posting.google.com:

The Schumer/Lautenberg argument is "why make it easier for them?". As has been pointed out repeatedly, it's a politically motivated, emotionally based appeal to simple solutions to difficult problems. It isn't about effectiveness, or priorities, or anything more rational than getting reelected.

len.

jeff: evidently you only read the parts that sounded like they came from a bad Tom Clancy novel.... you can sit there and say my scenario's are stupid, but thats my point.....the people in this RMR newsgroup and this hobby refuse to SEE or acknowledge or try to UNDERSTAND in any shape form or way how others see this hobby as a potential terrorist activity....... AND that is the problem.......WE are so FANATICAL in our beliefs that we refuse to see or even consider the fact that a LMR/HPR can be used as a weapon, albeit a very poor one.........I'm beginning to think that hobby rocketry is the last refuge for angry white men who see black helicopters around every corner.........

So I will repost my preamble to my stupid previous post and maybe somebody will try and stay on topic and address the issue:

Over the past year or so in here( meaning RMR) at every point I have seen and read numerous people "poo paw" the idea/concept that a LMR/HPR could be "weaponized" ........AND even if it was "weaponized" , there were much better candidates around as weapon delivery vehicles.....In fact if you look at some of the current RMR posting to this latest uproar over the "twin towers" of deceit (schumer/lautenberg), you will still see people saying the same thing.......

I guess it never dawned on anybody that exhorting LMR/HPR were "poor" weapon delivery systems would convince anybody , especially politicians and the ATF, in this post 911 world, that they would be a benign thing......

Since I'm playing devils advocate here, and this is the thinking that is currently being thought in the DOJ/ATF, lets see what they see shall we?

shockie B)

a pickup truck, each launching 20 missiles into the

to redundant RC equipment they also contain off the

etc...........this large model aircraft also contains 4 LMR with

homemade explosive.........

Washington dc...from different directions........since they

flying so low (at night) they are not detected.....at

explode in mid-air........dropping C 237 all over the

they crash into various targets in the DC area...

combination with radioactive sensors going

bombs......who would have ever thought it?

of this country have people sitting around making $60K

nefarious purposes.......and I hope I don't disappear from

It has had 45 years of chances for evildoers to try to misuse it. Hasn't haoppened. At some point actual experience has to count for something.

We cannot live on hysteria alone. The only people that pay the bills then, are the police and politicians.

Jerry

I agree that that is extreemly improbable, but extermination does not not work either, because you never get them all, and the survivers are really pissed.

Alan

I'm chiming in here with a concurring opinion. To illustrate, I use a personal experience of mine at that bastion of the American Paradigm, Wall-Mart.

My local Squall-Mart was in the middle of its annual post-summer purge of model rocket stuff, and I took advantage by snapping up some motors and other goodies. The cashier looked at my purchases, looked up at me in something bordering on astonishment, and asked me just what I was buying.

"Rockets," I answered.

"You mean these are real rockets?" he asked indredulously.

"Yep," says I, "real live flying model rockets."

He just about recoiled from them in horror. "Oh my God, I hope those kids from Columbine don't find out about this!"

Okay, obviously this guy was not the hottest igniter in the range box, and if his I.Q. ever gets to 60 he should sell. But consider just what was going on here. This guy is probably more representative of the typical, brain-dead, mainstream American than anybody who reads this newsgroup. He could not give a rat's toochis about the relative safety of APCP just as long as he can turn on his MTV or HBO at night and not be bothered with anything so demanding and fatiguing as actual thought. He was working in a store that sells firearms and ammunition. (Don't flame me, folks, I am as ardent a supporter of the

2nd Amendment as you will find this side of Chuck Heston.) But he was afraid that some crazy kids would take C6-5 Estes rocket motors and stage a massacre at the local high school.

This is the true obstacle we face. This waste of oxygen can vote.

Politicians are not stupid. They might know more about the relative safety and the difficulty of weaponizing APCP than we give them credit for. But they also know their constituency is composed of a lot more Wall-Mart clerks than it is of harmless nerds.

Remember that episode of Thirtysomething (if you can remember back that far) where a kid flying a model rocket was blinded by the explosion of a rocket motor? Yes, nothing like this has ever really happened, and many of us wrote nasty letters to the stations, the network, and the producers to educate them, but guess what? They could have given a rat's toochis! As far as they were concerned, the public at large equated rockets with something dangerous and they capitalized on this latent fear. "We have to protect out children!" Schumer, Lautenberg, and the rest of these folks are just doing the same thing. They are capitalizing on the fear and ignorance of the masses.

God help us!

Bill Sullivan

As far as our Fearless Leaders are concerned, that kind of "actual experience" stopped counting for anything a couple of years ago.

-dave w

ROFL!

ROFL!

One mushy brain, one vote.

One senator a couple of years ago in some hearing asked the "witness", "are you saying some of the voters are stupid?". The witness sat there is dead silence knowing the factual answer was in no way politically correct nor appropriate to the room, being akin to saying, "the emperor has no clothes."

Clancy novel....

You did not contribute anything else to the discussion.

try and stay on topic and address the issue:

read numerous people "poo paw" the idea/concept that

there were much better candidates around as weapon

this latest uproar over the "twin towers" of deceit

delivery systems would convince anybody , especially

Of course, wrong headed people can think anything they like. It's our job to set them straight, or at least refute the drivel they spew. Your evil plots could have been better carried out using cars, or your feet rather than rockets. When the fearful grasp this they might leave us alone.

currently being thought in the DOJ/ATF, lets see what they

My point is that the devil doesn't need you as an advocate. You are treating us like we are all idiots who can't see why some people fear model rockets. We get it, ok?

It doesn't help to point out that there are lots of people out there who believe that model rockets could be made into weapons. We already knew that.

We are not denying that some people think this way. We are not sticking our heads in the sand.

We are standing up and denouncing the irrational fears that some like Schumer, Lautenberg, and yourself are perpetuating.

The devil doesn't need your help, he has Lautenberg, et al.

- Jeff Taylor

Well said.

Thank you.

"Jeff Taylor"

---------

Yea... I think its the Cessina 152. ;)

HDS

"shockwaveriderz"

Don't even act like you don't see them. ;) We all do... look over there... following.. me...

will try and stay on topic and address the issue:

----------

Everyone here is trying to figure out why anyone would build a rocket not to go strait up. Looking at the issue from the other side is hard when we know what we know.

For example, in that made for TV drama show in NY/NJ, I had a vision of Bunny jumping the stage, and crushing the air frame with one hand... because it would be a paper air frame... and scream at the top of his lungs "Look! It's paper... DUH". Even if it was glassed, he could break it over his knee.

That's how WE think. But the other side sees gremlins in the baby crib, and that the kid will become one soon.

Izzy posted a link to some article that was full of that kind of thinking, but I forgot.

Seeing the issue from the other side (their side), I see LEUPs protecting us.

HDS

"Gary"

I just wrote a letter to Bunny about this very thing. Not just rocketry, but all the RC (Helo, Plane, Car, Boat) orgs as well. After all, it will effect them as well sooner or later.

HDS

What terrorist in his right mind would BUY a commercial O motor, whether it is tracked by the ATFE or not? What do we find in all those terrorist training cells... instructions on how to MAKE stuff. It's a simple matter to make APCP out of un-traceable, easy to obtain compounds. If they make them themselves, the ATFE will never find out until it's too late.

And, if they make them themselves, they would make far more effective weapons than model rocket motors, as has been stated many times. Like model airplanes.

and read numerous people "poo paw" the idea/concept that

there were much better candidates around as weapon

posting to this latest uproar over the "twin towers" of deceit

thing.......

weapon delivery systems would convince anybody , especially

currently being thought in the DOJ/ATF, lets see what they

period of time) ( or they make their own APCP O motors), scores

back of a pickup truck) where they launch a "swarm" of LMR

with a pickup truck, each launching 20 missiles into the

content......

hijacked 747's slammed into the WTC and the pentagon,

airplanes filled with highly combustible jetfuel as a wmd....

than say BP or APCP.....and yes, their are other

care about that because they know that they really can't

LMR/HPR, because only a few small number of people are

addition to redundant RC equipment they also contain off the

etc...........this large model aircraft also contains 4 LMR with

homemade explosive.........

Washington dc...from different directions........since they

are flying so low (at night) they are not detected.....at

to explode in mid-air........dropping C 237 all over the

where they crash into various targets in the DC area...

combination with radioactive sensors going

dirty bombs......who would have ever thought it?

apparatus of this country have people sitting around making $60K

to contain or control it is to PUT US OUT OF

rockets themselves make poor delivery vehicles, with a little

is the goal of course of terrorists..........

nefarious purposes.......and I hope I don't disappear from

against.........You don't think the ATF and other security orgs

after Model Aircraft, or at least, larger ones......Now of

be people and objects that any half smart person can and

Doh!

I just recently received my NAR membership. Got to remember I have a "voice" now.

Absolutely; we need to forge friendships and alliances with as many people and organizations as possible.

The poor R/C plane/UAV guys were taken on a tour of the Twilight Zone. I'm not sure what the final outcome of their visit was, though I know they were literally threatened with being shut down. No actual government regulations have come about yet, have they?