Raider Rocketry

It appears to me that the defendant did nothing more than cite their ability to make rules.

Also, in the last link they cite bombing incidents and recoveries. I am unclear as to if the recoveries are part of the incidents or not and if APCP constituted the less than on half of one percent of the devices or if it was rocket motors in general.

I think I fried my brain trying to understand these documents, but one thing has become clear to me. The BATFE is not doing it's job. It is regulating areas that are not what I consider a serious issue and not taking care of those that are. Much like gun regulation, they are eliminating citizens lawfully using a given product so that the only people who then use the product are criminals. This does not eliminate crimes.

So in 218 or 219 cases cited by the BATFE (the document conflicts with itself on this), I have a question. Over what time period did these occur? What did these people use as a source for these materials? What quantities were used in these items? How does the 62.5g limit currently being defended by the government apply to these cases?

These matters go to the heart of the plaintiff's use of the phrase arbitrary and capricious. Why was the limit set at 62.5g when I can purchase at one time 50 pounds of black powder, which is extremely energetic as shown by BATFE's own testing, and legally store it in my house without any special precautions? I mean the pipe bomb argument cited by the defendant doesn't hold water with me here.

I think they just don't like the idea of anybody obtaining an FAA waiver due to altitude and size of rocket, not because said rocket is explosive, without them getting involved, so they labeled APCP as explosive due to it's being used in hobby rocketry for high powered rockets rather than black powder being used in such because BP is commonly used in low powered rockets only.

They want to regulate the hobby, plain and simple, and will do whatever they have to in order to position themselves as the agency to do so. That's how I see it.

Go get them NAR and TRA. I'm behind you 100%.

UhClem

I believe that the bomb data is intended to mislead.

First is that this is an arson and explosives database. Which of these incidents were explosives? Since the explosive properties or lack thereof of APCP are at issue here that is important. It is possible that they exclude arson but since the details of how the search was performed are not given it is impossible to tell for sure. I refuse to take the ATF's word for it.

Then there is the obfuscation of the search terms. "rocket motor" and "rocket engine" will most likely turn up incidents using Estes BP motors rather than APCP. Then of course "ammonium perchlorate" is not APCP although you are supposed to make that connection.

ddmobley

Seeing discrepancies in ATF documents is nothing new. Apparently they can't walk and chew gum at the same time.

But of the 218 incidents reported, let me break down what the ATF doesn't want you to know:

• 37 incidents of people removing black powder from model rocket engines for the construction of a destructive device.
  
• 173 incidents of people using Estes igniters to detonate a destructive device.
  
• only 8 incidents of people making destructive devices with ammonium perchlorate, in all these years. Yeah, you really need to get right on regulating that, ATF.

Keep in mind, there is ZERO indication as to the source of the ammonium perchlorate. There is no indication that the ammonium perchlorate is APCP, or that it came from rocket motors, let alone HOBBY rocket motors. Nor is there any indications that ALL of the devices were detonated — I suspect they were not all detonated, but instead some were devices confiscated.

The totals given were the totals from all related incidents on record. How this is relevant to the appeals court's remand to establish a deflagration burn rate is beyond me. More smoke and mirrors by ATF to try and bully the court into deferring to the agency's expertise.

crontab

Perhaps the real title of this article should be:

"ATF's Shatzer files affidavit in U.S. District Court confirming himself an idiot"

Raider Rocketry

So assuming that there were 8 APCP related incidents, and assuming that 44,629 is the total number of incidents (this math gives the BATFE the edge in what I'm about to do), then APCP made up (rounded up) 0.02% of all of these devices.

By comparison, Estes motors made up 0.08% (rounded down) of these devices.

Even if I am willing to say that all of these were explosive devices, which I most assuradly am not, I can't think of a remark with enough sarcasm in it to describe exactly how much these numbers don't affect me or the general public.

"Among 4,335 explosive devices reported to the FBI in 1997, black or smokeless powder was used in 44% (1,919) of improvised explosive devices"
http://findarticles.com/p/...200507/ai_n14823129/pg_2

Well gee whiz.

crontab

No no no! There were 8 ammonium perchlorate related incidents, NOT 8 APCP incidents. We have no way of knowing if these 8 involved APCP at all. I am a betting man, and I am willing to bet that a search on "AMMONIUM PERCHLORATE COMPOSITE PROPELLANT" or "APCP" produced ZERO results for them.

Raider Rocketry

I agree with that but for the sake of making the best case for the BATFE I made some assumptions and found their stance to be a joke on the face of it. Your tax dollars at work. It's enough to make ya cry, ain't it?

Manofsteele

It's pretty clear from Shatzer has no background whatsoever in the areas of rocket motors or propellants. His affadavit is quite embarrassing for someone in such a position of authority. He's trying to fit a square peg in a round hole, and it doesn't matter how hard he pushes, it doesn't fit.

Raider Rocketry

Something started bothering me about this. Did they establish a deflagration burn rate in the filing of the monster data they sent in or did they claim to have established it in their motion for summary judgment?

I looked up deflagrate in the dictionary, having given up trying to understand the word by context. Strangely enough it's an intransitive verb meaning to burn with great heat and give off sparks (not go boom for BATFE employees) and should not be confused with detonate, also an intransitive verb, which means to explode with sudden violence ("Jamie wants big boom." for the afore mentioned employees and MythBuster fanatics). Safety fuse, which is what the BATFE uses as a baseline, doesn't deflagrate. It's designed not to according to their own documentation, as it does not emit sparks. Might as well compare it to bond paper. Oh wait, they did. Didn't bond paper, at the upper end, have a faster burn rate than the lower end of APCP?

Deflagration has absolutely nothing to do with it's ability to burn in a vacuum. I've had matches not only ignite but deflagrate due to a chemical pocket or some such other thing. Sparklers that I can buy at any convenience store here in the great mistake, er, state of Iowa around July 4 deflagrate. Rub flint and steel and you get deflagration, although the heat is minuscule. A burning log in your fireplace has the capability of deflagration; just move the logs with a poker and you get sparks and lots of heat. Heck, those candles that you blow out only to have them reignite themselves work using deflagration.

Maybe comparing APCP's burn rate to that of a candle can now be explained, or am I giving the BATFE too much credit?

I'll assume the later and look at my tax dollars hard at work paying people with no grasp of the English language make rules on something they do not understand and show me time and time again that they do not want to understand it but instead want to regulate it for the publics own good. Put another way, words have meanings and you had better understand them if you are going to use them correctly, especially in legal documents on public record and in scientific discussion of anything.

What this comes down to, as near as I can figure, is at what rate does the item under question, in this case APCP, burn and emit sparks. The compound without any additives does not according to my understanding of it - although I could be mistaken. I see nowhere in their brief where they have established that it sparks when not under pressure nor that it emits sparks at all when burned without additives under any sort of pressure at all.

How is it I understand this with a whole semester of community college studying art of all things understand this but the organization who, I'm absolutely convinced at this point in the debate, file a whole bunch of paperwork that makes themselves look like idiots?

I'll go back to the gunpowder issue. If I can purchase 50 pounds of BP without an LEUP and store it in my house without any safety precautions and it's used in 44% of IED's (arson devices omitted) in the year 1997, while ammonium perchlorate (not necessarily APCP) is used in under 0.02% of what might be an arson device or an IED from an indeterminate time period, why is the limit being set at 62.5g? Wouldn't 625 pounds at least make more sense?

Not that I think they should get involved in public consumption of APCP in any way, shape, or form. I'm opposed to almost anything the BATFE does on general principle. I might agree with them 1 out of 100 times and this topic is not one of them.

The monstrosity of paperwork "establishing the deflagration rate" of APCP is in my opinion a scatological guide designed to overwhelm the court with so much cross indexed, footnoted, cataloged, technical, and ultimately useless information as to render the poor judge who has to sit and read the document while remaining awake completely unable to make an informed decision. Honestly, how can you make sense of something that takes 1,200+ pages to explain if the item in question sparks or not while burning? I mean for the love of Pete it's a yes or no question that requires at most 3 pages and a video tape. "Here's it burn rate, temperature, the conditions under which the tests were performed, and how much it sparks (if it creates sparks at all)." Motors that CATO during a bench test have nothing to do with this, nor does the way in which they are burned no matter who is doing the testing.

I do, however, give the BATFE credit for having possibly cured literate persons who are currently suffering insomnia.

I had to get this off me chest as for some odd reason it's been keeping me awake and at 6:00 AM I am more than ready to catch some shut-eye.

If there is some other definition of deflagrate out there that might change how this legal material should be viewed please let me know because it makes absolutely no sense to me why the BATFE has the ability to even attempt to explain regulating APCP using their current arguments.

I also give the NAR/TRA lawyers permission to use this rant in it's entirety if they chose to if it helps us, the plaintiffs, in any manner.

Thanks for giving me a place to vent DD. I feel a bit better now.

UhClem

It is in response to item 24 in the NAR/TRAs list of facts where we claim "No person has ever been fatally injured as a result of use of APCP in hobby rockets."

ddmobley

Great! Then using their own exhibit, they prove the NAR and TRA are correct, as the exhibit stated fatalities involving ammonium perchlorate as zero.

Aphyle

The documents are incredibly revealing in terms of just how twisted up the DOJ really seems to be at the moment. My wife, who has two prominent lawyers in her family, summed it up rather nicely - the US Attorneys in this case seem to have been told to find a way to make ATF's point of view stick. I've said this before in previous posts - notice their attempts at controlling the language, such as using "explosive" and "deflagrate" together, often in the same sentence with APCP and safety fuse.

Riddled thoughout the ATF's filings an almost laughable cherry-picking operation is going on. They consistently refer to the "common and ordinary use" of materials, and then consistently do something that is manifestly not the common or ordinary use. The assertion that somehow rocket motor manufacturers are calculating burn rates incorrectly in the normal use of APCP in rocket engines, and then asserting that using a linear burn rate is more correct because that is how safety fuse burns, and since we all know that safety fuse is an "explosive" , then that is how we should test to see if APCP is an explosive, since that is how ATF tests explosives. And since candles and paper burn in a linear fashion, everything does? But just ignore the paper and candle burn rates, since they are not explosives in common and ordinarly use? Demonstrate to me that APCP is an explosive in common and ordinary use! I have personally never tried this, and have no intention or interest in doing so, but could one make an IED from cut-up bits of safety fuse? Seems pretty inefficient. And in the dozens of APCP engines I have launched, I have had only two that "exploded," (an F25 and an F50), and that was because I used an igniter that had too thick lead wires and could not be expelled effectively. But in both instances, the nozzle and the delay part of the casing simply fractured. The cardboard motor mount tubing was in no way damaged and both rockets eventually flew with new engines.

I found the use of the dictionary terms by NAR/TRA as particularly ironic, given the PAD rulemaking information. ATF wants to use on one hand some sort of common or reasonable definition in certain domains, and then relies on a narrowly contrived, artificial test to define a technical point as disingenous at best, and certainly capricious at worst. And the search terms in the FBI data base? Hah! I've seen better searching for middle school history projects! And then, if you don't believe our tests, then let us whip up a little terrorist paranoia with Homeland Security clauses. Reason need not apply. In fact, the moment this aspect is raised, the whole line of rational and reasonable arugments is simply tossed out the window.

The whole "give us deference" argument that ATF makes just sticks in my craw. No, they say, we don't have to tell you what our experts qualifications are, just that they are our experts. The one fellow has a BS from Pittsburgh in 1976. In what? Peer Review? Oh, his supervisors reviewed it. It just reminds me of a special education case in which the family was told by the school system what their child's placement was to be. When asked why that placement was "appropriate" (IDEA and its antecedents guarantee a "free and appropriate education in the least restrictive environment" to every child), the school system replied that the relied on the opinons of their experts. When asked for data to support those opinons, they school system said that they relied on the years of experience of those experts. Even when it was demonstrated that there was a more appropriate (notice - not "better") placement available that was far less costly, the school system refused to budge. The case went to arbitration, and when the hearing officer saw that the school system basically had no data and the parents actually did, the parents got everything that they wanted. So even it ATF is wrong on burn rates, they should be given deference because they are the experts?

In this APCP case, ATF says they want deference because all that they had to do was test. It should not matter, in essence, that they simply have bad data. Bad data is better than no data, in their minds. How things were tested is irrelevant, just that they were tested. Pity that No Child Left Behind can't take this point of view! Many teachers would be much happier.

It is my sincere hope that Judge Walton can see through all of this smoke and mirror stuff offered by ATF. Thank you for indulging my venting.

mrbusdriver

I am not sure what to think about the current state of affairs re: this lawsuit. It is apparent that the ATF is sticking by their bizzare "test" data, but also that there are many examples in the past where plain logic and common sense was overruled by legal precedent. It really could go either way.

50 pounds very energetic BP vs 2.2 ounces of slow burning APCP...a no brainer in anyone's book, one would think. Unfortunately, the huge NRA has vast lobbying clout, whilst little tiny NAR/TRA is just, politically speaking, "spittle". The PTB think were nuts, whackos, crazies. When they read these forums, they don't see the science and engineering, they look for CATOs, incidents, horror stories, fire and damage. They want to find a fatality, a gory injury. They CAN'T!! I'm certain it disappoints them.

That, and the frightening idea that, once their claws are set, the feds rarely lose hold of a regulatory power they have gained. The concept of "homeland security" has been so prostituted, it barely resembles the core of it's purpose...it's a massive political and cash machine, and a term that has lost it's meaning and real aim. Somehow, rocketry has become an easy target, miniscule as a "threat", but convenient to regulate for political, not practical, purposes. Rocketry is NOT a threat to Homeland Security!

I found a link while googling that shows that BATFE is under DOJ scrutiny for their lack of progress re: the new Safe Explosives Act. Could this be a "motivator"? Maybe they need to show their "doing" something? Meanwhile their job of regulating REAL explosives, and the people using them, is documented as wanting.

I'd love to see the ATF post stats on BP "incidents" next to the numbers they posted after searching for seemingly everything but APCP...the results would be very telling. Any fool terrorist/criminal trying to use APCP as an explosive, vs something much more efficient (and cheap) that you can easily pick up an the local superstore or ranch supply outlet, is no doubt so dumb he'd injure himself assembling whatever device he was planning. Oh BTW, could the "classified" tests perhaps involve the alleged destruction of a rental vehicle?

2.2 ounces vs 50 pounds (in antique firearms, right?!?)...sounds very arbitrary and capricious to me...and downright ignorant. If we lose this case, we need to make some noise. I personally don't envision stocking up even 2 pounds of propellant if this goes through (the stuff is expensive!!), but they don't even want me to have a single H128 (less than 3 ounces of propellant)! Where is the thought process here??

Thanks for the session, Doc...feeling much better...

Dave, not a politician.