Nothing makes your baby more zen than a few gentle puffs of a TBC Flamethrower pic.twitter.com/HewJf66hh2
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 9, 2018
Technically flamethrowers are not firearms and so do not require a 4473 or any other background check. California does restrict them, but then California restricts everything.
Legally, across most of America, a flame thrower is just a really big cigarette lighter.
Still, being lit on fire and burned to death sucks. People are already causing trouble with them.
⚡️ “People are already misusing Elon Musk's flamethrowers”https://t.co/RJrzWplI9O
— Business Insider (@BusinessInsider) June 11, 2018
So here we have a device that is potentially lethal, requires no background check to purchase, and is being treated like a toy.
The inventor says it’s “Zen” just to fire it off.
But somehow if you said the same thing about guns…. the shit would hit the fan.
Where are the protests with people holding signs that say:
“There are more rules regulating lawn darts than these horrific weapons of war.”
“People don’t have a Constitutional right to own napalm.”
“You’re going to BBQ the deer at the same time you kill it.”
Or maybe it has less to do with the actual device and more to do with ideology.
The law defines flamethrowers very specifically.
This is not a flamethrower.
The Boring Company is based in California. CA defines flamethrowers as “any non-stationary and transportable device designed or intended to emit or propel a burning stream of combustible or flammable liquid a distance of at least 10 feet.”
The “Not-a-flamethrower” is not a flamethrower because it uses Benzomatic Propane, Butane, or MAPP gas fuel cylinders, which are all gases at STP. It doesn’t propel a burning stream of combustible or flammable liquid. It’s just a really big butane lighter.
There is no BATF regulation for flamethrowers. The is strictly a CA thing, not a federal thing.
It doesn’t have a shoulder thing that goes up, therefore, it’s not icky.
Besides, Musk is one of the coastal elite movers and shakers, so he will (mostly) get a pass on this.
[…] I called this earlier today. […]