The list of things that the ATF considers to be "explosives" excludes a lot of things that are capable of going boom. Playing with explosives that you can legal

The list of things that the ATF considers to be "explosives" excludes a lot of things that are capable of going boom. Playing with explosives that you can legally make at home isn't an unheard of past time (even chemistry kits for kids used to include some crazy shit 30+ years ago. They don't any more, but I think that's more due to lawsuit aversion than legality) If he was just mixing tannerite in a relatively safe context he wouldn't have been breaking any laws.