> I'm trying to get at more substantial discussion than on Twitter, by understanding why someone was speaking the way they were, by asking them. You said: > T

> I'm trying to get at more substantial discussion than on Twitter, by understanding why someone was speaking the way they were, by asking them. You said: > The allegation is that this person made a veritable arsenal of pipe bombs and other explosives, with plausible domestic terrorism intent or inclinations. > The Second Amendment technicality you mention might come up in a legal defense, but I don't understand fixating on that as "the real criminal" here -- on a story of securing a very dangerous-sounding cache of pipe bombs, mishandled explosive material, etc. Your slant there is that this fellow's possession of explosives was illegal... or maybe SHOULD have been. If it was even vaguely-plausibly illegal, the fellow would have been charged. The cops searched his entire place and detonated some of his explosives, so it's not like the cops were unaware of the explosives. As mentioned in this thread [0] (and accompanying subthread), he's just being charged with a tax violation (and is currently out on bail) probably because possession of high explosives is usually entirely legal in the US. Frankly, it should be illegal for police and other similar government agents to engage in character assassination. Statements from government agents like "This fellow was in possession of large-but-entirely-legal quantities of entirely-legal substances and materials. Be very afraid!" should absolutely leave the speaker personally liable for something akin to libel. [0] <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42562969 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42562969>