According to Wikipedia:
“[In New York] Grand larceny consists of stealing property with a value exceeding $1000; or stealing a public record, secret scientific material, firearm, credit or debit card, ammonia, telephone with service, or motor vehicle or religious item with value exceeding $100.”
Why does ammonia get the special treatment?
Possibly because it’s used to make meth.
SWAG: It’s used in production of lots of dangerous and illegal things, including explosives and methamphetamines. Why restrict only ammonia, among all the other chemicals with dangerous and illegal uses? I don’t know; maybe it’s the most commonly stolen, or there was a rash of ammonia thefts, or who knows what.
WAG - the statute may date back to when ammonia was a common refrigerant. It would have been easily available in large quantities, but it’s toxic and explosive. Bad news all around. Thank goodness for CFCs - except for the ozone layer thing.
Maybe also because it’s easy to steal. It’s used as a refrigerant so it’s pumped, in large quantities, outside up to compressors.
The other things used in making meth that might be worth over a thousand dollars (and I’m just guessing) might get people in more trouble. That is, if the DEA is cracking down on someone and catches them stealing $1200 worth of ingredient X, they don’t need it to be grand theft since the person will already be charged with drug manufacturing. Maybe?
It’s still used.
CFC’s are aa poor refrigerant compaired to NH3
I wonder what the case law is on what the definition of a religious item is. For example, who must consider the object to have a religious function for the object to be a “religious item”? The victim? The thief? A recognized clergyperson? E.g. if a non-Christian steals Catholic rosaries, statues, icons, or vestments believing them to be mundane objects in fact because the religion behind them is false, is that a valid defense that would bump the grand theft minimum up to $1000?
Also available in rural areas in tanks on trailers, ready to be towed away. Ammonia is used as a fertilizer and hauled to the farm in big tanks.
What do you mean “the religion behind them is false”? Many people believe that Catholics believe untrue things, but I’ve never heard anyone who thought that Catholicism wasn’t actually a religion.
You may be right - but CFCs aren’t corrosive, explosive or toxic. They can be a suffocant, but so can N2 fer Og’s sake.
Well, I could up and claim that my computer is a sacred object in my religion of “robert_columbiology” in order to make any theft of it into a felonious grand theft. The question is where do you draw the line and how would a court determine whether the object is a bona fide religious object? Would you really want a judge or jury saying, “Sorry, <victim>, your religion is not recognized by this court and therefore we treat the theft of your so-called fertility statues, worth $200, as petty theft.”
Courts concern themselves with the question of what is and is not a religion all the time. It’s not an issue they’re afraid to delve into.
