I was just browsing around doing some WWI research. One of the scariest weapons ever was mustard gas. It’s a thick yellow smog much heavier than air. It tends to stick around for a long time, and does horrible damage to skin, eyes, and lungs even when it doesn’t kill, which it does by causing it’s victims to drown in their own lung fluid.
While reading on this, I was surprised to find more than one source telling me pretty clearly how to manufacture this stuff.
For obvious reasons I won’t be posting a link, and I’d ask nobody else to do so.
Is posession of or manufacture of mustard gas illegal? How about telling someone how to make it?
It probably oughtta be. Can you imagine Columbine if they had seen a link like that?
Just out of curiosity, are you saying that the means by which the Columbine assailants killed their victims should be legal to manufacture or possess, but alternate means should be illegal?
Eric Harris: Here’s some mustard gas!
Dylan Klebold: No way! That stuff is illegal to manufacture or possess! Let’s use these TEC-DC9 semi-automatic handguns.
Eric Harris: Okay!
Sorry to twist your “what if” scenario around, but that struck me as a bit odd. In a perfect world, the means by which one man can bring death & destruction upon his fellow man shoud be illegal to manufacture or possess. I therefore find it difficult to say mustard gas should be outlawed but semiautomaic handguns should not. I realize that other posters will not find this very difficult to say.
I would find it hard to believe that chemical weapons are legal for the average citizen to possess.
Yep I guess I did. I don’t see how the distribution of information can be effectively restricted by laws, unless it is against the policy of the domain host on which the web page is stored. If there is a Federal or state law against the distributing of such information I’d be suprized.
After all, if The Anarchist’s Cookbook is still in print after 30 years, (and available at Amazon, no less) I don’t see why the same material can’t be put on a web site.
Note the caveats on that last one: “with the intent that the teaching…be used for…an activity that constitutes a Federal crime of violence”; “knowing that such person intends to use the teaching…in furtherance of an activity that constitutes a Federal crime of violence.”
The Anarchist’s Cookbook is amazingly MISinformative. Try to follow any of their directions, and you are likely to wind up in several widely scattered pieces. At least, this seems to be the concensus from a wide range of commentators. I know that Loompanics at one time had a special disclaimer on the book in their catalog, telling you that the directions it contained were a good way to blow yourself to kingdom come, that they only stocked it because of demand, and that they reccomended some of their other explosives and bomb making books if you seriously wanted to learn about the topic.
In a way, such misinformation be viewed as more dangerous than disseminating information which included proper safety precautions and handling procedures for manufacturing things like bombs and chemical agents, I suppose. And I suspect that misinformation and questionable procedure is the nature of a lot of instructions out there on the internet, too. I have a sneaking suspicion that had Harris and Klebold tried to make mustard gas with some of those instructions they’d have poisoned themselves. Not neccesarily a bad thing, but God knows what kind of toxic mess they’d have released on their neighborhood in the meantime.
At any rate, the last I knew it was not against the law to tell somebody how to make bombs, chemical weapons, illicit drugs and so on, as long as you didn’t exhort them to actually go out and do it. “For informational purposes only”, and they can’t do anything to you.
I’m thinking that I was taught that the Geneva convention outlawed mustard and chlorine gas after WW1.
The difference between gas and a tec 9 is gas ain’t fussy about who it kills.Anyone in the area.
It may have been intentional. IIRC, in the forward to the book, the author mumbles about converting to libertarianism. He may have been wanting to stick it to any would-be hippy revolutionary/drug-producer.
Mustard gas (or a very similar compund) is still manufactured today in relatively small quantities; it’s used in chemotherapy for the treatment of some forms of cancer.
Apparently it is more toxic to the cancer cells, so the theory (and hopefully often the practice) is that a borderline dose kills more cancer cells than healthy ones.
The downside is that due to it’s irritant properties, it can actually cause other forms of cancer…
“For Informational Purposes Only” isn’t a way out. We all remember, or know about, the Hit Man book, eh? That, as well, had “for informational purposes only” on it and the good old publisher got nailed for it anyway.
It is unclear why the courts feel that that verdict does not represent the huge lot of people who manufacter meth from books which are clearly marked “For Informational Purposes Only” as well. (to their “credit,” however, possession of that book with even an incomplete set of precursors is reason enough for prosecution).
Remember, freedom of speech doesn’t include giving people instructions on how to yell “fire” in a crowded theater. the Constitution makes that clear enough I hope.
The link provides this information: Phosgene - COCl2 is used in organic synthesis, in manufacture of dyes, pharmaceuticals, herbicides, insecticides, synthetic foams, resins, and polymers.
As an aside, the company I work for is bidding on providing equipment for the destruction of the U.S. Army stockpile of 4.2 inch mortar Mustard agent shells. Part of some international treaty the name of which I can’t recall.
(A better link also contains notes on the synthesis. I’ll play by the OP’s rules and not post it.)
At one point, a couple of these poison gas threads we have going were right next to “Embarassing foot odor …”. I don’t know if that struck anybody else as funny - I’m easily amused.
Could I ask everyone a favor? If nobody posts any more links in this thread, I’d appreciate it, regardless of whether they include instructions. There’s not a problem, per se, with links of the sort included thus far, which give information about the chemicals, but in a thread like this, I’m sure you all understand that we mods have to read all linked pages very carefully, and that takes a lot of time.
Of course, if anyone does post links to actual directions, the link will be deleted as soon as any mod sees it, the thread will be locked or deleted, and we’ll be taking a very close look at that poster. In other words, don’t do that.
Actually, the Constitution doesn’t make any such thing clear. Case law and SC decisions later make that clear (I’m not so sure I agree that it should be so, but the law is the law, and what should be is not necessarily what is):
Sounds to me as though any abridgements on free speech are somewhat unconstitutional, including the trite “fire in a crowded theater”.
But, if “giving people instructions on how to yell ‘fire’ in a crowded theater” is illegal, then you should be prosecuted for reckless endangerment and conspiracy. You did, after all, just give instructions on how to commit that very heinous crime. :rolleyes:
Gimme a break, I’ve had a rough weekend. I did think that was a little out of character for you, though, even if I still contracted foot-in-mouth disease.
