- can you poison the water supply of an apartment complex full of 1000s of people?
- can you drop a harmful substance using a $50 drone onto an open area where of 1000s of people have congregated?
This isn't a judgement on your general point, but I think bombs and bioweapons and etc are very bad examples for you here.
At the moment the 3D printing crowd are pretty savvy I’m sure many could hook up a new controller or flash their existing one.
My neighbor is retired EOD, he has all Federal licenses manufactures explosives for the purpose of stump removal, if you can believe it, I’ve seen the process. It’s so easy a caveman could do it. Thankfully, no one really seems to do so. Mostly because manufactured firearms are easier to get ahold of. Or in Europe, smuggled weapons.
We cannot forget what insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan did. It’s hubris to say “can’t happen here.”
As a bit of trivia, when congress defunded the ability for felons to restore their firearm rights, they actually forgot part of it. By an accident of history, felons can still get an explosives license.
Before 9/11 caused them to tighten up the rules, buying high explosives in the US was cash-and-carry. You could walk in and select different kinds of high explosives from a giant menu. If you wanted something unusual they could special order it. The only real requirement was that you had a non-sparking container for it (basically, no exposed metal) when you carried it away. Most people aren't familiar with this because most regions of the US don't have much need for these types of stores.
It still isn't difficult today from my understanding, there is just more paperwork. The more practical hurdle is complying with safe storage regulations since they want some distance between where you store it and the neighbors. You can't just stash a few hundred pounds in your suburban garage.
You mean "before the Weather Underground blew up a bunch of random shit with hardware store dynamite in the 1970s".
>It still isn't difficult today from my understanding, there is just more paperwork.
The paperwork and compliance is enough of an expensive PITA it precludes everyone who isn't a regular commercial user, which is exactly the point.
It used to be that farmers just cleared forest and blew stumps and rocks up. This might sound absurd but when you start looking at the cost of doing that job with equipment it's preferable if you're rural enough to not endanger anything.
Explosives are still heavily used in mining and construction. Many of those operations are just a couple individuals, not any kind of real company.
My understanding is that it's nigh on impossible as an individual now but I may be wrong.
>Many of those operations are just a couple individuals, not any kind of real company.
In my limited experience the guys who do the explosives have typically made a business out of it and get subcontracted to many mines and jobsites to blow this or that up.
Is the answer "dont be on rural property!" or are there real practical solutions?
> but I think bombs and bioweapons and etc are very bad examples for you here
Are there better examples?
Also, I for one don't undermine the drive and tenacity of an evil person and to what extent they are willing to cause harm.