Hold on to your giblets, it’s The Internets again

Things I found out are available online (legally): professionally-made flamethrowers, mini-guns that fire 166 rounds per second, tannerite (a binary explosive usually applied in small quantities), homemade guns (!!!), and thermite (a demolitions compound that generates half the heat of the sun). All of these things are obviously of a destructive nature, and they’re available to anybody with internets access and a credit card. The virtual impossibility to watch over and regulate what goes on online has staggering ramifications. These circumstances have made it extremely easy for crazy people to go out and do the things that crazy people do. And what’s the law supposed to do about that? Sure there are regulations against what people might want to do with these alarming purchases, and surely punishment for when these things are done, but is there any plausible means of controlling the plainly reckless selection of goods? The damage will nonetheless be done. One man, for instance, decided it’d be a good idea to buy 100 pounds of tannerite. He put it inside a dump truck and shot it with a 16-gauge. The explosion sent scraps of metal flying ¼ mile, and put a nuclear plant on high alert. Disquieting.