Teen faces WMD charge after plastic egg explodes
An 18-year-old Elizabethtown man is charged with possessing a weapon of mass destruction and other offenses over a plastic egg explosion.
Police say he ignited a plastic egg filled with plastic air-gun pellets in a flea market, hitting at least five people and causing alarm. It happened Saturday afternoon at a Saturday’s Market in Londonderry Township, Dauphin County.
Ignoring, for the moment, the patent absurdity of charging someone with using a “weapon of mass destruction” when that “weapon” caused, and could cause, no destruction at all, let alone “mass destruction” and all of the negative reflections upon the state of our society and policing if this charge were indeed levied… is it even possible to lay this charge on the kid?
Mebbe.
Pennsylvania statutes1 show that this incident probably meets the statutory definition … but only by the barest whisker, if at all. The statute allows for bring this charge if a person “without lawful authority to do so, intentionally, knowingly or recklessly possesses or manufactures a weapon of mass destruction.”2
Naturally, this begs the question: what is a weapon of mass destruction under Pennsylvania law?
I’m glad you asked, Johnny! Because the answer is in the same statute. A “weapon of mass destruction” is “A biological agent, bomb, chemical agent or nuclear agent.”
A plastic egg filled with plastic pellets is not a biological, chemical, or nuclear agent, leaving the only possibility of bomb. What is the definition of “bomb” under this statute? “An explosive device used for unlawful purposes.”
And that’s where the sliver of possibility resides. I’m pretty sure the egg went BANG and was used in the creation of calamity, thus it likely satisfies both elements of the definition. Absurd, but likely.
Now, this statute, or at least that provision, is certainly ripe for some constitutional void-for-vagueness challenges (a “bomb” is a weapon of mass destruction? Really? No matter how big?), which I’m certain we won’t see here as the strategy was likely one intended to make the kid take a plea bargain. By a similar reading of this statute, it would make no difference if the kid had a plastic egg, EFP, or a box full of Pop-Its that scared three biddies.
Welcome to the new GOP world of bedwetting fear. Make sure you carry spare undies for every time a gnat farts in your direction.
2. The article says charged with possession, but if he possessed here, he also used and likely manufactured.
http://grumpasaurus.com/2008/02/05/maybe-this-is-what-saddam-was-working-on/
