What government does
The rules make no sense but we must blindly follow them:
So the bottom line is that if I remove the doors from the shed I can store 18,000 pounds of explosives. If I put the doors on I can only store 50 pounds.
It doesn’t have to make sense. It’s just a government rule.
February 21st, 2012 at 10:46 am
Eh… Kind of a stupid rule but I see the basis for it. If I take a fire cracker and set it off on my hand, it will burn. If I close my hand, I will blow my hand off. (name that movie reference) Same idea I think they were going for here. In the grand scheme of things it probably doesn’t matter but we also have congressmen who think islands can flip over.
February 21st, 2012 at 11:40 am
Yeah, maybe it’s because I used to be a bureaucrat, but I’m giving those friendly and helpful agents a lot of slack. If you look at old Government armory practice (Frankford, for instance, where “going across the river” got its spiritual usage, or Erie and Rossford ordnance depots), you’ll see how they developed their rulemaking. Consider, if you will, how Zebulon Pike met his end.
They have a continuity problem: if the old-timers who wrote those rules were still around, they could give some pretty graphic explanations of why it works that way. In a clumsy, pomo-English sort of a way, they really are trying to help — and Hell just froze over.
February 21st, 2012 at 9:00 pm
could he use a curtain instead of doors? A nice fireproof lockable curtain.
February 22nd, 2012 at 1:02 am
The doors will only be off when I have more than 50 pounds of explosives in the magazine. The rest of the time the doors will be on.
As it only takes the removal of four screws to remove the doors it’s not that big of deal for me. At this point it more funny than anything.
As for the “blow my hand off” analogy–the magazine is made of 1/2″ steel plate all the way around except for the door (5/8″ steel) and the floor (reinforced concrete). Any confinement argument about the nearly paper thin steel shed is totally negated by the existence of the heavy steel magazine which holds the explosives.
And as comatus does, I too give them a lot of slack. They really did (and have on many occasions) try to help. They have been very nice to me and my special situation considering the regulations they are required to enforce. I’d offer to buy them lunch sometime on one of our visits to the site but they cannot accept such gifts.