Talk:Regulation of flamethrowers in the United States

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Rlink2 (talk) 00:00, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

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To T:DYK/P4

• ... that in the United States, flamethrowers are legal in 48 states and the District of Columbia, require a permit in California, and are only banned in Maryland? Source: [1] "Are flamethrowers legal? A spokesman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said it doesn't regulate them because they are not guns. That means buyers don't need to go through background checks from the FBI. Still, flamethrowers could run afoul of state or local laws. They are banned outright in Maryland. California considers them "destructive devices," which are illegal, but the state does issue permits for use on movie sets."
  • ALT1: ... that while the United States Armed Forces are forbidden from using flamethrowers by an international treaty, there are no restrictions on civilian use in 48 states and the District of Columbia? Source: [2] "At the state level, California requires a permit while Maryland outright bans them—Ars is not aware of any other state-level regulation. The Inhumane Weapons Convention, which the United States signed in 1981, forbids "incendiary weapons," including flamethrowers. However, this document is only an agreement between nation-states and their militaries, and it did not foresee individual possession."

Created by Trainsandotherthings (talk). Self-nominated at 02:08, 10 March 2022 (UTC).

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Cited: Interesting:

QPQ: - Not done
Overall: Article, hook, etc. all look good, just waiting on QPQ. I think ALT1 is more interesting. — {{u|Bsoyka}} ^talk 02:42, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

Perfect timing, I just did QPQ at Template:Did you know nominations/KMEX-DT. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 02:45, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

Wonderful, all good from me then. — {{u|Bsoyka}} ^talk 02:48, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Regulation of flamethrowers in the United States/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Premeditated Chaos (talk · contribs) 21:52, 17 May 2022 (UTC)

Dibs. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 21:52, 17 May 2022 (UTC)

Ok, we've done this before, you know what my reviewing style is, moving on.

• You have info in the lead that isn't in the rest of the article (mostly the ATF classification and the Convention on Weapons thing). This should be incorporated into the body and then summarized in the lead without citations

  This has been done. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 02:02, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

  The lead still doesn't fully summarize the article - there's no mention of commercial sales and attempts to legislate.

  You were absolutely right, that was silly of me. I expanded the lead accordingly (a while ago actually, I just forgot to mention it here). Trainsandotherthings (talk) 19:17, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

   Done

• I honestly feel like this article could do with less sectioning off. The two "attempts" sections are really small. You could probably get away with two sections tbh - "commercial products" and "regulation".

  I agree. When I started the article I expected to find many attempts at regulation. I was shocked to learn there were quite few I could find. In general most states see no need to regulate flamethrowers. I have combined the attempts sections. I'm going to do a bit of expansion (thanks in part to the sources you linked) and will then revisit the sections again. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 00:46, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

   Done

• Do we know why two companies started doing commercial flamethrowers in 2015 specifically? Was there a trend for some reason?

  From what I've seen in sources, it was a coincidence. One company stated they started making them simply because they thought it would be fun. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 01:01, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

• I might split the sentence that starts "In 2018, the..." into the guidance being issued, and its author stating XYZ

  Agreed. Done. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 18:05, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

   Done

• Do we know when or why Maryland banned them?

  I haven't been able to find a specific date. I know they've been banned for at least the past 20 years. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 16:57, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

  If you have a source for that, you could put it in.

• Same re: California

   Done For this & Maryland I call it done/checked if there's no sourcing available

• I think usually it's customary to specify which party US reps are from but I won't die on the hill of it
• Link 114th Congress

  Linked. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 02:42, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

   Done

• United States House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security has an article, incredibly

  I am as incredulous as you were to learn that has an article. Link added. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 01:30, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

   Done

• Do we know which Senate subcommittee?

  The Rules Committee. Specified in the article now. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 01:30, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

   Done

• Did a quick check on Newspapers.com and there's some useful sources you could be exploiting. Some may be redundant to what you already have, IDK: [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8] (this one from 1943 makes me wonder about regulations on wartime use of flamethrowers, if any). There's more but that's just a quick scoop.

  Musk flamethrower being seized in drug busts, Selling flamethrowers in California is bad mkay, [link.gale.com/apps/doc/A657457881/ITOF?u=wikipedia&sid=ebsco&xid=a82bfc0d Jay-Z points out the absurdity of flamethrower law], [link.gale.com/apps/doc/A613227327/AONE?u=wikipedia&sid=ebsco&xid=47d73f5d some legal theory about why Congress can't ban them], [link.gale.com/apps/doc/A660942902/AONE?u=wikipedia&sid=ebsco&xid=6101766e MAGA nuts toting them]

  I will respond to these in order:

  1. Appears useful, I will incorporate some information from it.

  2. Also useful.

  1 and 2 aren't cited. Planning to use them still?

  Both have been used to expand the article now. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 14:56, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

  3. Doesn't provide much of use, refers to and paraphrases some of article 1.

  4. Appears to be useful.

  Not cited still

  5. Largely redundant to 4, written 4 days earlier by the same author. So I will stick to 4.

  6. Interesting article, but does not seem within the scope of regulation.

  Flamethrowers in drug busts article: provides useful information on how flamethrower owners have been getting into trouble.

  Not cited still

  Flamethrowers in California article: useful in that it talks about the specifics of California's regulations.

   Done

  Jay-Z article: Not really much I can use, only a brief mention.

  No worries if you don't think it's useful, I just thought it was an interesting point of comparison.

  Why Congress can't ban them article: I have used this.

   Done

  MAGA nuts article: Discusses improvised flamethrowers which appear to be linked to instructions from Elon's company, might be useful.

  Not cited still

  I will incorporate information from these in the next few days and hopefully get this finished up. I've been pretty busy irl but I have some time today and tomorrow. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 19:31, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

  @Premeditated Chaos: I have now cited link 4, the flamethrowers in drug busts article, and the MAGA nuts article. Those were the three remaining articles I wanted to use. Let me know if anything else needs doing. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 15:42, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Okay, I've marked off what's done - basically all that remains is to either incorporate or toss the sources you said might be useful. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 19:28, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

I will finish this up, for real this time, over this weekend. I apologize for taking so long, as you know I came down with Lyme disease unfortunately and that really slowed me down :(. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 23:29, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

No worries, man, your health is always more important than Wikipedia. The article looks great - I'm glad you took the time to bulk it up, I really think it's in a much more thorough state now. Going to pass it shortly. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 19:05, 9 July 2022 (UTC)