PA Man Arrested For Possession Of A WMD

 We've all heard of "mission creep" where a planned mission is expanded beyond what was originally intended. The British famously did this with the St Nazaire Raid in World War II which originally had a fairly limited scope but was expanded to include more and more objectives until it became a bloated and unworkable mission that largely failed. The term has since been applied to government agencies that gradually, over time, enlarge their purpose or regulatory authority to cover items or practices never envisioned by the legislators that authorized the agency. For instance, the EPA's insistence that CO2 is a pollutant in order to extend its authority to include global warming. It is a good sign that an agency has outlived its usefulness when that agency has to look beyond its original mandate to justify its continued existence. 

    The same happens with laws which, over time, are often interpreted more and more broadly and eventually include things never intended to come within the original ambit of the law. 

    A seeming example of this that I came across was this article out of Pennsylvania: "Man accused of possessing weapons of mass destruction." Weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), at least in the common vernacular, refer to things like nuclear weapons, chemical weapons, or biological weapons that are intended and capable of killing thousands or even millions of people; certainly it would not include a mere hand grenade. Even the Department of Homeland Security vaguely indicates that a WMD "is a nuclear, radiological, chemical, biological, or other device that is intended to harm a large number of people." (What's a "large number of people"? Probably whatever they want it to be to justify a prosecution). 

    So, seeing that headline, you might think that the man was arrested for some terror plot involving a chemical or biological weapon. But, no. Although the man was charged for possession of a WMD, the article relates that "[a]ccording to law enforcement, during the search of the vehicle troopers found a round metal tube with an exposed fuse which troopers identified as an improvised bomb." In other words, a pipe bomb.

    Now I don't know if the Pennsylvania statute actually defines WMDs to include pipe-bombs (and it certainly sounds scarier to call them WMDs than a pipe-bomb) or if this is some over-zealous prosecutor who believes from the bottom of her heart in overcharging suspects, but it belies the seriousness of creating an actual WMD when such prohibition includes something so petty as a pipe-bomb. 

    On the other hand, if something like a single pipe-bomb counts as a WMD, then that certainly lowers the bar of when it becomes acceptable to invade another nation to stop them from producing WMDs. Iraq certainly would have qualified.