Dana El-Kurd

Yet, Stephen Brenneman, an ATS explosives special agent, testified that fireworks meet the statutory definition of explosives under 18 U.S.C.

Section 844IJ because the fireworks contain gunpowder as defined in the statute.

This could have some pretty wide-reaching implications.

A lot of protests use fireworks.

This was a protest on 4th of July, a day full of the use of fireworks.

Robert and I have been to a protest, covered a protest in 2020 outside of a federal government building that also had a lot of fireworks and fireworks shot towards the building.

Yep.

If that happened now, it's possible that people at this protest could be charged with this conspiracy to use and carry an explosive.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I mean, they've clearly been wanting arguing for this ever since 2020.

Right.

Like fire.

Because it wasn't just Portland was the only place where people were using fireworks.

Generally, people were using fireworks as kind of a response to the police using flashbacks.

Like it was a it was a force equalizer.

both were used quite often, but you know, like I had so many of those fucking things blow up in my face and they never did.

Like, these are not bombs.

These are not pipe bombs.

Like it's not fun to have them blow up right next to you, but it's, these are not like deadly explosives.