Posted on 03/28/2013 6:12:35 PM PDT by ImJustAnotherOkie
The ATF served a federal search warrant at the Georgia home of the popular Youtuber FPSRussia with the intention of finding explosives on Tuesday. Investigators suspect Kyle Myers, the host of the show, might be violating federal law with what he does, to the delight of many, with explosives on Youtube. Kyle Myers
Kyle Myers, aka FPSRussia.
Federal agents, accompanied by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and deputies with surrounding counties, searched Myers’ home along with his father’s 60-acre farm, where the show is filmed, in Carnesville. However, Kitty Wandel, the producer of the show, said that it was just her at the house at the time of the raid since Myers was out of town.
“Both Keith [Ratliff] and Kyle were sticklers for obeying the laws and would not knowingly break any. It is very common for people to use Tannerite in media both on TV and on YouTube.”
“If it ever came to doing something outside of our legal boundaries, we would then work with someone who was legally authorized to do it in an approved location,” she said about handling guns, explosives and equipment.
Under ATF regulations it is illegal to manufacture, sell, distribute, transport or even own explosives without a federal explosives license. However, in the FPSRussia videos Myers uses Tannerite, an explosive civilians can buy, own and use without a license.
Tannerite is legal because it’s labeled as a binary compound, meaning a pre-packaged product consisting of two separate components. This does not fit the ATF’s definition of “Explosives.”
When Guns.com talked to the ATF about this incident the ATF spokesman Richard Coes said he didn’t know why ATF agents suspected Myers of wrongdoing. However, he told local media that “the claim is that he was using explosives and getting paid for it via YouTube.”
Wandel expanded on that concept saying, “It’s difficult for people to understand how [Myers] makes a living off of a monetized Youtube channel.”
Understanding how Youtube channels make money is a mystery to a lot of people, but in a nutshell when a channel is monetized, meaning ads run on it, money comes with popularity (i.e. a lot of views). The more views, the more ads, the more ads, the more money.
Myers is 26 years old and lives a financially comfortable life by making videos where he shoots guns and blows stuff up, or, more to the point, does stuff people want to see. The FPSRussia channel is just shy of 4 million subscribers and half a billion views.
While Wandel wouldn’t say how successful the channel is, she did explain that “it’s not as much as our fans believe, some fans think it’s around a million [dollars], but it’s nowhere near that. It’s enough to make the videos and live comfortably.” FPSRussia shooting an exploding target.
FPSRussia shooting an exploding target.
This raid comes almost three months after Myers’ business partner Keith Ratliff was found dead by a gunshot wound to the head inside his home/workshop. The two started what would be a type of firearms company called FPS Industries, but since Ratliff died the venture has fallen through.
Wandel explained that the office Ratliff was found in, was going to be a part of a new Youtube series that would focus on what happens behind the scenes of FPSRussia.
Whether or not the raid had anything to do with Ratiliff’s death is still up in the air. Wandel said no, Coes with the ATF didn’t know, but local authorities said the searches were in connection to Ratliff’s death but wouldn’t delve any deeper. Guns.com contacted both the Franklin County Sheriff’s Department and the Hart County Sheriff’s Department, but neither offered new information.
Although no arrests were made, Coes said that the warrant is usually the beginning of an investigation.
Wandel said that she and Myers are in shock about all this, but are trying to help with authorities the best they can. “I offered them the accounts over a month ago,” she said due to the lack of understanding of how Youtube paid it’s directors like FPSRussia.
“We can only hope this helps [the ATF] understand how we make our money, so it doesn’t hurt another Youtuber,” she said. “We really want to protect all the other Youtubers who [shoot guns and use Tannerite]. That would be horrible if something happened. These are the loudest, most vocal people for the gun community, I’d hate for them to be muted.”
All the stuff this guys does I always assumed he was in some Soviet client state!
Couldn’t stop him by killing his partner, so they just had to Waco him.
Nice, huh..? >:(
Can’t be having no fun, son, and make a living too in the USSA.
Heck, you can buy Tannerite all over the place. Even Academy started selling it. They are really stretching now.
Nope. If he was in Illinois he would have been arrested by now. :)
Ever notice the way with GayMuzzie if you MAKE A VIDEO you go to jail...?
A pattern is starting to form.
Can you imagine of Myers blew up a Koran? Hmmmm... suggestion.
0bama’s war on the pro-gun crowd is escalating.
This law was in effect after 9/11- its purpose: to fight terrorists.
It appears to be an intentional abuse of power by the Feds to go after American citizens doing things openly.
We used black powder, nitro and dynamite since 1797 and 1890`s here to blow up stumps. I watched my grandfather go to the hardware store, buy a stick of dynamite and blow up the tree in our front lawn 1n 1948.
Legal actions only 70 years ago are now crimes-
another example of ex post facto laws which are illegal under the Constitution.
The day of reckoning will soon be.
In 1950`s the US Army published and widely circulated a book on rocketry which told youths how to make explosive mixtures to use as rocket fuel so we would not be behind the Russians in rocketry. I did build some large rockets following their formulas in the book. So I know how to build rockets and explosives since I was just a kid courtesy of US Army. So will they go retroactive and put me and the US Army in jail?.
Sometimes to us peasants the cause for these crimes is incomprehensible.
We had a case in Tulsa 30 years ago. The president of Telex(Roger Wheeler) was whacked by 2 guys out in the parking lot of Southern Hills country club. Quite a mystery for 20+ years, and hasn’t ever really been officially solved.
Story goes he owned part of World Jai-alai and was trying to move the mob out. He got wiped out instead by Whitey Bulger.
For those who believe we can count on local cops, Note this from the article “......and deputies with surrounding counties”.
In the News/Activism forum, on a thread titled FPSRussia Home Raided by ATF, ImJustAnotherOkie wrote:
Sometimes to us peasants the cause for these crimes is incomprehensible.
We had a case in Tulsa 30 years ago. The president of Telex(Roger Wheeler) was whacked by 2 guys out in the parking lot of Southern Hills country club. Quite a mystery for 20+ years, and hasn’t ever really been officially solved.
I remember this as headline news and often wondered about it. Never bet on HiLi but this killed it along with the victim. Was the guy who ordered the whack wacked because he should have been who knows maybe he was.
Whitey was arrested with his wife in San Diego a couple years ago with a couple million bucks stuffed in the walls.
The claim is!?! Is that what the claim is? Since when does ATF have jurisdiction over who makes money putting up Youtube videos?
Here's a claim for you. The ATF is guilty of violating RICO statutes, acts of war on a friendly neighboring nation, sedition and lying to Congress for running guns to international organized criminal/terrorist organizations in Mexico and Honduras.
I see the great possibility of the USA ending badly.
I must be looking at the same horizon that you are.
I know this is an older subject, but I just found it today. I have watched quite a few of FPSRussia’s videos and he wasn’t even a true conservative. Hope he has a change of heart now. No charges were ever brought... screw the ATF.
You lost me there. Would you mind explaining how ex post taco is applicable in this story? I'm missing something here.
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