charges of seditious conspiracy, attempted use of weapons of mass destruction, teaching the use of explosive materials and possessing a firearm during a crime of violence,
Seditious conspiracy: a crime of being a part of the other parts they mention.
Weapons of mass destruction: anything that can kill more than one or a few....such as an explosive
Teaching the use of explosive materials - This is extremely vague and could go from stump removal to who knows what. In other words, a meaningless charge without details. (Also explains the WMD charge above.)
Possessing a firearm during crime of violence: almost an obvious one.
Crime of Violence: this is the only thing that sounds like it could have meat on its bones, but it doesn’t say armed robbery, thuggery, etc. (So, if you illegally blow up a stump...is that a “crime of violence”? And if you carry a gun during that explosion.....???
Making a hoax bomb threat is a crime of violence. I kid you not, looked it up when that Ashton Lundeby kid was sent to prison.
they are reaching hard on this and it sound like they have nothing.
Teaching the use of explosive materials is only a crime under federal law if the teacher intends that “the teaching, demonstration, or information be used for, or in furtherance of, an activity that constitutes a Federal crime of violence” or if the teacher knows that the student intends to use it for such a purpose.
A “crime of violence” is “(a) an offense that has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person or prop erty of another, or (b) any other offense that is a felony and that, by its nature, involves a substantial risk that physical force against the person or property of another may be used in the course of committing the offense.”
“Seditious conspiracy” is conspiracy “to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof”.
Basically, in order to make any of this stick, the prosecution will have to prove that these people were planning to commit some actual act of violence. Now, it certainly isn’t above a U.S. Attorney to go on a witch hunt, but they tend not to prosecute crimes they can’t get a conviction on - their conviction rate is much higher than most state DA’s offices for a reason.
We don’t really know what’s going on here yet.