Why The Government Can’t Stop Elon Musk’s Flamethrower, According To A Former ATF Weapons Expert

Ever since billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk unveiled his slick new commercial flamethrower for the low, low price of $500, Americans have been scrambling to stake their claim to the incendiary gadget. By Feb. 1, Musk’s Boring Company announced it had sold a whopping 20,000 flamethrowers. “When the zombie apocalypse happens, you’ll be glad you bought a flamethrower,” Musk joked on Twitter. “Works against hordes of the undead or your money back

Whether or not the Boring Company flamethrower actually constitutes a proper incendiary cannon is a matter of debate. Indeed, footage of prototypes in action is more reminiscent of an oversized butane-jet lighter than the fiery liquid mixture of nitrogen propellant and gasoline that defined the Army’s M2 flamethrower during the Vietnam War.

Regardless, lawmakers are already looking to rain on your future fiery parade. As flamethrower pre-orders were burning up the Boring Company website, New York Democratic Rep. Eliot Engel introduced legislation in the House of Representatives to effectively ban the purchase or possession of any sort of incendiary flame cannon by civilians.

H. R. 4901, also known as the “Flamethrowers? Really? Act,” would solve the legal ambiguity surrounding Boring Company’s new gadget by amending Title 18 of the U.S. Code to include a federal definition of a “flamethrower” as “any non-stationary or transportable device designed or intended to ignite and then emit or propel a burning stream of a combustible or flammable substance a distance of at least 6 feet.”