Is It Legal To Set Off Explosives In Georgia?
A group of Georgia men had a hunger for fame and they decided to use YouTube to feed that need. They cooked up an idea involving a high-powered rifle, a lawnmower, and three pounds of a substance called Tannerite. What happened next stole their appetites for stardom.
Why Have There Been Explosions In The Georgia Backcountry?
It was a normal March day when the Walton County Sheriff’s Department started receiving phone calls about a loud explosion. The officers thought it was just another guy in the backwoods shooting explosive targets, and they were right, but this case had a particular twist.
How Did A YouTube Video Go Wrong?
A group of friends were having fun and filming a YouTube video in the backcountry. Using an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle and three pounds of Tannerite, the men were planning to blow up a lawnmower, but none of the YouTubers had paid close attention to the instructions on the explosive’s packaging.
You see, the manufacturer recommends that users only use one pound of mixed explosives at a time and that users should retreat to a safe distance of 100 yards per pound of explosives used. The manufacturer also mentions that users should avoid using metal containers when using Tannerite because it could create shrapnel. The YouTubers ignored all of these warnings.
They were 43 feet away (about 14 yards) when one of the men managed to shoot the target and blow the lawnmower up. A piece of shrapnel flew from the explosion and sliced off the shooter’s left leg just below the knee. His friends called an ambulance while they tied a tourniquet around the injured man’s leg. Fortunately, the man survived his ordeal. This is not a case of manufacturer defects on the part of the Tannerite manufacturer. The product worked as intended. This is actually an issue of gross negligence on the part of the Youtubers.
Is It Legal To Set Off Explosives In Georgia?
Exploding gun targets have become very popular in the past few years, and as long as you have a large enough tract of land, it’s perfectly legal to set these targets off out in your pasture. This has led to massive complaints from farmers with scared livestock and parents whose children have been frightened by the blasts, but there is nothing law enforcement can do. However, civil courts can have remedies.\
Landowners are responsible for a wide range of property damages and injuries caused by explosions purposefully set off on their land. So if there is nothing the police can do about the explosions shaking your house to pieces, call an attorney to see if you have other options.
In addition to being an issue of premises liability, this could also fall under attractive nuisance laws. If a child were to be lured by the sight and sound of explosions, and was subsequently injured on someone else’s property, this would absolutely fall under Georgia’s attractive nuisance doctrine.
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