Michigan man had two tons of explosives: prosecutors

Michigan man had two tons of explosives: prosecutors

www.reuters.com

(Reuters) - A Michigan man has been ordered held without bond after federal agents recovered more than 4,100 pounds of explosives, 2,000 feet of detonating cord and dozens of blasting caps at three Upper Peninsula locations.

A U.S. magistrate judge in Marquette, Michigan, ordered John Francis Lechner, 64, held without bond on Monday for possession of the explosives, recovered last week.

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2,000 feet of detonating cord, explosive boosters and numerous blasting caps from Lechner's mother's house and up to 48 blasting caps from his house. Ok , im sure more about this story will come out sooner or later , but Im very curious as to what he may have been planning. One clue from the story is this:
The audio recording reflected that the informant had asked Lechner what he planned to do with the explosives, and he replied, "when the government gets taken over, we will be mercenaries," DeClaire said in the complaint.



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(visit the link for the full news article)

Mercenaries?

So when the government gets "taken over" I'm going to hire a 64 year old man to do what exactly? Remove some stumps from my yard?

anfo is useless without detcord and blasting caps

anfo doesnt come ready made i dont beleive

whatever the case what a moron seriously bigtime case of stupidity.

4100 pounds granted not all at the same place but even evenly distributed no chance of detontation without either detcord and blasting caps.

dude needs to goto jail

Sounds like he was intending to be a right wing terrorists, or perhaps fight invaders should the government collapse. With the stock piles he has I am concerned how many others might have them also.

Originally posted by bluemooone2
The audio recording reflected that the informant had asked Lechner what he planned to do with the explosives, and he replied, "when the government gets taken over, we will be mercenaries," DeClaire said in the complaint.

Well I would get concerned with this arrest but then this person clearly doesn't have his elevator hitting the top floor so he's probably better off behind a jail cell.

Originally posted by thisguyrighthere
Mercenaries?

So when the government gets "taken over" I'm going to hire a 64 year old man to do what exactly? Remove some stumps from my yard?

No, it means he watched Mad Max and he is going to drive around killing people for profit.

Yeah the only way he got that much hardware, he had to steal it (any reports of stolen explosives?) or had a permit to buy explosives and was set up by the feds or bought it on the black market... and this ain't cheap...

Set up? Where he got the money?

The whole thing sounds like BS to me.

reply to post by ararisq


Im very familiar with Marquette, Michigan and its a very relaxed and rural area thats kinda 20 years behind the times (and they like it that way) . I dont know this guy , but my guess is that outside of an accident , he was probably mostly harmless , just a lil nuts. I could be wrong tho.

As a former Yuoper this is in my old backyard so to speak.

My grandfather owned a couple thousand acres of timber that we hunted birdseye maple on every summer, and we had huge beaver dams on 2 parcels that were killing lots of maple trees.

We took a drive and my grandfather told the guy he wanted 2 cases of dynamite and 500 feet of fuse. He gave him his explosives card which was issued in 1940 and the guy at first refused to sell it to him because the card was so old (this was in 1984). But since it had no expiration date grandpa was adament it was still good. After calling every law enforcement agency he could think of he gave us the explosives, and a 70 year old man and 16 year old kid walked out with the good stuff.

Not trying to be off topic, but he may not have had evil intentions. Dynamite used to be over the counter just like any other tool. Just because they took away the rights to use it doesn't mean people still don't have reasons to blow stuff up.

For all we know he's the guy you call when you have a big tree stump or beaver dam to deal with.



And for the record, blowing stuff up with dynamite is every bit as awesome as you'd think. That was a great summer.

reply to post by AGWskeptic


LOL . Yup , thats the UP I know

Originally posted by RedGolem
Sounds like he was intending to be a right wing terrorists, or perhaps fight invaders should the government collapse. With the stock piles he has I am concerned how many others might have them also.

Shhhhhh...

If you see something, say something.

Originally posted by bluemooone2
reply to post by AGWskeptic

 

LOL . Yup , thats the UP I know

Your assessment of the U P being 20 years behind the rest of America is spot on, but it might even be 30 years.

The looks I get in my BMW convert up there are priceless, like I was driving a Ferrari or the Delorean from BTTF. But if I had a jacked up 4x4 with my nickname on the bug guard I'd fit right in.


And as for his comments, I once had the mayor of my town ask me if I'd stockpiled food for Y2K. I told him "no, I bought lots of extra ammo though, when the balloon goes up I'll just take your food".

Am I really going to take his food?

Probably not, he strikes me as a Tofu kind of guy. But if I ever get in trouble that little bit of joking bravado could be taken the wrong way.

reply to post by bluemooone2


The US military has millions of pounds of explosives. Unlike the guy in Michigan, the US military is known to actually use theirs regularly to kill people with. Civilians, unlike the government, seem a factor of 10 more capable of handling their firearms without going crazy and shooting people, or blowing people up with bombs. The US military makes the unibomber look like a cute little bugger in comparison.

There was a time when explosives were used for stump removal, boulder removal, blowing up beaver dams and redneck fishing. There is nothing inherently wrong with having 83 bags of ammonium nitrate. It also goes by the more common name of 34-0-0 fertilizer.

Just because he had det cord and blasting caps doesn't make this guy insane or a terrorist, it also doesn't mean that he was planning some "right wing terror." ANFO is not a particularly high explosive, it is usually used for blasting rock or stumps. Maybe the guy had acreage that he intended on clearing?

So sad to see some of the comments calling him insane and saying he should be in jail. I wonder how many more years before the headline reads "Michigan man had 10,000 rounds of ammunition and 10 assault rifles" and we see the same kind of comments.

Citizens should be allowed to own whatever tools they need. Guns and explosives are tools for hunting, crime deterrence, stump removal, mining, etc.. Civil government should not be allowed to have military style guns and explosives that civilians cannot have. Hard to deter government from making the wrong moves when their firepower exceeds that of us citizens.