Monday, February 21, 2011
Burglary With Explosives
I mentioned a while back my brief amusement at discovering that Idaho has a "burglary with explosives" crime. I assumed that this was some sort of Old West leftover. While researching the history of California gun control laws, I found that California's "burglary with explosives" statute was adopted in 1917. Perhaps there was an earlier one as well, although I would expect that to have shown up in the History section.
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I'm not sure just why these statutes were enacted, but perhaps it's due to the use of explosives to blow the doors off bank safes in the early 20th century. The movie The Newton Boys describes a gang of Texans in the 1920's who supposedly robbed over 200 banks, mostly using explosives, at least according to the movie.
ReplyDeleteI liked the movie, btw. At the end of the movie, a Johnny Carson interview with one of the remaining gang members is shown; it was very interesting.
Perhaps a response to socialist/anarchist and union violence around that time?
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