Expansive definition for ‘weapon of mass destruction’ gives prosecutors the power

Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, has been charged with using a weapon of mass destruction in the attack that left three people dead and more than 250 injured.

Federal officials have said that the devices used in the bombing were pressure cookers filled with low-grade explosives and projectiles including BBs and nails. Is that a WMD?

It turns out the legal definition of a WMD is pretty broad. According to the statute, a weapon of mass destruction is a “destructive device” which includes “any explosive, incendiary or poison gas.”

John Mueller, a political science professor at Ohio State University, writes in Foreign Policy magazine, “perhaps the real question is not what is a WMD, but what isn’t?”

“It exempts guns with a bore of less than half an inch, so hunting rifles are OK, but Revolutionary muskets would be weapons of mass destruction — which explains why the shot was heard round the world,” Mueller said.

The definition has evolved over the years. During the Cold War, it really only applied to nuclear weapons. Over time, it expanded to include radiological, chemical and biological weapons and in the mid-90s was amended again to cover explosives, like the ones used in Boston.

Mueller says the definition of “weapon of mass destruction” is broad so prosecutors can use it as leverage in negotiating plea deals.

“Mass usually doesn’t mean two — more than one person. It would imply hundreds or thousands,” Mueller said. “It was developed originally for nuclear weapons. I think it’s very questionable for any weapon, except nuclear weapons — there’s some biological weapons that might be in that class.”

Ironically, even a potato gun would meet the legal definition for a weapon of mass destruction — despite it being far from capable of causing mass death.

There’s something to the notion, Mueller acknowledged, of the charge helping account for the feelings of those who were attacked using some sort of novel or horrifying device, such as the pressure-cooker bombs in Boston.

“But against that must be weighed the fact that people will think everything’s gone crazy here. This was not a weapon of mass destruction in an ordinary English sense,” he said. “It may feel like it. But (the Boston attack) doesn’t exactly reach nuclear levels.”