Fertilizer in large quantities is a controlled substance in many places. I don’t know about the US in general or OK in particular, but I’m pretty sure anyone buying large quantities of fertilizer for no apparent reasons would set off a bunch of alarm bells the year after little Timmy did his thing.
I remember my dad being annoyed at having to file the necessary paperwork to be on the “Obviously needs it, it’s OK”-list when I was a kid. Farmers use a lot of it, and he had a few 500Kg sacks (around 10, maybe?) delivered each spring.
So, I had to look this up, but the Oklahoma City bombing was in '95. In season 1 (I think?) of The X-Files, Agent Mulder is given a shit job for stepping on toes, and he has to double check people purchasing larger quantities of ammonium nitrate. That was filmed in '93.
It’s DEFINITELY controlled now. If my garden goes well this year, I’m probably going to try a much larger plot next year, and I’ll likely need fertilizer for it. And, well, I’m not sure how well that’s going to go.
It will probably be fine. Ammonium nitrate isn’t really needed for a garden, at least not in concentrated blends, unless your soil is fucked. Shitloads of nitrogen just makes plants bigger, which isn’t something you normally want for most vegetables.
It also gets into nearby bodies of water and makes super charged algae that suffocates every living thing in the water.
Agent Mulder is given a shit job for stepping on toes, and he has to double check people purchasing larger quantities of ammonium nitrate. That was filmed in '93.
and it was one of the best x-files episodes.
“on behalf of international jewish conspiracy, i regret to inform you - we are running out of gas.”
Not exactly. It was a combination of ammonium nitrate fertilizer and fuel oil (y’know, the stuff that you use to heat your house with in large swaths of New England; the deceased boiler in my basement ran on fuel oil). That combination is called ANFO. But, by itself, it’s quite stable; you need an explosive to set it off. Most of the time, that would be a detonator, but I don’t know what McVeigh and Nichols used as the detonator. I believe that whatever they used as a detonator was set off remotely, by radio.
So, if fertilizer is 21 and older, how would that have made any difference?
It’s more regulated now because of OKC, it’s not as easy to buy large amounts, but it’s still purchased.
But here’s the thing - it’s trivial to simply set aside 1 bag of 10 once in a while. People with agendas will find ways to accomplish their goals.