CPSC approves new magnet safety standard for certain non-toy products
toyassociation.org
toyassociation.org
> the subject products do not include magnet products sold and/or distributed solely to school educators, researchers, professionals, and/or commercial or industrial users exclusively for educational, research, professional, commercial, and/or industrial purposes.
They're specifically targeting artisan jewelers:
> Another example of a subject magnet product is jewelry with separable magnets, such as jewelry-making sets
One more step towards prison-style "knives are contraband".
However, this is specifically for magnets that fit inside the CPSC's "small parts cylinder" (defined in medieval units as 2.25 "inches" long by 1.25 "inches" wide, which is 57 mm × 32 mm in modern units), which is designed to approximate what a toddler can swallow, so large strong magnets (over 32 mm diameter or 57 mm long) are not affected. You can saw large strong magnets into small strong magnets. Nickel-plating them afterwards to reduce the risk of chipping is a big pain, but not always necessary.
All this in response the death of one toddler in the US and one 8-year-old in Poland, plus 56 other hospital admissions over a three-year period.
In a separate study, 46.4% of the children required procedures, of which 14.2% required surgery and 9.6% got sick ("morbidity").
They also mention at least 3 death-cases.
Source: the report [https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2022-09-21/pdf/2022-2...]
But this corrected statistic still paints an overall picture of an almost insignificant risk, hundreds of times smaller than being struck by lightning — more like the injury and death rates of shark attacks, falling cows, cactus spine injuries, slipping on orange peels, and fights between humans and roosters.
This hardly seems like an adequate justification for extensive new restrictions on valuable experimental materials. It seems more like the EU's unreasonable new restrictions on access to borax.
Each loose or separable magnet in a product that is subject to the rule and that fits entirely within CPSC’s small parts cylinder must have a flux index of less than 50 kG^2*mm2.
Deeply frustrating, even if it's justified.
I have a set of Zen Magnets that I bought a decade ago. They're fun to play with, and I guess now illegal to manufacture.
Does that justify banning such objects? Warning labels can help, but there's lots of "oh, I got that in college and threw away to box" or "it was owned by my 19 year old nephew who is staying in our spare bedroom" &c. so even if every parent reads and understands all the warning labels (already a fantasy), Y% will never be zero.
If "small magnets are super dangerous to kids" was general knowledge, it'd probably make the magnets significantly safer to sell.
Now how many toddler-safe alternatives to a knife are there for dicing vegetables?
How dangerous-to-kids something is entirely irrelevant in every situations where there are no kids. You could ban parents from possessing high power magnets, but that will just go directly into willcipriano's point below:
There doesn't appear to be an exception for hobbyists or craftspeople. Acceptable uses are industrial, professional, educational... all corporate. Unacceptable uses are jewelry, entertainment, stress relief.
This leaves hobbyists in a gray area.
Woodworkers regularly use tiny, powerful magnets to secure drawers and slides. Electronic hobbyists use them in all kinds of ways.
Do I have to establish an account with an industrial supplier to purchase these now? Or will I still be able to buy a hundred pack of tiny magnets as long as it doesn't say "fidget toy" on the amazon listing?
How about small magnetic hooks? They're massively useful, many fit in the "small parts container", and magnetic strength is directly relevant to their utility.
For the foreseeable future, you will probably still be able to buy a hundred-pack of tiny magnets on AliExpress because the seller will lie to evade shipping restrictions, as many do today to ship batteries, although the rulemaking points out that the existing restrictions have already convinced 80% of sellers to stop shipping to the US.
It's an amazing children's toy. The metal is beautiful as it flows around the glass. It will fit down a child's throat easily.
I can buy 30 grams for $61. Even better toy but you can only imagine how bad it will be if they drop the glass enclosure.
I can buy caltrops, throwing stars, matches... any number of objects that are more likely to injure a child than a magnet.
Dozens of children choke on bottle caps every year. Marbles are still a common toy available in every toy store.
There's literally nothing about magnets that makes banning them rational.
I have no children. I will never have children. Can I submit proof of sterility to buy magnets?
> The swallowing of small magnets such as neodymium magnetic spheres can result in intestinal injury requiring surgery. The magnets attract each other through the walls of the stomach and intestine, perforating the bowel. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control reported 33 cases as of 2010 requiring surgery and one death. The magnets have been swallowed by both toddlers and teens (who were using the magnets to pretend to have tongue piercings). Defenders of the toy say that the rate of injury is approximately 1 injury per 100,000 Buckyball sets and less than 1 injury per 21.5 million individual magnet pieces.
Say i sold poisoned popcorn and everyone who ate it died, but i only offered it in barches of 1 million kernels, and I said, "Ok, but deaths per kernel of popcorn are almost imperceptibly low"
It's one of the most disingenuous statements i've ever read
- I dont know if that will affect wargames : we use small magnets anyway
- After seeing the power of 'big' neodym magnet, I understand better the regulation ^^ I did'nt realized the scaling dynamic of force with volume and you clearly can make very dangerous stuff with 'not so big' magnets
So magnetic dildos probably out. Fully automatic assault magnets - just fine.
And semi auto magnets would be electromagnets I assume.
https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/chapter-I/subchapter-F...
There are many restrictions.
The regulations are somewhat dumb. The issue is that drones took remote controlled flying things from being a niche hobby that required monetary, time, and emotional investment, which prevents you from doing as much stupid crap that can harm other people, and gave it to everyone. Predictably, a portion of "everyone" is an asshole who is so self centered they literally don't think about the ramifications of their actions, or worse, actively enjoy harming others. These people started flying drones in places like airports, and legislators suddenly got spooked that every idiot could cause a bird-strike equivalent issue, or just drop a poorly operated drone from 100ft onto someone, which would really hurt them.
Basically, "the public" is offensively irresponsible, so they lose their toys. Drones are just a modern day radio spectrum, with similar cutouts for kids to still play with toys.
Most people ignore the rules because the FAA doesn't police it that much, though they reserve the right to.
This is HN, so I assume you've built a tool to do it. I'm really curious to hear about the method.
I don't "really enjoy sticking it to the government." First of all, I just chimed in on the other guy's comment. I made a joke about FPV drones.
Second of all, the guy who is supposedly sticking it to the government didn't make that claim himself. He was accused of that by the next comment. I think he probably just wants to check stuff out before it becomes illegal, and that doesn't make him a crank.
I have an odd memory for username/comment pairings (and other oddities like ten year old URLs, but don't ask me what I had for dinner last night), and find the "government sucks, cops rock" scenario frequently puzzling.
My position on police is complicated. I don't speak to police. I don't like interacting with police. I've met some officers that were real dicks. I don't like our justice system.
I still can donate to the police retirement fund and the shop with a sheriff program, the latter of which is really about the kids, and the former of which falls in line with my some of my other beliefs.
I don't believe in the hate-motivated politics going around right now.
I don't personally feel very confused or conflicted by this situation, although I could see how others might view it as cognitive dissonance--largely because they're working with like 0.01% of the relevant information about me used to form my decision.
Edit: also, thanks for revealing your method. I confess I know a few usernames by heart, and recognize yours as familiar, but there's only maybe 2 commentors here I could nail down to an specific comment. I figured it was probably just some search-box wizardry.
2nd edit: Time to change usernames again, haha. I cycle them sometimes to avoid all the metadata.
It would be like bragging "The gov banned landmines with oversensitive triggers so I bought a couple!".
Yes. Hardly worth the effort these days.
The real enemies of freedom these days are private corporations.
The resulting government policies are usually a direct result of multiple cases in civil litigation.
The libertarians rules have been followed. Some of them just really don't believe in what they preach.
If these magnets are used incorrectly, why should the responsibility for that not be the users?
As far as your question, I've spent enough time with corporate legal to know many of these protections are industry driven to scaffold up a legal framework to protect themselves.
That's what "self regulation" actually looks like in material reality. I wouldn't be surprised if that's what was done here.
It's producer protection - doing say $100mil in sales on a legally grey product makes attorneys nervous
Sure, you can have them, as long as you and all your passengers/bystanders have signed an organ donor agreement.