I downloaded my entire reddit activity and have been going through it slowly, changing all my comments to links back to themselves. Today I got this:
Hello, You have been permanently banned from participating in r/funny because you broke this community’s rules. You won’t be able to post or comment, but you can still view and subscribe to it.
If you have a question regarding your ban, you can contact the moderator team by replying to this message.
Reminder from the Reddit staff: If you use another account to circumvent this subreddit ban, that will be considered a violation of the Content Policy and can result in your account being suspended from the site as a whole.
I guess that depends on your definition of a flamethrower. To me, a flamethrower is primarily a weapon. And what you are describing is a roofing torch. Googling it now, I can’t seem to find anyone calling them “roofing flamethrowers”. Flame gun — sometimes — but never actually a flamethrower.
So the legality is probably an issue with not being specific enough with the tool/weapon differentiation. I don’t think actual flamethrowers should be legal.
Any tool can be a weapon if you have the right mindset.