Friday, April 29, 2016

A series of explosive miscalculations


It's been an interesting week for aficionados of loud bangs.

First off, a Taliban suicide bomber offed himself and a bunch of terrorist colleagues.

A Taliban suicide bomber accidentally killed himself and eight fellow militants after triggering his explosives vest by mistake.

The jihadist fighters had been ordered to carry out an attack in Kunduz city, Afghanistan, but all died before their got there.

However, one of the militants detonated his vest shortly after leaving a Taliban base in Dasht-e-Archi, triggering everyone else's explosives, the Afghan Interior Ministry said.

I wonder if he qualified for his 72 virgins if he screwed up that badly?

Next, a dumbass in Baltimore learned that his fake suicide bomb vest was, indeed, dangerous - to him.





Finally, an instructor at 'a federal law enforcement agency' (unspecified) thought he'd loaded his shotgun, for demonstration purposes, with dummy rounds.  He hadn't.

The firearms instructor brought an ammo can full of clear dummy rounds with him.  Spoiler Alert: Almost all of them were dummy rounds.

The instructor loaded his Remington 870 shotgun from the ammo can and began to demonstrate its operation. There was a loud noise and a hole appeared in the wall in front of the shotgun.


I hope the instructor took a moment to talk about shotgun penetration in residential walls.  This was a teachable moment. None of the pellets made it to the class full of students across the hall.  Anything other than bird shot would have probably produced casualties.

There's more at the link.  It's well worth reading in full, to get the author's safety suggestions and re-examine your own firearm handling and demonstration practices in the light of what could have been a very nasty incident indeed.

Peter

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The police "sniper" had the time to shoot the perp three times, and he still lived? This officer was definitely no Chris Kyle.

I really wish the media would stop throwing around the word "sniper" willy-nilly. Maybe - just maybe - the officer was the police equivalent of a "designated marksman".

EdMc

Paul said...

that is why the 1st rule is always keep the muzzle pointed in a safe direction.


Dumb assery is rampant this year.

JohninMd.(HELP?!??) said...

The Balto. cops had decided the perp was not a threat, so wished to arrest instead of kill. But not being sure if the "bomb" was real or not, shot to wound, to immobilise, and see if he self-"ka-boomed". The "device" was made out of ....chocolate bars? All in all, they Fuzz were happy to not have another body on them.