For $200, he could have bought up to 10 pounds of black powder from any retailer that caters to black powder shooters or hunters. For God's sake, for $200, he could have bought 10 pounds of smokeless powder.
Were the bomber brothers and their accomplices that stupid?
Or does the government and their lackeys in the media really think we are that stupid?
Probably the latter.
Well... he and you are completely wrong. Here's why.
Hold a firecracker in the open palm of your hand and fire it off. You will have a very sore hand, but you'll be ok.
NOW, light one and hold it tightly in a closed fist. Let me know how many fingers you have left.
The amount of gunpowder in that firecracker, were it not tightly wound into a compressed roll of paper, wouldn't have enough energy to bother a fly.
Whatever 'explosive' these guys used, It was detonated while contained in a PRESSURE COOKER.
Have you ever fired off one of these MORTAR CANNONS ? I have.
Two or three of these in a pressure cooker with some nails and bb's.....would make one heck of a large explosion.
Just one of them going off (not even the 'display' explosion', merely the 'launch' part) taught me to run VERY FAR and VERY FAST after lighting it.
Probably made a powder mix and used the powder from the fireworks like a large primer to touch off the other powder and increase the burn rate making for a more powerful explosion.
A lot of handloaders have accidently created little bombs by mixing two different powders of different burn rates.