Exploding pens of today, I think are using real explosives and will do real harm.
I have heard of them for years, have seen photos of them in confiscated items from spies, in the old days and know that they are not taken lightly in the police world.
Suspect that they are about the same as a letter bomb.
OK, this might be a good point to issue a warning, the police people on here will know what I am talking about.
In about 2001/2002, I had a penpal, whose husband was a Texas Policeman, he allowed her to send me a copy of the bulletin that came to him. He has died now, natural causes so I will talk about it.
It was a cell phone that had been changed into a gun to fire a 22 bullet.
There are also pens that will fire a 22 bullet.
This may be what scares the cops and causes them to fire at so many un-armed men.
The pen and cell phone look normal, but there was a way to fire them, with springs as I recall.
I know the prisoners make guns with a block of wood for a handle, a piece of copper tubing and a good rubber band, or in the olden days a circle of inner tube, from a car tire, in those days they were rubber and we used them in place of lots of things. They were a Zip gun, or as I recall.
I have seen them, as a friend who had been a Policeman, had a collection of them, some very small and some larger.
I don't have knowledge of the new explosive materials, only know that they exist and are much better and give a bigger bang, then what was common 40 years ago.
Even the old kids experiment with the exploding pens are dangerous, to the eyes and there is always the danger of a fragment hitting a blood vessel.
My brain hasn't caught up with me, but try a google for illegal weapons.
I have found, a couple years ago, photo's of the uses of common things as illegal weapons.
Hitting the 5, 6, 7 and 8 buttons on the gunphone fires four .22 caliber rounds in quick succession.
At first sight it looks like a regular cell phone — same size, same shape, same overall appearance.
But beneath the digital face lies a .22-caliber pistol, a phone gun capable of firing four rounds in quick succession with a touch of the otherwise standard keypad.
The US Department of Homeland Security and the FBI are aware of the device and have instructed baggage screeners to be on the lookout for suspicious mobile phones. This is especially after 9/11.
"A pen gun (search) is a small-caliber, single shot weapon that resembles a fountain pen.
In its weekly bulletin to law enforcement agencies throughout the country, the FBI said that bullet cavities of pen guns could be filled with poisonous chemicals or biological toxins, including cyanide (search), mercury (search), arsenic (search) and ricin (search)."
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,113259,00.html