Posted on 12/28/2010 3:04:57 PM PST by rawhide
A man has been arrested after FBI and TSA officials said his luggage contained volatile gun parts, which caused his bag to explode Tuesday just before it was about to be loaded on a plane.
The unidentified 37-year-old man had 500 to 700 bullet primers in his luggage. Primers are considered the "spark plugs" of a bullet and ignites the gun powder, projecting it toward the intended target.
Officials originally said the exploding bag was caused by a hairspray aerosol can.
The situation turned out to be much more serious and could have been even more dangerous if the bag containing the combustible elements would have exploded while the plane was in the air.
Officials believe when the baggage handler sat the bag down on the ground, it caused one of the bullet primers to rupture and explode, which ignited a chain reaction among the other tiny pieces of metal.
While it is legal to have a gun and ammunition in your checked bags, it is illegal to pack primers or percussion caps.
The passenger faces federal charges of transporting hazardous materials.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcmiami.com ...
No doubt the Union baggage handler didn’t “set the bag down”, he flung it onto the cart or elsewhere, as always.
LOL. Early reports were it was an aerosol can explosion. So which is it?
I don’t know. A bunch of primers aren’t likely to go off like a large bomb. More like 700 firecrackers.
Did this kind of stuff happen just a few years ago?
Or am I just imagining one incident after another?
Primers are a percussion device. They have to be hit sharply. I’ve never heard of primers going off on their own. So, were they loose? Were they in manufacturers cartons? If ammunition can be carried in check baggage why not primers? Some how this story doesn’t pass the smell test.
PS - the story head says bullets not primers. So which is it?
There is something wrong here. Primers are normally packaged in little trays designed to keep them from bouncing around. They are NOT packaged loose! It is possible that this guy had emptied several boxes of primers into one container, which makes no sense. A media that gets hysterical at anything to do with guns is of no help, either,
It also says “volatile gun parts” so you’re looking for some sense from a typical reporter.
While they feel up little girls and boys, baggage is not receiving the attention it should.
Just look at what primers are. The would be easy to detect with a bomb sniffing dog.
I find something fishy. You have to hit a primer pretty hard to get it to fire off and just sitting a bag down won’t do it. If the were in the container that they are shipped from the manufacturer in, a square flat piece of plastic with a each primer sitting in its own hole separate from the others, it would be darned near impossible to get them to explode.
One cannot read this story without concluding that the reporter is an ignoramous that hasn’t mastered to vocabulary of firearms enough to write a simple correct sentence.
As tempting as it is to start substituting what the reporter says for what we think he means, it is safer to wait until someone with a greater understanding of the facts reports on this.
Seriously, who could confuse the sound of primers going off with a bomb. I mean, they’re like little firecrackers. Very little firecrackers.
Oh, and tell the headline writer that primers are NOT bullets!
Like that pilot. He has to go through security but the flight line people just swipe a card and walk onto the flight line.
Miami. Recent immigrant or illegal reporter. It is pretty common. TV and the news media are absolute s***.
There is definately something wrong here. He took them out of the trays and probably put them into an empty powder can or perhaps an empty bullet box.
This should never be done. Always keep them in the trays. Always.
Another reloader who did not read the instructions. Not that many of them fail to read and understand the instructions, but there are a few.
Sheesh...
—my tagline applies—
I’m concerned about those volatile gun parts. LOL
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.