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 ...
I want to know this guy’s name. If it is Joe Smith, I would be likely to believe it was a dumbass mistake. If it was Mahammed or Ahmed or some ME name, then it was a terrorist attack.
This sentence is terroism, both ballistically and grammatically.
This is weird! If the Primers were in the plastic trays they normally ship in there is a space between each primer. Other than static electricity, sharp impact, or fire they should not “go off” at all. I wonder if the owner packed them some other way?
Exactly. I challenge anyone to put a tray of primers in any kind of bag and kick it, throw it down or drag it until you get one to fire. Who hires TSA agents who can not create a better lie than this?
There is a reason primers are packed in little styrofoam pocket trays.
They are volatile!
This idiot had them packed loose in a bag?
Maybe if he set the bag down on the stove!
Oh good grief. They were PRIMERS. The millions of people that black powder hunt or reload their shells use them. For gosh sakes get off your high horse. “jail time” WTF is that about?
yes, and small firecrackers at that.
Primers are known to mass explode-A reloader's nightmare. Lee Progressive owners are warned to use only CCI primers, for this reason.
They do not go off like a string of firecrackers..More like a sharp roar.
They are packed by the hundred in little boxes with their open ends all facing down against the box. If one goes, the flash is propagated to those around it..
Not smart but we used to hit them with a hammer to get them to go off when I was a youngster.
That’s why I said there’s more to the story. The idiot reporter, but then, I digress.
Sounds like more of a fire hazard than an explosive hazard.
As a reloader, I can say that from personal experience, a primer doesn’t go off without a sharp, pointed hit. The only kind of primers I can think of that are more sensitive are muzzle loading caps.
I’ve got a quarter that says these were caps for a muzzle loading pistol or rifle. Even then, it is really odd that anything could make them go off within an enclosed bag.
Something is very fishy, including the extreme lack of knowledge exhibited by the writer.
First this guy is felony stupid and deserving of a jail sentence. Second, I am really interested to know what type of primers were involved and how they were packaged. Primer size ranges from small pistol through shotgun. None of them are to ignite without serious impact between the base and a pointed metal object that crushes the primer face against the internal anvil impinging the charge and causing ignition. Properly packaged, that becomes real unlikely.
The physics imply that somebody might have been making some kind of test run and miscalculated.
Redundant maybe?
Styrofoam pocket trays? Never in my life have I seen 209 primers or any othe primer in a styrofoam pocket tray. They routinely come packaged 100 to a box in plastic each in a little cell in the package that is about 3 inches by 3 inches.
BS Detector PING, PING, PING
“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.”
Agreed the Idiot most likely removed them from their packing dumped them in a common container, Just asking for a problem.
To add to the long list of issues with the piece, "volatile" generally means ability to evaporate, not explode or ignite.
Also, trying to remember from when I was a kid, but I don't recall primers ever exploding, but more of a firework-like "woosh". (Correct me if I'm mis-recalling here.)
.
I reload, too. I pulled about 250 Korean .30-06 bullets, dumped the powder, punched out the corrosive primers and reloaded them with non-corrosive primers a couple of years ago. I had one primer pop while I was pressing them out and then it was a pretty quick stroke of the press. The rest I dropped in old motor oil and then dumped into the trash. (Okay, okay, I whacked a few with a hammer:^)
There is more going on here than one ignorant reporter is reporting. Like I said, what is the guy’s name? Is it a western sounding name or is it a name like Mohammed or Omar or Ahmed?
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.