Posted on 12/29/2010 6:43:32 PM PST by opentalk
You'd have to drop that luggage 1,000,000 times from the plane, and a primer STILL probably wouldn't discharge. It takes a PRECISE strike with pressure from a sharpened object(such as a firing pin) in just the right spot to make a primer go bang. That's why I find this story to be such BS.
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Yes! Absolutely! Profiling overwhelmingly the best system above all others!
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The Department of State warns U.S. citizens against taking any type of firearm or ammunition into Jamaica without authorization from the Jamaican Ministry of National Security. Entering Jamaica with a firearm or even a single round of ammunition is a serious crime that can result in a long prison sentence.
I think it's much more likely that we're being lied to, and this was a bomb that didn't go off. But the powergrabbers at TSA will use it as an excuse to ban primers. Certainly for transport, from private sale if they think they can get away with it. Helps get rid of the Second Amendment types, dontcha know.
It bears repeating, as if new, many times. Judging by comments on FR, most people live there.
No, they actually come in a plastic tray and are individually separated by a plastic grid. Each tray is packed into a cardboard box that is a single layer... much like a box of ammunition in an egg-crate type cage.
Primers are relatively difficult to pop, especially by accident. I'm not saying it's impossible, but seems to me another source most likely caused it such as heat. Even if you slammed the back side of a tray of primers with a hammer, only the ones you crushed will go off, I can't imagine how it would have caused a chain reaction... they aren't blasting caps. You have to smack them in just the right spot or crush them. Myself and a buddy once did a week of detention at school for stomping on them in the parking lot with our boot heels (story for another time).
Who's to say if they were in the original packaging, I don't know. Story doesn't really add up though. Maybe only a few of them actually detonated and the press is smokin it up as usual...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2648737/posts
Related thread, has answers to some questions here plus name of perp.
My guess is that he intended to smuggle primers and a reloading press into Jamaica.
“Maybe only a few of them actually detonated and the press is smokin it up as usual... “
I think they gang-fired, the reports say that the bag was pierced and a ramp rat’s shoe was peppered with primers.
They can gang-fire, that’s why they are sold the way they are.
This jeenyus took them out of the box and trays and had them all bunched up. The gang-fire lit a shirt on fire (at least it was smoldering), so if this had happened in flight it may have been a “concern”.
On another thread some of us were joking about how hard it is to set primers off but more knowledgeable people pointed out that they can flake off primer material, which can collect in a pile and be more sensitive. Static can set them off, too.
I played with them quite a bit though and they are relatively hard to set off from my experience. It takes more than a few attempts with a hard heel on a cowboy boot to do it, I would never have guessed they could set each other off with the exception of a few maybe back-to-backs in the same bundle, but never a chain reaction... so I stand corrected.
I was pretty dumb when I was a kid, but not quite enough to try putting a bunch of them in a sack and whack it with a rock. The very small amount of charge that is in them is surprisingly strong and Dad wouldn't have been pleased if enough came up missing and he noticed.
Like you, I never had a primer go off unless I intended it to go off*. What I posted is what others here told me.
Primers are considered hazmat (naturally) and the hazmat rules of DOT forbids their shipment on passenger aircraft.
* And I never ever put them in an air gun and fired at a rock.
‘It takes a PRECISE strike with pressure from a sharpened object(such as a firing pin) in just the right spot to make a primer go bang. “
That, and the rim of the primer being supported on a non-yielding surface, so that the primer anvil is supported.
Maybe the guy requested a really heavy starch on his shirts. Just sayin’...
Your statement is absolutely and dangerously untrue. Static electricity and heat can both ignite primers with ease. Primers removed from their grid-oriented packaging and stored in a bulk container pose a serious threat of mass detonation under certain conditions.
You have a moral obligation to learn the subject before posting "facts" on this forum. Unlearned opinions are just fine, as long as they are so labeled.
Your scenario didn’t happen outside that plane on the tarmac.......
Smartass. ;^)
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