Posted on 04/24/2013 5:53:33 AM PDT by PilotDave
A man accused of carrying out a deadly bombing at the Boston Marathon last week was in New Hampshire earlier this year to buy fireworks from a Seabrook store, according to the owner.
Sales records show bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev purchased a reloadable mortar kit from Phantom Fireworks in Seabrook in early February. According to company president Bruce Zoldan, Tsarnaev purchased a “Lock and Load” kit containing 24 shells.
The kit retails for $199.99. Tsarnaev took home two of the products, using a buy-one-get-one-free deal offered at the showroom in Seabrook, Zoldan said.
The kits are designed to allow consumers to load one shell at a time. Sparking the fuse fires off a shell in about five seconds, igniting a store of gunpowder that projects it approximately 200 feet into the air. At that point, a second detonation occurs, setting off streaks of color.
Zoldan said it’s conceivable that gun powder contained in the kits could be removed and repurposed for an explosive device, but doing so would be a “tremendous” amount of work. It would be far easier for someone building a bomb to purchase black powder from a hobby store, he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at fosters.com ...
Would black powder be as powerful?
That’s it dammit, we’re banning fireworks! We gotta get them out of the hands of the evil right wingers before they kill somebody! We’ll be bustin’ down your door next week! RAT TATATATATATAT!
Sounds like we need background checks to buy fireworks.
Frank Lautenberg already beat the bitch to it. He’s proposing a bill to require a background check for the purcahse of “explosive powders”.
You just knew this was coming.
Would black powder be as powerful as the gun powder in the fireworks?
explosive powders? corn dust, aluminum, and so on
what about explosive vapors?
I’m thinking that these were not used in the bomb, but were the ‘improvised hand grenades’ that the two yutes were throwing at police.
It would be easy to wrap these ‘mortar’ shells (actually tennis ball sized and shaped with a long, long fuse sticking out of them) with various metal fragments and some duck (or duct, if you prefer) tape. Likely they also shortened the fuse.
Fireworks powder is basically black powder. It is designed to go boom all at once and therefore is best suited for bombs. Modern gunpowder explodes in a more controlled fashion, in addition to being smokeless, and is much more tunable for sending a bullet down the barrel.
Depends on the fireworks. They use all kinds of different materials to get the colorful effects.
If you put gunpowder in a closed container the effect won’t be significantly different then blackpowder. At least not at the small scale.
Ban welfare now! These bastards were collecting welfare and undoubtedly used our tax money to buy the powder, pressure cookers and backpacks.
“Ban welfare now!”
Welfare control! And don’t forget the Colorado Theatre shooter was living off of student grants... All taxpayer funded terror. Better check on Newtown shooter.
Yeah, I can see how this is gonna flush out. Modern smokeless powders are classified as ‘propellants’ while real black powder is an explosive. Because of that, those who sell it already have additional regulations as to how it is stored, etc.
Because of the regulations, many suppliers quit carrying it, and in many places it is hard to find original black powder.
The black powder substitutes do not work well with flintlocks.
“Would black powder be as powerful as the gun powder in the fireworks?”
The fireworks powder would be slower and would be less suitable than real black powder. I think he just shot this stuff off as the explosive used in the bombs was high speed explosive. They apparently had access to military grade explosives and used them against the police.
Black powder is a low speed explosive and most people over rate the power of it. In the breech of a gun it works fine but in a bomb is not nearly as effective as military grade stuff.
He may have intended the fireworks for some kind of celebration.
We heard ‘military grade’ explosives but we probably will never know. The improvised grenades they were throwing at police may have been these fireworks mortar shells with the launch charge removed.
Will he PLEAAAASSSEEE just DIE.
****a background check for the purchase of “explosive powders”.***
Does this mean everyone who buys five lb of wheat flour will now get a background check due to grain explosions?
Years ago I saw an old military book on IEDs that showed a bomb in which the main explosive was flour.
What? We'll have to sign paperwork to buy a can of beans? Or have pilot-lights installed in all underwear?
In a sealed, bolted down pressure cooker, yes.
Black powder really worked well in the exploding mortar and artillary shells at Vicksburg. I believe black powder would work extremly well in a “pressure cooker bomb”. When I first saw the explosion I thought it mat be a black powder bomb. Now the’re probably going to come for my Pyrodex.
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