A coworker showed me this link. It seems a teacher in Ventura, CA kept a 40mm shell he’d picked up while hunting on his desk as a paperweight. Everything was fine until he used it to smash a bug. The bug, I assume, was indeed killed; unfortunately, the shell was live and he blew off part of his hand. This is funny, in a sick and twisted way. No doubt he’ll turn up on the Darwin Awards as an Honorable Mention before long.
Ammunition? Nothing that Elmer uses, that’s for sure.
See, now, this is an example of how Japan has it right: don’t control access to guns; control access to ammunition.
How the flaming hell does a teacher get away with having ammunition, live or dud, at school, when kids get suspended for bringing fingernail clippers to school?
When I find that I have bugs that need to be killed again, I use either toothpicks (in the case of vampire bugs) or anything handy that will take their lil’ heads off (in the case of zombie bugs).
Very good question, Ethilrist. I don’t know California laws on these things but it sounds like he may have just shot his own career down with that bullet too.
The thread title reminded me of a Ripley’s Believe It or Not I read way, way back when I was a kid. It claimed that Marie Antoinette (IIRC) commissioned a tiny working cannon to be built so she could shoot it at fleas.
I knew a guy that kept a 50 caliber bullet on his desk for a paperweight. This was when I worked for a military contractor. I always thought it was the height of macho obnoxiousness. But I never thought it could be dangerous. WTF.