ACT Policing are having fun with explosives

Grail said :

If these explosions were just simulations of detonations using industrial explosives, the exercise is basically nothing more than a chance for the boys and girls in uniform to play with things that go bang.

This is my suspicion, and does make the whole thing rather pointless.

However, if someone from the AFP does confirm that all the explosives used were made from scratch, and the maker still has all their fingers and eyesight, I’ll be impressed.

Grail said :

Makes goatse.cx look a little tame, doesn’t it children?

Don’t play with explosives, you really don’t understand what you are dealing with.

You forgot to add, to anyone who is in the dark, you DON’T want to find out what goatse.cx is. Not. At. All.

Completely, totally and entirely NSFW, and in fact, NSF anyone really. ugh.

Russ said :

So according to this article:
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/explosions-show-power-of-common-chemicals-supermarket-products-20130725-2qmu0.html
all these explosions were from bombs constructed from commonly-available chemicals.

That means someone in the AFP sat down and mixed up these explosives?

I would consider it particularly wasteful of time and resources if they didn’t actually manufacture the explosives from the commonly-available chemicals that they claim can be used to manufacture explosives at home.

After all, the aim of the program is to educate people: “this is the amount of pool chlorine you will need to mix in with this amount of diesel fuel and expanded polystyrene to make a particularly potent napalm equivalent,” doesn’t have the same impact if you don’t get to see and smell the product being manufactured, along with having a demonstration of why this napalm equivalent is bloody dangerous.

If these explosions were just simulations of detonations using industrial explosives, the exercise is basically nothing more than a chance for the boys and girls in uniform to play with things that go bang.

Of course I’m the type of person that would show kids the danger of explosives using penny bungers and good old Mythbusters style simulation flesh props: here is a penny bunger exploding in an open hand: no big deal. Here is a penny bunger exploding in a hand with fingers closed around the explosive devices: oh wow! Where did your fingers go? Here is a roman candle stuck up someone’s bum. Here is a roman candle stuck up someone’s bum where instead of releasing the charge in a shower of pretty lights, the pyrotechnic misfired and exploded. Makes goatse.cx look a little tame, doesn’t it children?

Don’t play with explosives, you really don’t understand what you are dealing with.

This reminds me of an old semi-annual event put on by the Australian Bomb Data Centre (or whatever they are called now) and it is/was quite informative. It is done so operators can be aware of what potential dangers are about and what can be used so they have an idea of what to look for when securing a premises.

I was at one in the late 90’s and it was a blast.

So according to this article:
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/explosions-show-power-of-common-chemicals-supermarket-products-20130725-2qmu0.html
all these explosions were from bombs constructed from commonly-available chemicals.

That means someone in the AFP sat down and mixed up these explosives? While some are fairly stable and need a decent initiator to go boom, others are pretty damn unstable and would need an experienced chemist and a proper lab to prepare safely, which strikes me as a fairly unlikely activity for a government agency to undertake.

So my question is, were these all *really* home-made explosives, or actually commercial ones?

Why are the AFP making this public? Is there an imminent threat of suicide bombers emerging in Australia and if there is, what cause are they representing?
Surely not, we are a peace loving nation and anyone that we let settle here wouldn’t be involved in that sort of stuff, would they.

Should have every high school kid trying to do better .

Idiot. Should have cut the red wire. It is ALWAYS the red wire. Don’t these clowns ever watch TV?