Today’s Doofus is again from Florida. We’ve had a whole crop of them from that state recently. Is it something in the orange juice, perhaps?
Hitting bullets with a hammer in your driveway may not seem like a good idea to you.
Matthew F. Dugger, 21, doesn’t seem share that opinion – at least he didn’t before Thursday.
The incident happened on SE 12th Terrace.
Dugger was treated at the hospital after one of the bullets police say he was slamming with a hammer exploded, blowing shrapnel into his leg.
“If you get hit with something hot and fast and out of control, it’s going to possibly cause a problem,” said Travis Brunson, owner of Chiquita Guns.
The event was reportedly witnessed by several children belonging to Dugger’s roommate, who was already under investigation by the Department of Children and Families for inadequate supervision of the children.
“Anyone nearby could have certainly been hit by it. It’s such a monumentally stupid idea,” Brunson said.
Police were called to the hospital around 5 p.m. because of the suspicious nature of Dugger’s injury.
DCF says they are also looking into Thursday’s incident.
No charges have been filed in the case.
No charges??? Oh, well, I suppose ‘terminal stupidity’ isn’t (yet) a criminal offense . . .
Peter
A “bullet” exploding? I’d be willing to pound some nice lead bullets as a test, but I can’t imagine getting any of them to explode … flatten out the lead, sure, but explode?
I’ve always heard that cartridges that went off without being confined by a barrel and action were generally not very dangerous, as they didn’t get any parts up to high velocity.
‘terminal stupidity’ isn’t (yet) a criminal offense . . .
But it SHOULD be!!! 🙂
Pieces of the case can get enough velocity to do some nasty things at close range. Beyond 8-10 feet there’s not much chance of anything memorable, unless it manages to hit your eye, in which case all bets are off.
For better or worse, “terminal stupidity” tends to be somewhat self-regulating.
fark.com, a daily repository of links to news stories of generally ridiculous events, have a tag reserved especially for stories from Florida.
I grew up there. It has everything to do with why I bought a place in Idaho.
If you don’t have a tempered barrel to contain the cartridge when its primer ignites, the entire cartridge can blow up. We proved that back in my junior high school days when our group of guys got into making zip guns. One guy made his zip gun with copper tubing for the barrel. Needless to say, the copper couldn’t contain the force of the explosion when the cartridge went off. The guy got severe powder burns on his hand. Eventually, he got gangrene in his ring and pinky finger and had to have them amputated. We all called him “Three Finger Jim” after that. Not to mention that it cooled our ardor for things explosive for a while!
–chicopanther