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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsOK gun range owner insists howitzer fired safely after shell blasts house 3 miles away
30-45 whole minutes of instruction. For a fucking howitzer.
The artillery shell which is 14.5 inches long and 3.5 inches across crashed through an exterior wall, hit the ceiling, and damaged another wall while homeowner Gene Kelley and his wife were in another room, reported KOAM-TV.
Its unbelievable, Kelley said. Unless you were here to see it or see the pictures Ive got, you would not believe how huge this thing is.
....
It was not on a level plane, but on a downward trend, pointed downhill in the bottom of a valley, said Mike Friend, Owner of Fast Machine Gun Shoot. For that thing to rise and go far northwest of the range, its just unheard of.
Both Friend and Kelley described the incident as a freak accident.
As far as the safety end of everything, we drill every one of our shooters before it ever begins, Friend said. We have 30-45 minute drill.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/06/26/ok-gun-range-owner-insists-howitzer-fired-safely-after-shell-blasts-house-3-miles-away/
leftcoastloon
(20 posts)HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)I can't believe even owning a howitzer is legal, let alone firing one at a gun range.
PoliticAverse
(26,366 posts)Renew Deal
(81,802 posts)You're either with us or with those that don't want to die at home by stray artillery.
liberal N proud
(60,302 posts)It was where the shell landed that was not so safe.
napkinz
(17,199 posts)Jakes Progress
(11,121 posts)gratuitous
(82,849 posts)It's so much fun to make a big boom. Sorry about your house, Mr. Kelly, but your right to live unmolested by howitzer shells does not trump some dumbass's Second Amendment rights. You should have thought about that "sooner," living in Oklahoma and all.
thucythucy
(7,986 posts)I mean, shouldn't every "well regulated militia" have its own artillery?
What's next, surface to air missiles?
Hekate
(90,202 posts)petronius
(26,581 posts)did everything correctly even though your artillery projectile ended up in someone's house, expect to offer some extraordinary evidence that you didn't fuck up...
onehandle
(51,122 posts)McVeigh is their Jesus.
Alex P Notkeaton
(309 posts)Boom Sound 416
(4,185 posts)They are freaks. And accident is 'factually true'
SomethingFishy
(4,876 posts)Figures.
struggle4progress
(118,041 posts)onethatcares
(16,133 posts)off the grass and into the sky to end up in that homeowners house.
I've seen things like that happen in road runner cartoons and you know how life imitates art, so it is feasible.
Now, anyone seen that dang wabbit?
TreasonousBastard
(43,049 posts)from a populated area? These things typically have a range of 12 miles or more. I know that and I was signal, not artillery.
The whole point of a howitzer, like a mortar but badder, is to rain hell from the sky behind fortified walls and such, and aiming is not really part of the plan. So how is this guy surprised that the shell did what it was supposed to do but just did it in the wrong place?
(Can that well-regulated militia be a stupid one, too?)
jmowreader
(50,453 posts)You can change the distance a cannon fires by changing how much propellant you use. It comes in bags, six per round (there is a base charge in the 105mm case that is always fired), and your fire mission tells you how many to put in. The problem is, during Vietnam a 105mm charge command told you how many to take out. A charge command for a 155mm howitzer, 175mm gun or 8" gun always told you how many to put in, and the 105 has been changed to that standard for safety. If you have a fire direction control officer who thinks in Vietnam terms and an ammo crew that thinks the current way you're going to get an extremely long round.
The real question I have is, why did they fire this gun from this observation point, and why were they firing metal projectiles in the first place? The Army requires that when you want to fire artillery in peacetime you have to construct a real complex "fan" on the map. You plot the position you want to use, then you have to ensure any civilian area is at least twice the gun's maximum range from it. If you can't, you can't fire that gun there. You can't fire a 155mm howitzer at most stateside bases because civilians live too close to the base, so the Army has positioned battalion sets of 155s at Fort Stewart, GA, and Fort Hood, TX; when the General Support battalions need to do their annual live-fire they have to be flown down there to shoot. (The Army turns it into a big test called an External Evaluation. They bring in officers from other units to observe, and simulate everything they'd do to go to war.) If there was a house three miles from the muzzle of the gun, the gun should not have been fired. \
And seriously, wouldn't the civilians who went to this demonstration had a better time if the lunatic gun crew had waited till after sunset and fired illumination rounds?
Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)There is no right to keep and bear artillery.
jmowreader
(50,453 posts)They may have more: they can fire the 1812 Overture without ruining the National Guard's holiday weekend. They can use it to break avalanches loose - don't laugh, people do this. They can put it in the front yard as a lawn ornament, where it would be far more decorative than the atrocity someone stole out of Anita Bryant's front yard. There have to be hundreds of things you can do with your own personal howitzer.
Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)a HOWITZER isn't and is not constitutionally protected.
MineralMan
(146,192 posts)If he were correct, what happened wouldn't have happened. Morons abound!
indepat
(20,899 posts)when and at what they please. This is an exaggeration, but not by all that much.