Boing Boing guestblogger Connie Choe is a health and culture writer by day and a professional kimchimonger by night.
Civil war enthusiast William Maser, 54, accidentally fired a cannonball into his neighbor's house and is now being charged with a felony count of discharging a firearm into an occupied structure. That's in addition to the charges of reckless endangerment, criminal mischief and disorderly conduct that he was already facing for this incident. What I'm really curious about is Mr. Maser's first reaction to the effectiveness of his homemade cannon. Was it jubilation ("Holy sh*t, I did it!") or dismay ("Holy sh*t, now I've done it.")?
Cannonball through House (via WinkNews). In other essential news: Ice skating bear kills Russian circus hand and Wheelchair user, 92, arrested for smuggling coke.
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When cannons are outlawed, only outlaws will have cannons.
Awesomely stupid! and yet way to go, those kids will never cross his yard again. Cannons are fun to fire, a friend of mine has a one pounder we use to wake up his neighbor for being a supreme jack ass in the past and, boy is it loud at 5 in the morning,(fired on a private firing range, not in city limits).
Since I've witnessed cannons being loaded and fired before, I can't help wondering how he fired it by accident.
Also, do you think that was covered by the homeowner's insurance?
Charges: discharging a firearm into an occupied structure, reckless endangerment, criminal mischief, and, of course, Conduct Unbecoming of an Officer of the Confederacy.
Corporal Maser to be flogged at dawn!
That story about the 92-year-old made my day.
I recommend anyone who liked it read Tom Robbins' awesome novel, Still Life with Woodpecker
Quoting:
Cocaine, cocaine the musical fruit
The more you have the more you toot
The more you toot the better you feel
So sniff some wiff instead of a meal
..sung by a princess and senior citizen.
Pretty sure you can't accidentally fire a cannon into someone's house without doing a series of stupid things.
News flash: Weapons damage things.
A year or so ago, a Civil War hobbyist was killed not far from where I live. He was cleaning a cannonball when it exploded--it sent a chunk of shrapnel into a house a quarter-mile away. Law enforcement described the incident as "a learning experience."
http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/1800-1914/civil-war-dealer-killed-cannonball-12132.html
Don't Mase me bro!
To be fair the neighbor was trying to free all his slaves and take away his states rights.
Cannonballs do not, by design, explode. They are simply a large ball of metal without any kind explosive charge. The word you are looking for is shell. I see that the article (and the ATF agent) got it wrong, but there's no need to perpetuate it.
For the better part of 100 years, the Rhode Island State House had a Civil War cannon on display. The cannon had a cannon ball stuck in the muzzle.
Well, one day, someone read the dairy account of one of the gun crew. Turns out, the ball got stuck AFTER they loaded the gunpowder charge.
Yes, for most of a century, there was a LOADED cannon with a full charge of powder in it. Said powder getting more and more unstable as the decades passed.
Needless to say, when this fact came to light, MUCHO Hilarity Ensued!
Well, there was this gentleman by the name of Shrapnel, who designed cannonballs which explode...
Sorry, tongue firmly in cheek there. I know it's just a semantics thing.
That said, I thought that in order to own a cannon legally, it had to be incapable of easily firing projectiles? Does it vary from state to state? Word of mouth has informed me (in as reliable a manner as word of mouth can) that at least where I live field guns, howitzers, and any other sort of cannon have to either be made so as to only fire blank reports (baffled barrel, or severely tapered barrel for example) or have the breech filled (as with cement) to render them inert.
AirPillo,
The ATF prohibits owning breech loading firearms with a bore greater than a half inch, such as howitzers and other modern artillery pieces. Muzzle-loading firearms, this cannon included, are not restricted in bore size. Additionally, shotguns have another set of laws that cover them. So, the information you got was mostly correct, but there are a few distinctions that aren't always obvious.
Please please please don't use the term "buff." It seems like the term is primarily used to describe arm chair historians (ie, not historians). Reenactors are "enthusiasts" and degree holding historians are "historians."
I can see it now. The defense is:
"Officer, I didn't know the cannon was loaded!"