Friends:
GregSY posted the link to this article - I encourage you to read it.
http://www.guardian-series.co.uk/news/wa..._in_doorway.php After reading the article at an English newspaper recounting the discovery of an actual live .22 Short cartridge in a doorway in the town of Waltham Forest, along with the police response to this grave threat to puiblic safety, I was moved to write the editor. He will, of course, ignore anything I say, but it just semed to need to be said.
Regards
GKT
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Pat Stannard, Editor
Waltham Forest Guardian
480-500 Larkshall Road, Highams Park, E4 9GD
Re: Article by David Williams "Bullet found in Doorway" 9 November
Mr. Stannard:
When I first noticed this article, I chuckled at the obvious satire, as the compounded silliness which is depicted, both on the part of the police and private citizens could simply not be real. Then I remembered that this is modern England, and no doubt your reporter is reciting at face value all which he has seen and heard.
I wonder if the object had been something else, say a razor blade, what your article would have stated? Perhaps: “Wilkinson Razor found in High Street”? Would we then have been treated to the stern public statement from the police, and the hand-wringing caution from Mr. Occam, a licensed razor owner?
Of course, that is idle speculation about what might be. In your actual article there are several factual errors and I would expect that in your position as editor you would be able to check these.
1) What was found in the doorway (and illustrated in your article) was a "cartridge", not a bullet. A cartridge contains a bullet. A bullet is a component of a cartridge. The bullet is the lead projectile which is propelled down the gun barrel towards the target. This distinction is along the lines of breathlessly proclaiming that a tire (tyre) was discovered in the high street, when what was actually found was an automobile.
Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary defines bullet as a noun, 1. a round or elongated missile ( as of lead) designed to be fired from a firearm.
2) Mr. Khan may have a firearms license, but he is no firearms expert.
The cartridge in question is a ".22 Short". This caliber is the smallest, weakest and least powerful standard cartridge in the world. What sort of hazard is it, lying in a shop doorway in the high street?
The hazard is exactly none. That is none, zero, zilch, nada, the null set.
A blow to the cartridge, say from a hammer, may ignite the priming compound. This in turn would likely ignite the powder charge. The powder charge, being unconfined in a chamber, would burn for a moment, and the brass cartridge case will split, and emit a bit of gas. That is all.
The bullet will not "fly off". It will not wound anyone. The noise of the firing of the priming compound, and that of the propellant charge burning will be obscured entirely under the "clang" of the hammer blow.
Exposure to "heat", will not fire the cartridge either. If the cartridge is thrown in a fire, the priming compound, if exposed to a heat above about 250 C, will ignite. After this, the powder charge, being unconfined in a chamber, would burn for a moment, and the brass cartridge case will split, and emit a bit of gas. That is all.
The bullet will not "fly off". It will not wound anyone. The noise of the firing of the priming compound, and that the propellant charge burning, will be obscured entirely under the crackle of the flame, even on a gas ring.
All of this is common knowledge among most shooters, and is an undisputed fact among ballisticians and experts. It is well documented in lots of places, but you might try Hatchers Notebook, by Major General Julian S. Hatcher, and NRA Technical Reports for starters. These may be available online, and finding the truth would not interfere with your busy schedule.
3) Your writer states "...The bullet, of Swiss origin, was still in its brass casing, complete with enough gunpowder for it to fire itself."
A cartridge does not "fire itself". That is a physical impossibility. A cartridge can only be fired in a firearm that is designed to fire that type of cartridge.
At any rate, after reading the article in question, I must conclude that Mr. Williams is an apprentice journalist who has just started doing factual stories after an extended tenure at The Sun, and it was a slow day in Waltham Forest to require filler such as this.
You are in the midst of a violent crime wave of historic proportions, terrorists run amok on the streets, the mullahs of the London mosques preach "kill the Jews and enslave the infidels", yet the police and press waste time and ink on the chance discovery of a basically innocuous and harmless object worth 6p. In most of the rest of the world the cartridge would have been picked up and tossed into the nearest dustbin. Case closed.
If, on the other hand, the story really is a big deal, and your breathless exposition is completely sincere, then I must weep for England.
Sincerely
Gregory K. Taggart
