The messages, casually exchanged last weekend in a crowded, public space, show high-level officials in the Trump administration discussing the deployment of the Army’s 82nd Airborne, an infantry division that has been parachuted into combat zones in both world wars, Vietnam and Afghanistan. If the administration were to send in the Army division, it would almost certainly be challenged in court under federal laws limiting how the military can be used domestically.
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There is also an editor’s note — apparently deputy Homeland Security adviser Salisbury decided to use Signal to exchange information about this while attending a funeral in Minnesota.
… Wait does the GNO3 in an airbag initiator actually explode? I was under the impression it just rapidly burns - which was the whole reason for its selection, since the exhaust gasses produced catalytically are at a much lower temperature than those produced through uncatalyzed combustion. They’d make a terrible blasting cap if I’m right, though. Maybe one of the old ANFO ones would work, but those are both rare and by now pretty unstable.
Idk, why wouldn’t you just use regular old lead azide? Pretty much everyone in the US can get their hands on the materials to make it, and lots of us even made it in highschool.
FWIW explosives aren’t actually illegal outside of a few specific locations in the US (hell I can get jars of it at the grocery store). That, a 30.06 round and a hobby rocket E-match has made for many a disappearing pumpkin at the annual vegan turkey hunt.
I guess if you really had to an airbag initiator could be made to work, but like… why not just use one of the many off the shelf components we have available?
I guess the stability of the device and its ability to detonate electronically rather than with a firing pin, etc. which would be easy enough to wire into the flight computer.
Now that handles detonation but getting a light weight package that’s also large enough to deliver might be a challenge. However, I guess it depends on the destination. Size isn’t always important.