Is this really such a big hobby? Making potentially deadly bombs out of PVC piping?
The police found the bombs during a routine traffic stop, (isn’t that always the way)? They were in a Taco Bell bag on the floorboard.
Police also found masks, gloves, flashlights, two small knives and about 15-feet of PVC pipe. Investigators found the third bomb and materials when they got consent to search the suspects’ apartment.
(Officer)Haugh said all of the men had their cell phones in water-proof plastic bags.
None of the four men inside the vehicle had any I.D. on them.
The suspects, Raymond Kramer, 22, and Aaron Spoerke, 21, admitted to making the bombs, and said they just liked to throw them into canals and watch them ‘splode.
Hey, everybody’s got to have a hobby.
The pipe bombs, each made of PVC piping, end caps, duct tape, a fuse and gunpowder, could have caused serious injury or death, authorities said.
Spoerke told investigators he got the PVC pipe from his plumbing job. He and Kramer got gun powder at a local gun store and fuses from a fireworks store.
They are not yet facing any federal charges, and federal investigators say they have ruled out any type of domestic terrorism.
H/T: Riehl World View
UPDATE:
As for my question: Is this really such a big hobby?
Wickedpinto says, yes. See comments for details.
Nice Deb 
What happened to collecting coins and stamps and stuff?
Today’s newfangled whippersnappers. Always wanting to do things their way.
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I think there was a discussion about this at Ace’s a while back, and most people seemed to think that pvc wouldn’t make a good pipe bomb. When i worked on pools, i used pvc a lot and i don’t think it would be as good, but it would be pretty good. My guess would be that they would use 1 1/2 inch pvc which would make the walls about 1/4 inch thick. It’s obviously not as strong as steel, but it is pretty strong and would probably fragment similarly to steel and cut into you just as easily.
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D’oh! If i had read the article, i would have known that the bomb squad guy said pretty much the same thing.
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So, do you think that they’re just hobbyists?
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Well, guys wanting to watch stuff explode doesn’t seem unusual to me, but you don’t need masks and gloves to watch stuff blow up. And they didn’t have id’s, so seems suspicious.
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The casing isn’t all that important, (and most kids, males do like to make stuff go boom, and if you make that stuff go boom from household products it’s even more fun)
The PVC as an encassing shrapnell base is unimportant, because it’s the packing that really matters. I never made big stuff, but the little stuff didn’t pack enough punch to take out the disgusting mail box my neighbor insisted on putting up in their front lawn, and I hated that mail box. So finaly to destroy it, I and my friend, packed chalk and gravel from the neighbors driveway, then packed in powder (yes using a hammer on damp gunpowder, like the guy who blew up his garage)then we packed in more chalk and gravel.
The friggen mailbox went up in a very loud, but not very explosive batch of shrapnell and destroyed cutesy little bits of a a friggen 12″ inch tall farmhouse, that even had a friggen namplate on it.
I gave up the passtime, when we thought we had a dud, and my buddy nearly blew himself up as he was approaching it.
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WP, if you were my son and I knew you were doing crap like that I would have taken a a sand-filled pvc rod to your nether regions.
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I was a wiley cat back then.
Toss in the fact that I was a good kid (and I was, I just had exhillerating hobbies) and I was able to get away with murder, as long as most of my efforts were hidden.
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True story,
In, I think 4th grade, I learned about electro-magnetism, and the simple way that a piece of insulated wire (I had a shitload, dad was an audiophile) and a rod of ferus metal (iron) you could make a magnet.
I ran around for a couple days with my 9V magnet screwing with stuff, then I had the natural reaction most young males have, “I CAN MAKE THIS EVEN BETTER!” Cuz thats why boys dismantle their toys, cuz they can make them even better.
I climbed up onto the kitchen counter, (always a climber, though I’m affraid of heights) while my father and mother were talking at the kitchen table (dad was a trucker he rarely ate with us, so pops was eating, mom was just keeping him company) and I decide that NOW was the time to test out my plan.
I plugged my electro-magnet into the wall socket, sparks flew, I panic’d and fell off the counter. My father hit the breaker, saw me laying on the ground freaking out, and asked me what happened and I told him.
“you ain’t gonna do that again are you?”
“no”
“well, you learned something.”
I left and I heard him laughing, and my mother hushing him, as I left.
I have a lot of stories like that. I think my father was a Firm darwinist in his fathering.
I think I told this one before.
I was screwing around one time, won’t share the details, there are too many, anyways, I just came into my height, and many of the entry’s into the different rooms of the house were short arch’s. They barely cleared the male members of my family, and in some cases, the taller male’s had to duck a bit to pass from one room to another.
So one day I was screwing around, my pops is sitting in his chair and I’m hopping and jumping as I enter “the front room” and I cracked my bean on the entry arch.
Hard.
and I crumple, and I hear my father sit up, and I moan a bit.
then I hear my pops lean back in his chair again and he said, “You know kid? That has to be the most stupid thing I’ve ever seen you do.”
“thanks dad.”
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Tough love. Needed.
(I think traditionally, men have provided their children with tough love and strict upbringing — training for the real world –, while women coddled their children and taught them the softer aspects of life. I wonder if this pattern existed because it worked.)
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Hey!
Why do you think people in the military and love the military love it so much, even though you are treated like a child sometimes, you get chewed out near constantly, and you have to sleep on the ground, sometimes, and aren’t allowed to wash for weeks at a time (except for your balls, and sometimes your face) and aren’t allowed to have chicks in your room (you aren’t for the most part, though everyone does it)
It’s because You get to get laid, pretty much on demand, and you get to make shit go boom.
Making shit go boom is AWESOME!
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