How to Make a Bomb-No Ferilizer Required!

And the people came around, on Independence Day
And the children let go their balloons and flew away...

So, July 4th is next week. Freedom from tyranny day. Declaration of Independence and all that jazz. I wait, with eagerly bated, sarcastic breath, to hear what words of wisdom the revered Commander-in-Chief has to say. Anyway. Happiness, liberty, and hot dogs all 'round, eh? Let's all sit on the beach with our sparklers, set off a Roman candle or two, and watch the big fireworks display tonight!

Hold it.

Hold on just one fuse-burning minute. Sparklers? Roman candles? Bottle rockets? Cakes, missiles, tubes, wheels, firecrackers, and hundreds of other types of amusing explosives, available for anyone to buy and use? Let's back up a little. This is, supposedly, a time of war when the "enemy" is all around us. Homegrown terror. People who hate. People who kill. People all around, with homemade bombs and backpacks, looking for targets to blow up. There have been numerous sting operations that expose rings of people hoarding fertilizer and nails and chemicals. These operations are supposed to stop attacks before they happen.

Now, this is where it gets confusing. I could easily drive around and stop at the twenty-someodd different places that sell fireworks near my house. I could buy a medium-large amount of explosive material at each store. If I peel off all the bright, colorful paper and stuff the powder into one big sack, I've got myself a fairly powerful bomb. Maybe not enough to actually take down a building, but definitely enough to start a fire and a panic. A friend of mine has a pyrotechnic license---What if I use it to buy higher grade powders, the kinds that are used in big displays?

The point is, with all this security and worry about homemade bombs, it's interesting that explosives are so easily available. I should think that access to fireworks would be more closely controlled. After all, it would really suck if your hamburger cookout ended with a human barbeque.