Do not use a live 40-mm round as a paperweight:

Part of a teacher's hand was blown off when a 40 millimeter round the instructor used as a paperweight on his desk exploded in his classroom.

Robert Colla struck the round with an object Tuesday afternoon while teaching 20 to 25 students at the Ventura Adult Education Center.

What was the class, training to become the village idiot?

[Update the next evening]

Another note to self: do not use a 40 mm round as a flyswatter.

He better hope they don't have a zero-tolerance policy for weapons. ;-)

Who in their right mind uses a LIVE round as a paperweight? Or carries it around loose, for that matter?

I may have to go back to "sensitivity training" for saying this, but this guy is a frickin' idiot, and deserved exactly what he got.

I must admit that I know a guy that has various ordinance rounds as paper weights on his desk. However, he will be quick to point out to you, if one even takes a second notice of them, that they are inert. If he lets you handle them, it is like he is handing over a loaded gun, and he makes sure you note the firing cap is missing. Even so, he discourages people playing with them.

His prize possession is a GAU-8 30mm round.

Not eligible for Darwin award. Next.

Not eligible for Darwin award.

Well, if he's had no issue to date, and he'd blown off a different part of his anatomy, he might be...

More than a little dumb. It's lucky that none of the students were injured.

This reminds me of a story my son told me a few years ago. He was in training to be a Navy instructor in San Diego. Some of his classmates were SEALS from across the bay in Coronado. One of the students decided to do a practical demonstration in class, so he brought in some C4 and blew the leg off of a table. He was sent back to Coronado, post haste.

As we said in Jump School, "SEALS aren't crazy. You have to have a brain to be crazy."

The bozo probably had no idea whether it was live or not, and didn't even try to find out. I know people who work around this stuff for a living, and like Leland's acquaintance they treat even known inert rounds with respect. Kind of like the old "treat every gun as if it was loaded" rule.

I assume this was a 40mm antiaircraft round, and not a 40mm Gernade.....
Ammo just doenst "cook off". he had to do something to it to set it off.

Sounds like a squib.

The fuze was proabally live but the round did not detonate.

The fuze alone would have blown his hand off. A whole live 40MM round that close would have killed him, it has at least the explosive force of a hand grenade.

That's what I like to see, nice concise stories.

I have a 105mm howitzer round in the corner of my computer room. I remember when I bought it from an Army Navy store the clerk said, "You need one of these like we need another Indian" Then, we had a hearty laugh at the expense of our defeated natives.

I also have a 20mm round for the MK-12 and a .50cal round. All of them are practice rounds though.

"His prize possession is a GAU-8 30mm round."

I have a buddy who has a set of GAU-8 shot glasses, the aluminun caseings of rounds fired during Desert Storm (by another buddy of ours) cut off to about an inch and a half high. Interesting conversation piece ;-)

Possesion of a live ordnance round not duly registered as a "destructive device" is a violation of Federal ordinance.

The news reports are now saying the teacher was using the round to kill an insect. I imagine he smashed it down on the bug a bit too hard, and it went off.

I've heard of using a Howitzer to kill a fly, but...

...but, did he actually KILL the bug?

I guess one wouldn't expect an Education Center to have a book handy for someone to use as a flyswatter as opposed to 40 mm rounds.

Maybe they just have really tough insects.

"Possesion of a live ordnance round not duly registered as a "destructive device" is a violation of Federal ordinance."

Only if the warhead containns more than 1/4 pound of explosive doe it fall under the pervue of destructive devices.

A DU round for a 30mm contains no high explosvies and would not be a regulated product.

Stolen .gov property? Yes. A DD? No.

...but, did he actually KILL the bug?

No -- and the bug has just signed a major book deal to tell its side of the story.

Two things:

It didn't kill him outright so either it low-ordered or it was a practice round which contains a small burster charge.

Unlike most other explosive ammunition in our inventory the fuze in a 40mm grenade is armed solely by spin, not spin and setback together. This means that you can arm one of these through the simple expedient of rolling it around without having to fire it. This little 'feature' cost us a couple of folk at Ft Knox a couple of years ago. Guy brought one back from the range in his pocket. Went off during formation.