Idaho lawmaker's wife hurt in gun room explosion

[tosh]

Source: AP

Sep. 30 5:44 PM EDT

BURLEY, Idaho (AP) — Fire officials say the wife of an Idaho lawmaker was injured when a room that they had converted into a gun safe exploded.

The Times-News (http://bit.ly/SdMY0q ) reports that Amy Wood, the wife of state Rep. Fred Wood, was taken by air ambulance to a Utah hospital with second-degree burns on her face and hands after the explosion Saturday night in southern Idaho. Fred Wood, R-Burley, told the newspaper that he wasn't injured in the blast.

Burley Fire Chief Keith Martin said the couple was eating dinner when the explosion occurred. Amy Wood was on the back patio — which is directly over the gun room — and the blast apparently caused the slab to collapse into the room below.

The cause of the explosion is not yet known.


Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/idaho-lawmakers-wife-hurt-gun-room-explosion#overlay-context=users/rjagodzinski

[loli phabay]

1. best headline ever, i dont why i just go all hillbilly at the thought of the gun room exploding

[jerseyjack]

2. See? if she had been allowed to carry a gun, she could'a defended hersel --

--- ah, what's the use?

Anyway, hope she ends up o.k.

[Warren Stupidity]

3. GunZombies:

What did we need? Gunz!
When do we need it? Gunz!

[ProgressiveProfessor]

18. The war on stupidity starts with you

Until we know what caused the explosion, claiming Zombies is dumb. Guns are in and of themselves not explosive. Modern ammunition is not either unless it is black powder. It could just as easily been a gas leak from what we know.

However, if you do have a zombie problem in your neighborhood, here are some good tools to address it. http://www.hornady.com/ammunition/zombiemax

[Warren Stupidity]

21. It's a joke son.

Besides I got it wrong. It's:

What do we want? Gunz.
When do we want it? Gunz.

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to mend the joke.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

40. Indeed you got it wrong

but its much more than spelling.

[Union Scribe]

90. Aren't jokes traditionally funny? nt

[Hoyt]

53. It's people attracted to the dang things who are the problem.

[SunSeeker]

55. +1

[Meandering1]

57. And just where was Larry Craig during all of this??

Maybe it the fellow Idahoan whose famous "wide stance" which bumped elbows (or other body parts) causing explosion of chemicals/munitions.

Self inflicted wounds tend to be the worst more times than not.

[olddad56]

79. I think Larry's gun stopped exploding a long time ago.

[Evasporque]

64. Nnnngh Guuuhhnnzzz....

NNngghhh gggaaahhhh nnnzzzz....

[nolabear]

4. Guns don't kill people, people kill...oh, wait.

Actually I feel bad for her and hope she's okay, but ow the hell many guns do you have when you need a whole ROOM for a safe? What, are they battling an alien invasion?

(Edit for typo)

[Wilms]

6. I was wondering the same thing.

OK. Not the alien part, but still.

[southernyankeebelle]

9. Hell yes, didn't you know us socialists are going to invade their neighborhood.

All kidding aside hope she will be well soon. Oh hope they have health insurance.

[freshwest]

49. +1 everything you said. Yes, us sneaky Democratic socialists are invading Idaho...

We are under the goll dang ground, I tell you, we are under the ground! Our secret handsign:

[southernyankeebelle]

66. LOL, sure love your cat.

[tularetom]

10. I'm a collector of antique firearms

and my entire basement is essentially a gun safe.

There are 3 safes in the basement and a locked steel door leading to it.

I keep very little powder down there, only what I am using to reload. Because I occasionally grind things that cause sparks. And I never keep any black powder there at all.

If these people took precautions I can't see how this could have happened. But I guess Murphy's law in still in effect.

[DBoon]

26. I'm a collector of antique nuclear bombs

Several square miles of Nevada desert is essentially a bomb safe.....

Fissionable plutonium is an arm and the second amendment gives me the right to own it so there!

[Coexist]

32. lol!

[freshwest]

54. Right on, bro! Don't tread on us!

[nolabear]

28. Okay that makes sense. Thanks for the post. I hadn't considered antiques.

[Remmah2]

78. I know two collectors who have walk in safes.

Inside the safe is a complete office and work shop. One guy has vintage Winchester lever actions, many with soldier art carved onto it. The other has almost 200 original Pope barreled rifles that were once shot in Central Park NYC when they held matches in the park. Both have fire suppression systems.

[tularetom]

80. Never thought about that - my homeowners insurance co. never suggested anything

Maybe a fire suppression system is a good idea. The house just celebrated its 100th birthday so it's hell for stout.

The basement is my place to go hide from Mrs. T. In addition to the safes I have a work bench and a reloading bench down there plus a TV and DVD. If I had a fridge I could live there.

[Remmah2]

81. The fortress of solitude.

LOL, my place to hide too. Cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter. I even keep a tin of cat treats and dog treats when the four legged buddies get banished to the basement with me.

[A Simple Game]

51. May I suggest a little education? There was a documentary series

that addressed just such a situation.

Start here:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100814/

[Hassin Bin Sober]

87. " Broke into the wrong God damn rec room, didn't ya you bastard! "

Favorite line

[Angleae]

60. That would depend on how many zombies are in Idaho.

One must prepare for the coming zombie apocalypse.

[awoke_in_2003]

69. Gun safes do...

[valerief]

5. Gun room? Gun safe? Why don't they just say ARSENAL?

Well, at least she got burnt with her freedumbs intact. And it was her beloved guns that did it, so that makes it okay.

[safeinOhio]

16. Might as well call the home a

compound too.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

24. Actually we don't know what caused it

Sound like a tornado safety room they put a steel door on (its outside the main walls of the house). Makes a lot of sense since it is now much more accessible to store things like family records, jewelery, and other valuable.

Firearms cannot explode, modern ammunition does not explode under anything but the most extreme circumstances. That leaves black powder, other explosives, or something like a gas leak.

It will be interesting to see what it turns out to be.

[jtuck004]

30. "... now much more accessible ..." Like through that big hole in the roof?

(I know you meant through the outside door, but it's still funny)

I will watch the paper for what started it, because there is really no good reason for powder or modern ammo to go up. Most every gun store in the country, and a whole bunch of homes have that stuff, nary a problem. I used it for reloading when I was a kid, also had ingredients for building my own rocket motors. It never blew up unless I meant for it to.

Like you said, maybe a gas leak or something. They may have taken a shortcut or two with the construction of the gun room, could be an electrical issue. Then again, armament seems to be a subject of particular fascination over the line in North Idaho. Could have had a pin work loose in a grenade...

[ProgressiveProfessor]

37. Last time I had a house with a finished basement, the under stair area had a security door

Nice setup. Previous owner had stored records, cameras, and jewelry and firearms there (had a rifle rack). Shocked the people we sold it to. Sort of missed that out here in CA, but basements are a rarity. No way to effectively add that to where I live today.

[jtuck004]

59. I like basements. Even root cellars.

Actually, the unfinished root cellar cuts down on foot traffic to a miraculous degree, nice place to read, next to my
buckets with beets, potatoes, carrots, and under the garlic

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

50. Maybe it was a combination tornado/gun room

That way they could fire upon the tornado before it rips the house down.

[daleo]

58. And it would be self-defense.

Bigger, more powerful guns may be the perfect answer to the threat of global warming.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

12. Go away troll

There I said something. Happy now?

[petronius]

14. Tasteful little smear there, HankyDubs

Is this the sort of thing that got you your first (?) TS/PPR? (I never got the story on why your original username was canned...)

[ProgressiveProfessor]

19. What was their first user name

We keep on reminding Loudly, nee Shares United, that we have not forgotten him...

[petronius]

22. It was just HankyDubs (with the 's') - I think the TS was on DU2,

but I don't know the reason...

[crim son]

8. I hope she's okay and

I hope her husband (R) rethinks his position on possessing an arsenal.

[madrchsod]

11. gun powder must have somehow exploded...strange

[SunSeeker]

13. You're 43 times more likely to be killed by your own gun than by an intruder's.

But this takes it to a whole new level.

[The Doctor.]

31. Lol.... true, but

You are so unlikely to have an intruder that such a statistic is meaningless.

The meaningful statistic would be the one where we determine the number of owner self-shootings by people who have also had intruders, oh, and the number of intruders into gun-owners homes who are shot.


At that point, I imagine the numbers reverse dramatically.

[SunSeeker]

44. "You are so unlikely to have an intruder."

I agree. But you are very likely to get drunk, get depressed, get in a fight with someone in your house, or have your kid find your gun. That's how people get killed. Having a gun in the house makes it far more likely that you'll blow your own fool head off. Those numbers don't reverse. That's why I don't keep a gun in the house.

http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/more-guns-more-suicides/

But you can keep your guns, Doc. I'm not saying all guns should be banned, just that they're dangerous to have around. It's a fact. They make it way too easy to blow yourself away or kill someone in the heat of the moment. And as a parent, the risk is just not worth it to me personally.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

15. Sounds like they converted some sort of tornado safety room into a safe

Be interesting to see what caused the explosion. If its propellant storage issue, this would be very rare unless its black powder.

[petronius]

20. The Times-News has a photo of the damage - pretty impressive

Without any details of course, it may not even have been the guns - if they were eating outside perhaps they have a built-in gas grill or fire pit that leaked into the structure. Will be curious to find out...

[nolabear]

29. WHOA. I feel way better about being a total wimp now.

No way I will have firearms around. They just give me the willies.

I can't help but laugh at the happy little plants, though.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

39. Seeing that, I would also wonder more about the gas line than ammo

[Brother Buzz]

68. I'm thinking propane and propane accessories

Betcha they just hauled in their prized Incinerator 3000® BBQ from the patio to the porch for the fall. Failing to close the propane bottle valve was just a pesky detail. You know what I mean, Vern?

[IDemo]

75. Idaho, not Iowa

Tornadoes are as rare as palm trees here.

[BootinUp]

17. What the hell was he storing down there?

[Tx4obama]

23. Republican gun room goes rogue. On a serious note, I hope she recovers quickly. n/t

[magic59]

25. She had a constitutional right to

get blown all to hell.

[madinmaryland]

27. OMG!! They blew up the Gungeon!!!

[ProgressiveProfessor]

38. +1

[freshwest]

61. Oh, no! It looks like they damaged Cooking & Baking and Frugal & Energy Efficient Living, too.

[wordpix]

33. where was Fred in all this? Just happened to be out of harm's way somehow...

Not that there's ever any reason to suspect a husband...

[freshwest]

62. Uh, evil minds think alike. I wondered about Fred, too. Poor wifey.

[SoapBox]

34. And now, Mr. and Mrs. Repub, about the insurance for that flight and Emergency Room?

...oh ya, Mittens said that it's A-OK for folks to go to the Emergency Room...it's all free coverage.

[SoapBox]

35. p.s....Building Permit please!

[SheilaT]

41. Actually, you might be on to something.

[cr8tvlde]

45. Pretty sure home insurance company is going to pass on this one.

[Scootaloo]

36. What the fuck were they keeping in there?

Okay, I admit I'm not a huge expert but... Were they keeping sacks of black powder next to the space heater or something? I'm almost certain that most things in this world do NOT "mysteriously explode."

[Javaman]

42. "Honey, were did you put the hand grenades? Found them..."nt

[struggle4progress]

47. "Aren't they still beside the home-made pipe-bombs? Or did we move them over with the ANFO?"

[Katashi_itto]

43. Was it Republican? If so who cares, if not I will be concerned.

Course our cadre of DU hand wringers will be upset that I should be "better" than that.

[slackmaster]

74. People complain loud and long about "hate speech" on DU.

I agree that it's protected under the First Amendment, but the fact that you would make human compassion contingent on political party membership says something about you that I don't believe is in any way positive.

[Katashi_itto]

82. Have you missed where teabaggers/Repubs would like us dead or in concentration camps?

Let them back in power and see how much "compassion" they show us.

[slackmaster]

83. Some radical Muslims want us dead, too

I won't lower myself to their level. Your doing so speaks volumes. You and I have a fundamental difference of values.

[Katashi_itto]

84. The fact you bring up a knee jerk argument of Muslims to compare, speaks volumes about you :)

Frankly Muslims are less a threat than the Teabagger/Republican cult.

[slackmaster]

85. Not all Muslims are blood-thirsty killers

Nor all all Republicans members of whatever cult you have fantasized. Hating all members of a group because of the bad behavior of a few shows lack of thought.

I've found hating large groups of people to be a waste of energy, and non-productive. Maybe you'll wake up some day.

[Katashi_itto]

88. Being based in reality is actually where I am. Enjoy the fuzzy pink unicorns where everyone is

happy together.

[cr8tvlde]

46. Likely a rural militia outpost of some kind...lots of them in those states.

[Skittles]

48. paranoia gone wild

[Ilsa]

52. I bet they are your run-of-the-mill Idaho Survivalists. I bet they think

the shit is going to hit the fan during Obama's second term (they probably thought it would happen in his first term). They probably have list of guns, ammo, freeze-dried food, etc for the "zombies" that will be coming in from the city desperate for their food.

[Kalidurga]

56. Thank goodness the guns were locked up...

otherwise someone could have been seriously hurt! Oh, wait...

[Evasporque]

63. Idaho Lawmaker's Ammo Dump explodes.

I keep my ammo dump in a underground bunker 100 yards from the house.

[jpak]

65. Roomfuls of guns = roomfuls of trouble

yup

[4th law of robotics]

71. Roomfuls of guns and/or modern ammo do not simply explode like this

there is something more to this story.

If it turns out to be a gas leak a lot of people are going to look very foolish. Not that they will acknowledge what they said. People will do their best to ignore this (like those who claimed the Aurora shooting was motivated by Rush's Bain/Bane nonsense).

[struggle4progress]

67. ... Burley Assistant Fire Chief Rod Behr told KTVB that ... the explosion does not appear

to be suspicious, and advises people to keep their cleaning supplies away from their guns and ammunition.
Idaho lawmaker's wife hurt in gun room explosion
by KTVB / Associated Press
Posted on September 30, 2012 at 3:08 PM
Updated today at 8:55 AM
http://www.ktvb.com/news/Idaho-lawmakers-wife-hurt-in-gun-room-explosion-172007341.html

[NickB79]

70. Ammo and gunpowder just doesn't explode. Something had to set it off

And even then, burning gunpowder and ammo doesn't make an explosion like this. Contrary to what we've seen in movies, a box of ammo won't explode and shoot bullets everywhere. Without some sort of container to generate pressure as the powder burns, it just, well, burns.

The only thing that would go boom like this is large amounts of black powder (a true explosive unlike modern smokeless powder), or maybe if a fire started and they had a lot of their ammo stored in sealed military ammo cans. And then you have to figure out, what caused the ignition? Bad electrical wiring in the room? Gas line leak? If a gas station exploded, you'd immediately wonder what ignited the gasoline storage tanks.

There are 300+ million guns and tens of billions of rounds of ammo in the US stored in tens of millions of houses. If ammo just exploded and burned like this on a halfway-regular basis, there'd be burnt-out houses on every block.

[PavePusher]

72. Don't bring pesky facts into a chance for the vile among us to display their nastiness, y'hear? n/t

[4th law of robotics]

91. no No NO!

Guns explode all the time like this. This is the inevitable result of gun nuts being allowed to posses rounds by the hundreds. This sort of thing happens all the time.

Guns are animate objects that will find a way to kill regardless of how they're stored. These people deserved it because they were all some stupid backwoods militia types.

There. I think I hit all the main points.

[slackmaster]

73. Ouch! Second-degree burns hurt. I hope she recovers quickly and completely.

[Purveyor]

76. Truth be known, he was probably 'cooking meth'... {{{chuckle}}} eom

[Remmah2]

77. Rural Idaho??

Could have been propane, quite popular in rural areas.

But some media outlet took advantage to make hype out of it.

[MrModerate]

86. If you can't operate a gun safe safely . . .

What's the likelihood that you'll operate guns themselves safely?

[obamanut2012]

89. Any updates on this?

I am really curious to know what happened, since, as many have already stated, guns don't blow up, nor does ammo, excluding black powder.

[muriel_volestrangler]

92. 'spontaneous combustion of gun cleaning chemicals' - ?

Lawmaker's gun room explosion likely 'spontaneous combustion'
...
Burley Fire Chief Keith Martin believes a gun room below Fred and Amy Wood's house exploded after rags with gun cleaning chemicals on them sat in a garbage bin and slowly produced enough heat to ignite on fire.

“He cleaned his guns, and we are thinking maybe the cleaning solvent and the rags that he used sat there over the week and slowly generated enough heat, where it finally spontaneously combusted,” said Chief Martin.
...
Wood said he heard a noise before the explosion, and went downstairs to the gun room to investigate.
Fire officials had previously said Wood could feel pressure against the door and decided not to open it, which was good--because moments later it exploded.

http://www.ktvb.com/news/local/Fire-officials-believe-gun-cleaner-caused-Burley-home-explosion-172216881.html

I'm unclear how rags 'generate enough heat' to start an explosion. Am I bad to notice this happened when the husband knew the wife was above the gun room?

[slackmaster]

93. Linseed oil is notorious for being involved in spontaneous combustion incidents

This is one of the most important lessons I was taught in middle school shop classes.

Many organic solvents and oils oxidize pretty quickly when they are exposed to air. If rags soaked with such substances are allowed to accumulate in a pile, enough heat can build up to cause spontaneous combustion.

Linseed oil happens to be commonly used in firearm finishes. It may not have been involved in this incident, but improper handling of it has caused many fires.

The same thing can happen with cooking oils. The only safe way to store oil-soaked rags is in an airtight metal container designed for that purpose.

[obamanut2012]

94. REALLY weird

And, which is also why you never store stuff like this in a garage, or anything else connected to your house.

Someone experienced would know this. I agree it's very, very weird.

I guess what blew up was the chemicals.

[slackmaster]

95. A bonehead move. Any kid who had wood shop or metal shop or auto shop would know better.

Or a high school or undergraduate introductory chemistry class.

[obamanut2012]

96. I know that, because my mom told me when I was like eight

[slackmaster]

97. One of my favorite eateries had a fire caused by spontaneous combustion a few years ago

http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/Fire-Causes-Major-Damage-to-Perrys-Cafe-79718297.html

Perry's was closed for about four months. The fire damaged a part of the building that was used for storage. The kitchen, food prep, and customer areas had only smoke damage.

The owner (Perry) has always taken good care of her employees. When the place re-opened, almost all of the cooks, servers, bus people, etc. who had worked there before the fire returned to their positions. I had been eating there for many years, and was very happy that Perry's came back.

Actually, my relationship with the building as a restaurant goes back much farther than Perry's Cafe. In the 1970s, it was a Sambo's franchisee. My parents took me and my brother there for pretty good burgers on many occasions. The wall panels that once were decorated with frescoes of the story of Little Black Sambo and the tigers are still there, but long since painted over.