New Darwin runner-up: Paperweight Severs Calif. Teacher's Hand

[Shakespeare]

A teacher who kept a 40 mm shell on his desk as a paperweight blew off part of his hand when he apparently used the object to try to squash a bug, authorities say.

The teacher slammed the shell down in an attempt to kill something that was buzzing or crawling across the desk, said Fire Marshal Glen Albright.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2006/04/04/national/a144740D83.DTL

[XemaSab]

1. NOT a seashell... a weapon!

:o

What an idiot!!!

[Shakespeare]

2. I know...brings to mind visions of Bugs Bunny.

...from the old WWII era cartoons where he's put to work in a munitions factory.

What a maroon.

[Dukkha]

3. I don't buy it

It seems highly implausible you could fire a 40 mm round by slamming it down on table.

[karlrschneider]

4. If it was very old (he found it in the woods?) the gunpowder could

have become very unstable. I don't find this hard to believe at all.

[texas1928]

7. There have been people killed by munitions they have found...

From the Civil War. And this is happening even now.

[Dukkha]

9. I remember when Roger Waters performed the Wall at Berlin

They were setting up the stage and found a live bomb from WWII and had to have it detonated.

[BikeWriter]

5. Dumb fuck.

[Suich]

6. I second that!

:rofl:

[skygazer]

8. So we go to all the trouble to keep kids with guns out of schools

And this dumb fuck uses an old shell as a paperweight?! Some lesson that was!

[sakabatou]

10. LOL