Nukes anyone?

[Paladin]

So some friends and I were have a conversation about weapons and one of my friends brought up bombs. Then for the hell of it we started doing research, and we came upon a startling discovery. Most MAJOR colleges have the items in sufficent quantities for someone to build a dirty bomb. This kinda scares me. Can anyone else chime in on this. I mean most colleges that have a medical or science department have chemicals and material that puts out radiation on hand in the quantities of at least a lb.

[Ramster]

There are enough chemicals under your average kitchen sink to build a device with considerable explosive power and/or which extrudes large amounts of toxic gases. Sure, most colleges will have enough radioactive materials to make a dirty bomb, but most of them do have simple measures in place to prevent nutters taking home some strontium or radium to play with.

The fact is that dirty bombs don't kill people, people do.

[Paladin]

Still its rather scary.

[WhiteyChan]

The thing is that its not the quantities and substances needed to build a small nuke that stops terrorists making them, its the knowledge. Its actually relatively simple to get all the necessary ingredients, but your average terrorist does not have anywhere near enough technical skill and physics knowledge to be able to construct such a device, which is why you don't find them going around the place with briefcase thermonukes.

Now, myself on the other hand...

[Paladin]

The thing is that its not the quantities and substances needed to build a small nuke that stops terrorists making them, its the knowledge. Its actually relatively simple to get all the necessary ingredients, but your average terrorist does not have anywhere near enough technical skill and physics knowledge to be able to construct such a device, which is why you don't find them going around the place with briefcase thermonukes.

Now, myself on the other hand...

Considering Popular Mechanics or some other science Mag once put an artickle out showing how you could make one yourself with all the instructions including using a plasic Bowl to shape your half spheres around so you have the right shape, finding the info is not too hard if one knows where to look. I had that article at one point and I'll see if my friend still does.

[Callie Del Noire]

It's like this. You can make toxins out of scary easy stuff, like peach pits. The problem is you need the skills, knowledge and equipment to it SAFELY.

Yeah, you can get all sorts of nasty things from a variety of sources, and you can find info on how to make bombs (like the Anarchist's cookbook) BUT without the knowledge on how to apply that information and material properly you're more likely to kill yourself in the preparation phase than the public at large.

You can get radiological materials from some surprising locations in the home and public facilities but without specific knowledge.. you'll kill yourself. Just like all those guys who make crystal meth in their homes.

One of my co-workers was a sherrif before he got in the navy, and he said the scariest raid he did was on a Meth Lab where they stored the ether outside and it was OLD ether, that could detonate with a radical change in temperature that was only half of the normal change in a morning where they lived.

[Inkidu]

Believe me the whole alphabet soup is out there looking at everything nuke related. Hell you were probably flagged for the FBI for looking into it yourself.