Bomb help web page gets some attention

Yesterday I got a call from some reporter at a Boston area newspaper, The Enterprise.  She was looking at the title to this web page: Want Some Help Building a Bomb?  In a very hesitant voice she ask, “Why would anyone put up a web page like that?”  I asked if she had read the web page.  “No.”  Okay, so I have to start at the beginning with her…  I was tempted to ask her if she knew how to read but figured that would make a poor first impression and I generally try to stay on the good side of people that buy their ink by the barrel.  So I explained how I make explosives for recreational purposes and I get email from people wanting to build bombs and I tell them no and if appropriate forward the email on to the appropriate law enforcement agency.  She seemed particularly interested in this story about the 13 year old kid waiting in the headteacher’s office for his parents to arrive.

After telling a few stories about how stupid some of these people are–I put all this email on my website telling about how I turned in everyone yet I still get email (and calls from reporters) from people thinking I actually provide help on illegal activities.  She then got a lot more friendly and enthusiastic about what I’m doing.  It turns out that some kid in her area got caught with pipe bomb materials in his car at high school.  Talk turned to “It’s so easy to find bomb building instructions on the Internet” and she was tasked with writing a story about it.  The librarian did the research and the reporter was calling the people with the web pages to ask “Why?”  She asked a bunch of questions about have I helped catch any other kids with bombs or bomb building intentions.  I told her I didn’t really know because it’s rare the police will get back to me with that sort of information.  I told her I did get one kid arrested but it wasn’t related to my web page.

She then went on to ask about “this hobby”.  I explained Boomershoot to her and she keep asking “Why haven’t I heard of this before?”  Again I refrained from pointing out the obvious about this question.  She works in Massachusetts, guns are very restricted there.  Boomershoot is near Orofino Idaho.  We are separated by about 2200 miles and totally alien cultures.  I told her, “It’s been in Newsweek, Outside Magazine, and this year we have a magazine coming from the U.K.”  Anyway she started seemed quite interested in Boomershoot and people coming from all over the continent to this event and generally seemed quite enthusiastic.  I’ll be checking out their website everyday for a while to see if she actually publishes a story on what we talked about.

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