Not So Smart

Scenario: You're out in the woods hunting or whatever and you find 40mm round. You know, a big bullet. What do you do?
a) Take it home for a paper weight assuming its a dud.
b) Take it home assuming its probably still a live round.
c) Leave it right there and call the police.

Me, I think I'd go for C.

Now I looked up 40mm cartridges and lots of the definitions include the term 'grenade' or 'high-explosive.'

So this makes one wonder just how smart this teacher is.

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

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

Part of Colla's right hand was severed and he suffered severe burns and minor shrapnel wounds to his forearms and torso, fire Capt. Tom Weinell said. No one else was injured.

Colla was taken to Ventura County Medical Center, where he was described only as stable.

"It was just a horrible accident," said Dennis Huston, who teaches computer design alongside Colla. Huston said he had his back turned to Colla and was only about three feet away when he heard a loud bang.

Colla found the 40 mm round while hunting years ago, Huston said. He used it as a paperweight and "obviously he didn't think the round was live," Huston said.

Who just leaves 40mm rounds lying around? And why would you assume that it's not live? It's very similar to assuming the gun wasn't loaded.

Another article states that he was using the round to squash a bug. Another good use for a device typically known to be explosive.

Oh, and just a little irritation at the article, there was no shrapnel.
Shrapnel is:

Shrapnel, and if anyone can find an essentially different definition anywhere he is ahead of me, is "an artillery projectile provided with a bursting charge, and filled with lead balls, exploded in flight by a time fuze." It was named for its inventor, General Henry Shrapnel of the British Army, who died in l842, so it is no Johnny-come-lately in the fields of ordnance and gunnery...

Or if you like:

Shrapnel is the term used to describe the spherical shot or musket balls dispersed when a shrapnel shell bursts. It is also used by extension to describe the fragments and debris thrown out by any exploding object, be it a high explosive (HE) filled shell, or a rupturing pressure vessel, etc. For shells, bombs or other munitions, the correct term for these particles is fragments, splinters or shards, fragments being the preferred name in scientific documents on the subject. Technically shrapnel can only come from a shrapnel shell and no other explosive device.

Yeah, it may be picky, but it's not so different from calling a motorcycle an automobile.