4 thoughts on “Improvised Weapons”

  1. …and potentially set fire to the criminal.

    …or anything else flammable within the area.

  2. Burning down my house to prevent it from being burglarized just seems spiteful.

  3. I have prior experience with flare pistols and shooting off flares. (Just upwards – never at anybody.) I still own several flare pistols. One of mine is the cheap bright orange plastic kind made by Olin. It takes 12 gauge flare shells and is a regular stock item at boating supply stores like West Marine. The rest of mine are military surplus flare pistols which are all made of steel and other metals. They all take 26.5mm flare shells.

    If this burglar was shot at with an Olin 12 gauge flare pistol, I would not think very much of that. These 12 gauge flares make just a little pop instead of a big bang, and the flare itself is just this little orange spark that burns out easily. (I’ll bet they were designed to be just like this for legal liability reasons.) You would probably have to shoot one of these directly into some highly flammable material in order to start a fire, and most folks usually don’t keep piles of gasoline-soaked rags or paper lying around their homes.

    If this burglar was shot at with a military surplus 26.5mm flare, there would have been much more of a bang sounding off to make most people think that somebody was shooting an actual firearm. The 26.5mm flares also make a much brighter glow than the Olin 12 gauge flares, so I would think that the fire hazard factor from shooting one of those off inside of a house would also be much greater, but that would still depend on where the flare ends up at.

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