Today while taking the trash to our local transfer station (for those of you who don't know, a transfer station is a parking lot with dumpsters on the edges. People dump their trash in the dumpsters and the city empties them), I found, of all things, the manual that comes with the M18A1 Anti Personnel Mine, more commonly known and a Claymore mine. Now you can't just run down to the local hardware store and pick up one of these jewels... I don't think you can get them even with a Class 3 FFL, so my question here is WTF?? Who would have (or need for that matter) the manual for these things? There is only one purpose for the Claymore and that is to eliminate personnel. How could a manual for these things end up in the local trash bins?
Makes me very nervous especially after all that's been going on!
i am a collector of all things WWII (not weapons) i collect helmets, medals and such things. manuals for mines and weapons are very eaxy to get hold of if you know where to look.
I would have called the police. They could have searched through the bin for any identification that might lead them to whoever dumped the manual. We had the dumpster surrounds of one of the apartment complexes we manage vandalized, and I had the property manager get the police to search for evidence in the dumpster. They found the Wal-Mart receipt for the cans of spray-paint the vandals had used, and other paper evidence that led them right to the perpetrators, whom they then arrested for destruction of property. In this climate of terror, a discarded manual for a Claymore would be enough to send up the red flags!
Given that we had a dead baby found in a dumpster in my city yesterday, I'd happily take a manual for a deadly weapon over that.
Do you know the published date of the manual? It could very well be a keep sake of a member of the military, or a collector of these types of documents. If it is very old, to old say, like in the 40s to the 60s the owner may have passed. So when the family cleaned out their home they may not be interested in the manual. You may want to go look threw the rest of the trash if it is still available. There may be more stuff thrown away that could be valuable. I have a few manuals from my Air Force days. Like my C-130 flight manual. But I don't have a C-130. Wish I did.
If the published date is just a few years old it could be that the device is in the hands of some one with bad intentions in mind.
You may want to notify the police or some higher agency.
Nawty
Well this manual looked like new - it was a color manual and it wasn't torn dirty or faded. As for calling the police, the manual was on the ground so it could have come from any of the dumpsters - we have a "community" of dumpster divers here that sort through (and spread) the trash all around. It could have fallen out of someone's truck or who knows... tracking down where it came from would be next to impossible.
I used to have manuals for the M1 Carbine and M1 Garand rifles...but that's because I HAD them! What purpose would it serve to have a manual for something you will never own? In my work at the Fire Dept, we have a manual for the emergency egress and shut down of many military aircraft up to and including the Space Shuttle. Now the odds of me responding to a Space Shuttle crash are slim at best, so what's the point?
And as for the baby found dead... I have no words for such a tragedy.
I still have flight manuals from my training on an AH-1 Cobra Attack Helicopter. I don't have a gunship parked in my back yard. There are tons of military unclassified training manuals for everything. A claymore was a shaped anti-personnel charge introduced during Vietnam. So I wouldn't get upset about it.
I'm more concerned about these internet plans on how to build bombs out of common ingredients found in the local hardware store.
