Whaddayawannabet...?

While driving back to work today, whoever was subbing for Rush Limbaugh reported that a missile launcher was found in the flightpath of the Newark airport, and that it was the kind of missile used to shoot down airplanes. I looked for the story and at the top of the page Drudge had the headline:

Feds Seize Rocket Launcher In NJ; In flight path of Newark Airport...MORE...

Drudge didn't have it in large text. I just thought it looked better that way. He did have it in red, though. I clicked through the link, which took me to this Breaking News CBS2 Exclusive: Feds Seize Rocket Launcher In N.J..

According to the print story, a New Jersey woman found an AT-4 anti-tank weapon in her front yard. Although an AT-4 fires a projectile with a maximum effective range of 300 meters, the authorities are apparently greatly concerned because her house lies somewhere along flight path for Newark Liberty International Airport. If someone's going to threaten aircraft with such a thing, her house would have to be practically right at the end of the runway. But never-mind, it's good fodder for the "terror" mill.

But I'm guessing what they found was not a genuine AT-4. Probably just a spent, demilled AT-4 tube, which is not reloadable and is not a weapon and can be legally purchased at online stores, on eBay or from brick and mortar military surplus stores. I'd even go one step farther and venture a guess that it's someone's Airsoft toy, possibly built from a spent, demilled AT-4 tube. Like this one:



Pretty scary stuff, eh?

Whaddayawanna bet?

EDITED TO ADD:

Well, that didn't take long: Rocket launcher 'harmless,' feds say

FBI spokesman Sean Quinn said the launcher found by a homeowner in front of her house was essentially an empty tube.
"There was no threat," he said.

Apparantly the First Responders weren't sharp enough to notice that it was an empty tube.

EDITED AGAIN TO ADD:

Who cares if it was just an empty tube that posed no threat. It was the top story after Hillary's cleveage when Sean Hannity opened his show. And even though the story he was reading from said it was an empty tube, he still said it's somehow evidence that there's a terrorist under every rock, and poeple who doubt the seriousness of the threat just don't understand what it means to live in a post-9/11 world. How could anyone not love talk radio? It's way funnier than anything on TV these days.