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"Kicks for Guns" program nets Surface-to-Air Missile launcher
A man in Florida surprised police by handing in a surface-to-air missile launcher during a gun amnesty in the city of Orlando.
Under the no-questions-asked scheme, "Kicks for Guns", anyone who surrendered a firearm would receive trainers or $50 (£25).
The Orlando Sentinel newspaper said the man exchanged the rocket launcher for designer footwear for his daughter.
He told the newspaper he found the 4ft (1.2m) weapon in a shed last week.
The unidentified man said he had tried in vain to get rid of the launcher, which is designed to blow aircraft out of the sky.
"I took it to three dumps to try to get rid of it and they told me to get lost."
"I didn't know what to do with it, so I brought it here," he told the newspaper.
Besides the missile launcher, Orlando Police collected more than 310 guns during the amnesty.
After inspecting the rocket launcher, police spokeswoman Sgt Barbara Jones said: "I tell you, you never know what you're going to get."
Despite all of China's military modernizations, this blogger can't help but feel that it will be some time yet before the PLA is as well armed as your average suburban neighborhood. Still, At $50 worth of sneakers per gun, Florida PD may soon get a visit from the Shanghai PSB, looking to turn their hardware into footware.
Of course, the question still remains, in whose shed did he find the launcher, and from where did said shed owner obtain said launcher? A souvenir from a war since past, or a gift from Osama?
The BBC edition may be found here. The original US story can be found here.
UPDATE
In case anybody wants to know, this is the SAM in question. Click to enlarge.
I read this article the other day and was somewhat surprised as well. My
guess is that it was something someone took as a souvenir from a past war.
This used to be a fairly common practice with soldiers returning home from
war, but I have to say I've never heard of anyone taking a rocket launcher.
The one thing that I notice is that every article refers to it as being a
"launcher", there's no mention it containing an actual missile.
Update:
TOW missile expended round (i.e. EMPTY...) casing.
Hazardous if you dropped it on you foot.
Fiberglass hollow tube with end caps. Sold surplus all over the place, no
use other than a decoration. "launcher" has all sorts of other parts you
would need. OH and did I mention it's Anti-Tank, not surface to
Air...meaning it could never have shot a plane down...unless it was flying
under 3000m and slow at that...
In case anybody thinks that Winget is a wizz at weapons, I actually
provided a link (Here it is again), that said pretty much everything that
Winget said.