I don’t want this to be a long post. This was a big deal on Friday, made camera time on local TV. The story is here. A picture of the weapon was posted on the NYPD twitter feed.

Gist of the story is that a drug bust in Bushwick turned up a ‘rocket ‘launcher’ and local news was flipping out. The picture is an NYPD twitter photograph of the ‘rocket launcher’ when it’s armed (hint: the item is upside-down. more later). Ostensibly it went out to news sources.

By the way, the ‘launcher’ is upside-down in the police picture. The black object on the bottom is actually the scope, and the little screen at the left bottom is how you adjust for distance to the target. If the weapon was armed, nobody’d leave it like this because it could go off. But if you look at a LAW tube folded up, it looks like a mailing tube for cartons.

A couple notes: As those of you who’ve read my posts know,  I made a serious career mistake several years ago, which allowed me to gain first-hand knowledge of US weaponry. And based on my personal experience and a memory for things that don’t matter, I can tell you that the rocket launcher is an M72 LAW (light anti-tank weapon). I can also tell you it’s a one-shot device. Once it’s used, it’s not good for anything except conversation. It isn’t usable as a weapon unless you fold it up and whack somebody in the head with it. And there hasn’t been an armed LAW in US military inventory since the 80’s, when the generals ‘fessed up that it didn’t work all that well. 

So why did the cops feel the need to drop a twitter feed note? Why are readers being ginned up over a non-threat?

Makes one mistrust the media, doesn’t it?