nabokov

I had no idea what a M79 Granade Launcher looks like so I googled and found a nice picture. It's a hand held device, like a fat rifle. Very mobile, could be launched from a back of a motorcycle... Or so it seems - I don't know if it can. Anyone knows this weapon and can tell us? Someone mentioned 500m range earlier.

The M-79 grenade launcher, as the picture shows, is a light weapon. The grenade itself looks a lot like a standard ammo round -- only much, much bigger. You could say it looks like a huge, fat bullet. There is not much recoil when the weapon is fired. The launcher is stubby, as you can see by the picture, and actually could be fired from the hip if necessary. This "bomb" had to be fired from somewhere, unless it was rigged somehow to go off with a tripwire. That does not seem likely, so I imagine someone with a launcher popped a round off from a good vantage point. Actually, it could have been fired from a passing vehicle -- a classic "drive-by." Even better, from the back of a tuk-tuk. The sound is like a hollow pop -- a champagne cork popping is a good analogy. Who would even hear or notice in the swirl of Bangkok traffic?

Of course, unless the grenade was a dud, it would have gone off on impact. So I suspect it wasn't fired at all; rather, it was "planted" at the entrance way, as a kind of Mafia-like memento mori. Somewhat like the horse's head in the movie The Godfather -- but nowhere nearly as imaginative ...

I had no idea what a M79 Granade Launcher looks like so I googled and found a nice picture. It's a hand held device, like a fat rifle. Very mobile, could be launched from a back of a motorcycle... Or so it seems - I don't know if it can. Anyone knows this weapon and can tell us? Someone mentioned 500m range earlier.

The M-79 grenade launcher, as the picture shows, is a light weapon. The grenade itself looks a lot like a standard ammo round -- only much, much bigger. You could say it looks like a huge, fat bullet. There is not much recoil when the weapon is fired. The launcher is stubby, as you can see by the picture, and actually could be fired from the hip if necessary. This "bomb" had to be fired from somewhere, unless it was rigged somehow to go off with a tripwire. That does not seem likely, so I imagine someone with a launcher popped a round off from a good vantage point. Actually, it could have been fired from a passing vehicle -- a classic "drive-by." Even better, from the back of a tuk-tuk. The sound is like a hollow pop -- a champagne cork popping is a good analogy. Who would even hear or notice in the swirl of Bangkok traffic?

An interesting forum ... So often a traveller in these cities can be lulled into a sense of false security by the modernistic look of a building, its glitter and conveniences. A death trap? One would hardly think it possible. And yet, as some of you have pointed out, the design of MBK leaves much to be desired as far as safety is concerned.

I personally had never considered this an issue at MBK, which I have visited. Now I'll begin to think more seriously about the possibility of fire -- not only there, but at hotels, restaurants, etc. And not only in Thailand.

We tend to forget that standards in many countries are, well, substandard. And inspectors may be on the take or else impotent to enforce regulations. Kinda scary when you think of it ...

Thank you for the enlightening discussion.

I had just about concluded before these latest posts that it was a case of "Naked Lunch" revisited -- with the roles reversed, of course.

William Burroughs stated later in his defense that the problem was not his aim, but that the gun shot low.

But now, too many complications . . . Thai girlfriend, ex-wife, Herbalife etc. What a mess. And next we'll hear that the CNN connection was really MI5 or CIA. A hitman? This gets more twisted with each passing moment.

One almost wishes it had been simply a friendly game of William Tell gone bad.

The news item that started this discussion was almost entirely barren of details. However, something apparently touched a nerve here, because there were so many replies.

I think we must keep in mind that everyone, to a certain degree, suffers from limited perceptions due to cultural influences and conditioning.

Thus, although we may not understand exactly how "justice" is meted out in a country like Thailand, we can't therefore conclude that the Thai system is bankrupt.

I suppose my appeal here is to common sense. All societies are aware that murder must be dealt with. The problem, culturally, is what constitutes a definition of murder, as opposed to, say, religiously-sanctioned killing, or killing of the enemy in combat, or killing in the name of state power or law enforcement. That cliché about one person's terrorist being another person's freedom fighter is quite relevant here.

Essentially, the threshhold of acceptable killing differs according to time, place and circumstance, even in the same country at different times. One could say, somewhat cynically, that a murderer is simply a killer without a constituency to defend him. A rigid moralist would counter that such a "constituency" is complicit in the crime, but in the real world, the finding of "extenuating circumstances" happens all the time.

On another note, we mustn't forget that the British authorities will be putting the screws on the Thais to get to the bottom of this. The Thais, for their part, have to tread carefully, inasmuch as this episode brings to the surface all the difficulties in dealing with foreigners generally.

In Bangkok back in 2005, while looking across the alley from a nice open-air restaurant off Khao San Road, I witnessed Thai police very diplomatically attempt to subdue a totally out-of-control farang whose drunkenness and nasty demeanor were, quite frankly, enough to make me feel ashamed that I, too, was a foreigner.

Yes, it goes the other way -- frequently. The tensions between farangs and the locals will never cease. This forum is replete with tales of farangs being ripped off, accosted, violated or taken advantage of. (One reason I like to visit it.)

There is no easy solution to this one. Perhaps the real question is when to be diplomatic, when to exercise due caution lest one tread upon cultural sensibilities, and when to smash someone in the face with your fist.

We shall never know, of course, what will happen to the 80-plus kilos of smack after it has been confiscated.

Perhaps it will disappear from the storage room at police headquarters. Or perhaps there will be a ceremonious burning of plastic-wrapped bricks of brown sugar . . .