Blackmail: Manila airport security's "bullet scam"

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The ā€œoleā€™ Manila drop the bullet in your luggage scamā€ is back.

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Unless the court is in on the action as well, there must be some very puzzled judges who are wondering why they are suddenly seeing an uptick of crazy foreigners incompetently attempting to smuggle tiny amounts of ammo. Especially puzzled if the airport security guys doing the shakedown either fail to diversify the ammo enough, and mysteriously every bullet-smuggler on my docket is carrying same caliber, same brand, same batch; or diversify too much and the evidence locker is a veritable munition museum.

Obviously, it only takes a single bullet to ruin somebodyā€™s day if you do it correctly, so there probably have been a few cases in history where someone did indeed sneak a single round through security; but Iā€™d be wondering what the hell is going on if there were a spate of people carrying tiny amounts; the world only has so many exquisitely precise assassins and the hourly rate for smuggling black market ammo one round at a time must suck.

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FYI, the pictured items are cartridges, shells, or rounds. Bullets are just the small pieces of jacketed lead at the tips.

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I, for one, would like to welcome you and your pedantic ways to Boing Boing.

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Actually, itā€™s just a photo on a website, a browser-rendered array of pixels, which are just small boxes of light.

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Unless you are expert in all aspects of firearm fondling and always use the mechanically precise terminology for every piece of said firearm, you are completely unworthy to express an opinion of anything to do with guns.

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No True Gunman

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If you are going to be pedantic make sure to be right.
Bullet can mean just the slug, or the intact slug and cartridge (round).
Both usages are equally valid and correct.

The BBC quote uses the term bullet as well, and since some of the rounds being discussed were blanks they didnā€™t even contain slugs. It is quite clear in this context that the term bullet is referring to round rather then slug.

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Also, itā€™s the Beeb. These folks donā€™t have the kind of exposure and resulting gun literacy Americans might.

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similiar shit happens at denpasar airport, becoming rifeā€¦?

Theyā€™re not equally valid and correct, since one is ambiguous.

as itā€™s mostly blackmail (cash or jail) I could imagine this scheme without the involvement of judges. Some pay directly, the others have suddenly the charges dropped shortly before boarding ends (oops, honest mistake).

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Iā€™m being informative, not pedantic, and what I said is right. See the wikipedia entry for bullet: ā€œA bullet is a projectile propelled by a firearm, sling, slingshot, or air gunā€¦ The word ā€œbulletā€ is sometimes colloquially used to refer to ammunition in general, or to a cartridge, which is a combination of the bullet, case/shell, powder, and primer. This use of ā€˜bulletā€™, when ā€˜cartridgeā€™ is intended, leads to confusion when the components of a cartridge are discussed or intended.ā€

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Remember, only an expert can deal with the problem.

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