…or we’ll shoot your ass off!
OK, maybe that’s not quite what they’re saying, but the news is out that the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, repository of all kinds of cool science, is protected by a bank of guns that can shoot 66 rounds a second over a radius of a mile!
The guns, which the lab unveiled to much ado Thursday but has not yet installed, are meant to protect the laboratory’s cache of radioactive plutonium, which terrorists might try to steal or destroy, sending a plume over much of the Livermore Valley. The weapons, called Gatling guns because they are multibarreled like their 19th century counterparts, fire up to 4,000 rounds a minute from six barrels.
“I don’t think that’s cool at all — it’s going to be hitting my roof while I’m sleeping,” 23-year-old Daniel Cross said Friday after learning that his home on Shelley Street is within range of the weapon’s 7.62mm bullets.
Not only do they protect the neighbourhood (or “collateral damage zone”) from terrorists, but the weapons can also be used to repel George C. Deutsch, or similar Lysenkoists, who might want to force the scientists to follow politically motivated research paths.
I can’t wait until next week, when JPL announces their Scorched Earth Neutron Bomb defense strategy.
