When Parades Go Bad

Hamas Parade	The Deathmobile

Last Friday in the Gaza Strip, the militant gang Hamas threw a parade to celebrate their self-proclaimed "victory" over Israel after Israel shut down their little settlements scattered throughout Gaza. Some of the floats on their parade were vehicles full of home-made explosive weapons. Murphy's Law proved true again, and these explosives did what they were built to do, explode. Except they did it in the middle of a parade, killing 15 Palestinians and injuring dozens more. [BBC Coverage]

Hamas naturally blamed Israel for the accident and subsequently lobed a series of missiles into Israel as retaliation for Hamas' own stupidity. Israel hit back with airstrikes and the usual stuff. More of the same-old, same-old. But I digress.

Now I couldn't help but think of this as another example of When Parades Go Bad. The classic "Parade Gone Bad" was the homecoming parade in the film "Animal House" when the banned Delta House fraternity decided to wreck revenge on Faber College with their Deathmobile.

As a common sense rule-of-thumb, transporting live weapons in vehicles is considered a risky endeavors. Usually weapons are disarmed during transport to help prevent accidental detonation. In addition, other safety steps should be taken against shock, collisions, static electricity, etc. The risks are endless.

Another rule-of-thumbs is that home-made weapons, especially the explosive type, are usually very unstable and unsafe under the best of circumstances.

Murphy's law states "If anything can go wrong, it will, at the worst possible moment".

Combine the two rules-of-thumb with Murphy's Law, and the result is obvious.

Now parents. If you want to your kids to live past their 18th birthday, it is a good idea to avoid parades put on by (a) militant terrorist groups that feature live weapons built and manned by untrained idiots, (b) angry drunken college fraternities.