A pound of cyanide ... freely for sale?

So a poor man is found dead in an expensive hotel, dead from cyanide poisoning (technically cardiac arrest or respiratory failure I think, but lets not split hairs), a pound of cyanide was recovered at the scene, that's enough to kill eighty people and then some.

First terrorism was suspected, but now police have decided it was suicide.

A couple of toughts:
People continue to demonize guns as suicide tools, but the substance he supposedly used is readely available to all:

• Denver police spokesman John White assured that the kind of cyanide Dirie had could be purchased anywhere, since it's the primary ingredient in rat poison.

Which also begs the question: doesn't this mean that an ideal weapon for mass murder is simply out there? Where are the million people marches? The "terror gap" websites and the like?

Hazmat and common sense ...

Today I'll talk about a very serious issue, something that can lead to horrible accidents, something that could easely be used as a weapon of mass destruction: legitimate household chemicals.

A woman feared her children had fallen ill at the hand of a set of chemicals used for pool maintenance. As she brought her offspring to the emergency room, she figured it would be a good idea to bring the chemicals along so doctors could use the information to better help her children.
She did not realize that by doing so, she exposed a large portion of the hospital to those very same chemicals, multiple members of staff got sick as well.

Read the story here.

Now, what she did was ... not entirely tought through to say the least, but what mother would not be eer so slightly in panic if you childerne are sick? She tought she was helping, and she basically had the right idea, but not quite.

If you fear that you've been adversly affected by chemicals, do not bring the actual substances! Ideally you could take an empty container or the labels with you, or snap a couple of pictures with a digital camera or cell phone.

Don't drag chemicals with you that are dangerous, and especially do not risk cleaning agents to get mixed, some very common chemicals you use at home may ract with eachother and form highly dangerous agents. People fall ill every year, some even die because of improper use of around-the-house-chemicals.

120 Nuclear smuggling operations busted

The nuclear material involved (including radioactive polonium) is said to be suited for dirty bombs.
In total, over 700 (!) cases of illegal importation were detected! That's what I call a "terror gap"