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?

Potential for a massacre?

I just read this story of how vandals opened up and apparently contaminated a reservoir for drinking water. Above than normal levels of mercury were discovered.
This struck me, because this is a type of attack that could really hurt a large amount of people: attacking one of our basic requirements for life and survival.

Mercury isn't really that much an issue really, barring somebody getting a large amount of mercuric chloride, we shouldn't be seeing may fatalities resulting from an attack on our water supply with mercury.

But there are other dangerous chemicals, and better targets to attack with them.
Cyanide salts can be bought with little problem, somebody was found in posession of ricin not long ago, ... the weapons are out there!
I'm sure you can imagine a myriad of "targets" for a criminal who seeks to poison a large amount of people, I think I best not share my personal ideas ... wouldn't want to give anybody any ideas.

Seriously, once criminals get wise, guns will be the least of our worries.

Closing the castor bean loophole.

Ricin was recently discovered in a Las Vegas hotelroom.
Ricin, one of the deadliest poisons known to men, half a miligram of which can be deadly.
It would appear that somebody in a vegas hotelroom was extracting ricin from castor beans, I don't suppose he had any good intentions.


What struck me was this last bit:

• "ricin is not illegal to own, but is illegal if processed to be used for poisoning someone."

So ... how long untill the Brady bunch gets their tighty whities in a bunch over this? Their terror loophole speeches are full of "terrorists can get explosives" even though that requires a great deal of background checks in real life, when will they be speaking out against the publics right to own castor beans?

Clearly, these beans are a threat to the general public, a madman might poison a cafeteria or resteaurant, killing dozens! Why aren't they calling for background checks and waiting periods for buying these killer beans?

Maybe that would just be insane, after all: millions of Castor beans pass hands on a daily basis, and never end up killing anybody. It would be madness to come down hard on this food. Guns however, with a 1-in-23000 abuse rate for homicide, maintain their position as fair game for politicians who want to act like they are keeping people safe.