Actually, nitrate is a little short of the mark. Modern smokeless propellent is based on nitroglycerin and/or nitrocellulose predominantly. While it's true that the molecular constuction of both contain nitrate submolecules, the chain sequence of nitroglycerin, or tris-nitroxy-propane, bind up the nitrates in a much more unstable and irregular fashion than conventional nitrate molecule chains like that found in fertilizer, which require a solvent to liberate the nitrate molecules into an unstable configuration. That is why you don't mess with unbuffered nitroglycerin, and why they add buffers, stabilizers, etc to make smokeless propellent really safe to handle. When UV and heat decompose the additives, you have problems.

Nitroglycerin is the explosive component of dynamite, which is a common explosive agent that the dogs are trained to scent. That's why the dogs key on powder residue.

Even if you look scruffy (long hair, a couple days of beard, beat up jeans), body language is going to cover you most of the time. When it doesn't, and the cop asks you what you are carrying, tell him the truth.


If he chooses to arrest you after that, go along with the gag. Tell the judge the truth. Stress that it is a first aid and emergency kit. Or better, a handful of first aid and emergency items you carry with your daily stuff.

If that doesn't work... I doubt I could convice everyone here that breaking would be a good idea. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Depending on the sensitivity of the dog's nose, and the amount of time since you've gone to the range, and how many times your clothes have been washed... YES, we occasionally have one of the contractors get hung up in the explosives detectors at the gate at the Nuc plant... and a (trained) dogs nose is a lot more sensitive than the sniffers at the gate.

Supposedly which direction you look depends on which part of your brain you are using. If you are remembering stuff, you look in a different direction to if you are inventing stuff.

For naive use it is not very reliable. One reason is that inventing stuff doesn't necessarily mean you are lying. Brains are complicated. For example, if I ask you how many chairs in your kitchen, you might remember it directly as a number, or you might imagine a little picture of your kitchen and then count the number of chairs in it. The counting phase could involve a different part of your brain to the remembering phase.

Another reason is that you really need to "calibrate" it because we are not all the same. For example, a left-handed person won't necessarily look in the same directions as a right-handed person. And of course, if you know the trick you can be trained to fake it out.

That said, I'm told it is a technique used by professional interrogators, eg against captured spies in the military. And it may be the kind of thing which people use subconscously. Don't try to fool your mother. She will have the calibration down pat.

Let's get back to the original point here. What, exactly, are you carrying that would subject you to arrest? Most people on this forum carry a folder, fixed blade, or pocket tool. Other than that, there is very little in your pockets/pack that would get you in trouble (maybe some strange looks, but that's been covered in other threads).

Some states ban knives over 3 or 4 inches, switchblades, etc. The law is usually written with exceptions for use in a trade, while hunting, or for some legitimate purpose. The exceptions are usually loose enough (and a policeman's understanding vague enough) that how you interact with him can be just as important as what you have on you. Well, unless it's a big honkin' machete.

Some things are against the law because they're bad, and some things are against the law because they're against the law.

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Supposedly which direction you look depends on which part of your brain you are using. If you are remembering stuff, you look in a different direction to if you are inventing stuff.
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I'm not saying it's a good test, I'm saying he THINKS it's a good test.

I assume you haven't had a lot of experience with private security/high security personnel, common sense and "strictly legal" go out the window... you're guilty until proven innocent, and while it may not get you locked up in prison, it can be VERY frustrating, and possibly end up costing you LOTS of cash, in the form of missing/lost work. Long story short, when I'm working the Nuc.s, I stay away from the range and hunting. As far as EDC goes, I've never had a problem, but then again, I don't/haven't flown any where since 9/11, and don't plan to as long as I can avoid it. I refuse to pay to be hassled that much.

Troy

It is inadmissable, as it is unscientific. I'm cross-domanat *raises right hand, quirks left eyebrow*. When I'm bs-ing someone, I look them dead into the eye that is probably dominant, based on thier obsderved handedness, and let them wilt under my gaze.

Oh, wait, I do that most of the time.

If were you were looking during a first questioning was all the probable cause an officer could come up with for giong forward, and you didn't walk, your lawyer wasn't trying.

At worst, I think a cop might give you some grief about a large knife. Otherwise, if you act like a normal, decent human being, the most you'll get is an odd look. (Of course, there are always wannabes and personnel with chips on shoulders, but every profession has those.)

Re judges, a cop brings a case like this into a courtroom where a judge has a packed calendar, the man or woman in black may well get PO'd and bounce it most rapidly.

Re dogs ... they may be less than rare in large cities, but the cost of acquiring, training, housing, paying or rewarding comp-time to their handlers will mean they'll not likely become common in small-town American. A lof of small departments still can't afford (or won't spring for) narcotics-trained dogs, which are much more readily available.

Course, if the demand goes high enough for explosive-trained dogs, the market will supply them. It's no harder to train the right dog (nose, drive, intelligence, desire to please) for explosives than it is for drugs, termites, fire accelerants, whatever.

In short, i think with or without a dog, most cops have enough real things to worry about w/o hassling Joe Average who happens to carry some survival gear.

Don't come to the LaSalle county area if you don't expect to find K-9 units, almost every municipality has at least one, and for the few places that don't, their neighbors are only too happy to assist, they're primarily drug-dogs, but most; Ottawa, LaSalle, Utica, Peru, and (I think) Streator are all cross trained for explosives. About ten years ago, everybody started competing to have the fido with the most busts, and since 9/11, explosives have become a high priority second interest. I personally know some of the handlers/partners, and I wouldn't even think of trying to get something past their animals, like one of the guys is fond of saying "the nose knows". Maybe the generous amount of coverage in this area has something to do with the proximity to the Nuc plant, but I don't think so, because, as I said, most of them started out as dope sniffers.

Troy