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FIRED SPUD NOT A DUD IN SHOOTING
You say "potato," I say "high-speed projectile."
That's the conclusion of Oconee County sheriff's investigators who believe a home on Lake Wellbrook Drive was the site of a drive-by potato shooting early Monday morning.
Someone fired a spud into the home shortly after 3 a.m. Monday at a speed fast enough to punch through a double-pane window and break two shutter slats before the vegetable smashed against a wall inside the house.
Investigators believe it was fired by a "potato gun," a homemade contraption usually made out of plastic or aluminum pipe and used to shoot potatoes at high speed.
The "guns" use flammable substances such as hairspray or brake fluid, lit by a spark, to propel the potatoes, said Oconee Sheriff Scott Berry, who admitted to having his own potato gun.
"I have one at home, and if you look at the Internet, there are lots of places and people who offer directions for making them," Berry said. "It takes $20 or less of PVC pipe from any hardware store."
He's not the only person in the sheriff's department with one of the
homemade "guns," Berry said. They're used for amusement to launch potatoes across pastures to see how far they'll travel.
"There's all kinds of stuff like this," he said. "There's 'punkin chunkin'...
If you look on the Internet, you can find directions for all kinds of vegetable launchers."
The Internet Google directory includes a "potato cannon" category that has links to a chat forum, sites that offer the contraptions for sale and a number that detail how to build one. One of the most popular Internet sites, the Spudgun Technology Center (www.spudtech.com), includes instructions for building one
of the guns - also called "spud cannons," "spudchuckers" and "spudzookas" - as well as personal stories from spudgunners who visit the site, a section on legal issues and a scan of a November 2002 article on potato guns that that ran in the
men's magazine GQ and mentions the site.
"Keep in mind that PVC pipe/fittings are not approved by the manufacturer to be used for the purpose of constructing spudguns," disclaims the site several times, often in large red typeface.
Although the vegetable chuckers are designed for amusement, the damage they can cause if used improperly is no small potatoes.
"The truth is that at close range, they can be dangerous," Berry said.
His launcher can put a potato through a half-inch piece of plywood, he said.
The sheriff's office didn't have any suspects yet for Monday's incident. A vehicle with a loud muffler was heard leaving the area after the potato was fired, according to an incident report.
From the Athens Banner Herald, Athens, GA
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