[mete]

From CNN, a man was arrested in Germany for firing potatoes at passersby from a homemade gun. Much better than lead. They are nontoxic, biodegradable and even edible.

[telomerase]

>They are nontoxic

Only after cooking, which destroys the solanine. Obviously Germans cannot be trusted with the toxic tubers; potato registration must be added to the Versailles Treaty (right under where it says they can't have Fokker DXXIs).

[Dave R]

Potato guns have enough ft. lbs. of energy to cause serious injury. Kinda the ultimate in "big & slow".

If the guy was shooting at passersby, he deserves to be prosecuted.

[Mike Irwin]

"Only after cooking, which destroys the solanine."

Cooking doesn't destroy solanine. If you boil a potato, it will be leached out. If you bake it, the solanine remains in the same amounts.

Solanine only develops in any amount in potatos that are exposed to light. Often this accompanies a characteristic greening of the potato, but this isn't a sure fire way of telling if there are elevated levels of solanine in the potato.

If the potato tastes bitter, there's solanine present.

Since solanine only developes in the layer directly under the skin, peeling the potato is the most effective way of removing it.

[Mike Irwin]

"Potato guns have enough ft. lbs. of energy to cause serious injury. Kinda the ultimate in "big & slow"."

You're not kidding.

Last October a friend and I built a spud gun and had a LOT of fun with it where he lives in Iowa.

One night when it got dark we decided to keep playing with it in his garage. Well, we ended up missing what we were shooting into and hit the insulated panel on his garage door. Not very pleasant what happened to the door. Punched a BIG hole in the insulation (probably 2" thick, you need that in Iowa) and popped a nice big dent on the outer aluminum skin.

The next day we decided to see what it would do to the sheet metal on the beater Mazda pickup he was getting rid of.

From about 25 feet we punched a number of nasty dents into the door and side body of the bed.

We also easily broke out the passenger window.

Spud guns aren't toys, and should be treated as any other device that propels a missile.