OTOH, in today's society, witness the need for "safe spaces" for college students. REALLY?
Yeah. It's beyond sick. There's only one "safe space" any sane person will ever need or want and that's called "home". If someone is not mature enough to handle the reality and the world in general, (s)he should stay there and disconnect all communications until (s)he does.
In any case, my youth was littered with explosives and flammables. Whatever could be detonated by a passing train or tram without causing any meaningful damage, went on the rails. Rifle primers, cap gun ammo, 1oz propane tanks, coins, whatever. We probably caused a good half a dozen different tram drivers to soil themselves, some on several occasions. Never got caught, though.
A bit later on I managed to order Anarchist Cookbook from late, legendary Paladin Press. It didn't take long before we became regular customers in local pharmacies and chemical suppliers. Cooking PETN at home, filling 110lb fertilized bags with diesel fuel at a gas station (nobody cared back then and there were no CCTV cameras), mixing bag after bag of iron oxide and aluminum powder in a blender; the works. Surprise that we didn't manage to blow ourselves up.
To celebrate one new year, we decided to take some 550lbs of ammonium nitrate a few miles out to the ice on frozen sea, use some anite (mining explosive) as a start charge, and all we had for a timer was ten feet of fuse cord. About three minutes to GTHO. We had a snowmobile and a pull sled to transport everything.
Once the charge was set up and the fuse lit, we took off. We knew this was going to be a serious boom so we hid behind boulders on the shore of a nearby island, about a quarter of a mile away. No-one could expect the magnitude of the blast, though. It was serious. It made a 300ft diameter hole in the ice and blew the (fresh) snow off any tree within half a mile or so. And, fortunately, obscured the snowmobile tracks in the snow to the blast site. Despite the distance, it was close to blowing out our ear drums.
A few minutes later we were celebrating "the biggest blast EVER" when someone thought they heard a helicopter. Yep. And not a small one. We hastily retreated back to the island when the chopper arrived. A full blown coast guard Super Puma, with searchlights. We spent the next couple of hours hiding, in 0°F weather, waiting for the helicopter to run out of gas when it hovered above the blast site and swept all nearby islands with searchlights. Eventually it left. Fortunately they didn't have decent thermal cameras back then.
Oops.
Never got caught but learned a lesson. That was the last major bomb I ever made. I've toyed with the idea of passing the knowledge and experience of bomb making to my kids but knowing how many times I was >this< close to blowing myself (and the house, maybe half the neighborhood) up without even realizing it myself at the time, I rather not. Household chemicals are best left uncooked.
No wonder I ended up marrying a chemist, D.Sc. at that.
Don't forget the homemade Tannerite before there was such a thing. Then putting a 5 lb sack of flour on top of the jar and shooting it with the aut six. Those times I stayed camping out in the back 40 for a week before I came home to let things settle a bit.
