Shots and explosives against Minxiong Police

“A man was arrested on 30 August after firing shots and detonating homemade explosives during a stand-off with the police at a residential area in Minxiong township (Chiayi county). He took one person hostage but eventually surrendered to the police; no injuries were reported. The gunman was found to have a criminal record, and firearms, homemade explosives and a hand grenade were recovered from his home. The incident highlights the potential for gun-related violence even in LOW travel risk areas such as Taiwan, where there are strict firearm control laws. Members should remain alert to their surroundings.“

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Source, please.

My company auto sends security alerts to people working abroad. I just cut and pasted from the email.

That’s pretty silly of them. I guess someone in HR is bored and has nothing better to do.

The name of the company providing the alerts is International SOS. They also had this to report:

Reports indicate that the gunman was behaving erratically near his house, prior to taking a resident from the same building hostage. Earlier, in January, the man fired ammunition near a pawnshop in Xiushui township (Changhua county) due to a financial dispute. He is wanted by the police for various crimes and suspected of illegally making modified handguns and ammunition.

In a separate incident in June, a man was fatally shot during a dispute outside a sauna in the capital Taipei. While Taiwan’s strict gun controls and efficient police response reduce the likelihood of high-impact attacks, there remains the potential to use knives and small firearms during criminal activity and personal disputes.

When you have hundreds of thousands of employees around the world and tens of thousands working outside of their home country, this seems like a low cost way to educate people about where they’re moving and educate them on potential risks, mitigating the possibility of a 8 or 9 figure lawsuit.

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They lost me at “efficient police response.” :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

It’s in the local news sources, too (but it’s a cool thing to get those kinds of items sent in English):

https://udn.com/news/story/11315/4020498

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You could get mugged putting the milk bottles out at night in Shropshire.

“Members should remain alert to their surroundings”
:tumble:

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Shows gun control laws don’t work. Criminals will always have guns.

Also there are so many chemical shops around here, if someone wanted to make bombs they just buy the stuff they need. Nobody asks questions here.

:wall:

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Last year I needed sulphuric acid for my scooter battery, walked in a shop and walked out.

Went back home and tried to buy sulphuric acid and no shop would sell it to me. They’d fill the battery but not give me the acid

A Google search leads me to believe they don’t want people to use it for acid attacks… in Taiwan you just walk in and out, get whatever you need nobody cares

I remember sometimes, but not always they will ask you for ID and record your name and all that when you buy acids. Acid attacks is fairly common here too.

Last time I bought HCl from the chem shop they did not ask for ID. It’s the concentrated stuff, not the dilute stuff for cleaning toilet bowls. I had some serious stains in the toilet that I wanted to clean off and thought adding concentrated acid to it and soaking it would remove it.

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I’m in the sticks, they don’t ever ask me anything. I didn’t realize acid attacks were common

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You can get all kinds of acids too, hydrochloric, sulphuric, hydrofluoric (very nasty stuff, people die from burns because it’s highly toxic, in fact a foreign worker died from it recently), even perchloric. All concentrated and stuff. If someone wanted to make real explosives they can.

In the EU these stuff are tightly regulated. In fact most acids are considered “explosive precursor” and are banned unless you are a licensed entity that needs it. But in Taiwan they just don’t care.

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You can mix them, HCL and Sulfuric acid, strong stuff!

I forgot to mention nitric acid too, they’re really cheap too. You can make all kinds of boomy stuff with it.

Never play around with acids, just madness :sunglasses:.

I wonder if the prosecutor is going to let him out on a 50,000NT bond like that other guy who basically killed a cop?