You may not be able to buy a stun gun in Canada, but there is a shocking number of websites that will tell you how to make one.
A Grey Highlands Secondary School student in Flesherton, about two hours north of Toronto, used such a site to retrofit a bug zapper into an electro-shock device -- like a Taser used by police -- and sold it to another student for $20, Ontario Provincial Police said yesterday.
The students were busted when a teacher saw the bizarre contraption in the hall and confiscated it Monday.
The community liaison police officer, who happened to be in the school, was called over and, in accordance to the Youth Criminal Justice Act, discipline of the students was put in the hands of the school.
'EDUCATIVE'
"These were really good kids that made a mistake," principal Anne Maclaughlin said yesterday, adding the school was dealing with the situation in an "educative" way. "There was no intent (to hurt anyone)."
A 14-year-old student in Clinton, Conn. was accused yesterday of rigging a camera so it could deliver a 600-volt shock.
Unlike the Ontario case, where no charges were laid, the Connecticut boy faces charges of possession of a dangerous weapon on school grounds, attempted assault and breach of peace.
Instructions on how to make stun guns can be found within seconds through simple online searches. Several videos are readily available on YouTube showing step-by-step instructions, while other amateur websites carry blogs and documents explaining the process.
Even the University of Guelph website carried an article reproduced from Radio Electronics Magazine with such instructions.
Complete with a disclaimer noting the stun gun is "considered an illegal firearm in Canada, except for use by specialty forces and law enforcement," the website has since been taken down.
And it doesn't stop there.
Smoke bombs and firearms instructions are also just clicks away.
Last month, there were published reports that a Jihadist website supplied instructions for anthrax production.
The American government was under fire in 2003 when the New York Times alleged a federally run website created to make public a "vast archive of Iraqi documents captured during war" contained documents that experts said "constitute a basic guide to building an atom bomb."
And with the ever-changing and global dimensions of the world wide web, local police are powerless to do anything.
"The mere fact that there's instruction on the website, that in and of itself is not something that we can deal with," Toronto Police Const. Wendy Drummond said. "There's lots of things on the Internet that show people how to do things and make things. It's a matter of what people do with that information."
It would be very difficult, "if not impossible," for police to regulate what kids can learn online, OPP Sgt. Dave Tewkesbury said.
"There still is a responsibility of parents to be aware of what the children are accessing," he said. "The Internet is a wonderful tool -- if you use it properly."
