There was an article in today’s Spiegel, the popular German News magazine comparable maybe to the “Economist” in the English speaking world. The article: Großeinsatz: Mit Pistole und 1000 Schuss Munition ins Kino, tells the story of an 18-year-old in Frankfurt, who went to a cinema to see the movie “Blade II”. He apparently also had some other plans. He showed off an Air Pistol (a Smith & Wesson) to a friend outside the theater, loaded it through and mumbled something of “shooting”. This alarmed the Cinema staff who called the Police. Upon arrival the Police found the man in the last row of the movie theater, the gun on him, and also with him one thousand pieces of ammunition. The man claimed to have bought the weapon on that same day. He was taken into custody and later released but there is now a criminal investigation against him for illegal possession of a weapon. Not a surprise after recent events in Erfurt.
I wanted to write about the story, because the amount of ammunition seems quite excessive and because the story took place in Frankfurt, the city where I worked for the last few years before coming to the US.
I was not quite sure if all the terms I used to describe the story were quite correct, so I pasted the short feature into Babelfish, the popular Alta Vista translator.
I found the results so funny, that I decided to let the Babelfish eat its own translation from English to German and then Babel everything back again, maybe three or four times, until the story turned into the following, slightly DaDa-esque creation:
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Extensive use with ammunition of the pistol and 1000 of the shot in the cinema with an air pistol and ammunition with 1000 shots announced a young person in Frankfurt/Main into a cinema.
Frankfurt/Main - in the opinion of the police the 18-year, which is old to a witness, and comes in as, the cinema was on Friday evening perceptibly been, because it left a weapon of the trousers in the relationship with the words for a shooting case of companion "forms", drew and these through-loaded demonstratively. The causing interest police the changed over cinema and temporarily held the man, who from activity wanted to watch out the film "sheet II" and into the rear cinema row, sat. With holding the officials found an air pistol of the marking Smith and Wesson as well as approximately 1000 balls, which were loaded with round balls. The young man showed weapon and ammunition on the same day in Frankfurt on to have bought. Against the 18-year that, which is newer again old on free foot, adjusts, which represented police an introductory investigation because of the activity against the weapon law became.
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Wow. Wild stuff. One thousand balls loaded with round balls.
I recently read somewhere that American soldiers now use some “simple automated translators” to help them find the whereabouts of certain terrorists and to communicate with locals. I hope they use some advanced technology...because otherwise there will be some “Extensive use with ammunition...” again...