Retired Navy SEAL Sick Of Porch Pirates Builds The Perfect Trap

By midnight, the mechanism was built. It featured a heavy plywood baseplate, a steel firing pin, and a spring held cocked by a sliding metal plate. A braided wire connected the slide to an external line anchored to the doorframe. If anyone lifted the box more than two inches, the wire pulled the slide, releasing the firing pin into the blank shell.

Before deploying it, Arthur needed to verify its safety. At dawn, he took the rigged box into his fenced backyard. He placed a large, ripe tomato directly over the top flap seam—the exact point where the concussive gas would exit. He stepped back ten paces, put in earplugs, and pulled the test cord tied to the box. BOOM.

The shockwave rattled the fence boards, and a cloud of sulfurous smoke filled the air. Arthur walked forward. The box was intact, and the tomato sat completely unbroken, merely dusted with black soot.