Right. To me it is self-evident that shooting a cannon and (unintentionally) hitting a house is a reckless action.
I said intent because noodle listed all the things they did do to be safe and ignored the part of my comment where I point out that they (apparently) did not choose a particularly isolated location (if the range is near where Google maps shows Camp Parks, it is a few thousand feet from neighborhoods).
Based on my research, the Bomb and Firing range was built in 1996. The homes in question were placed there in 2006. I wonder if you would consider it reckless to build a neighborhood next to a well-established bomb detonation site?
Where would you have suggested they fire the cannon, and why do you feel your choice is better than the choice of 3 layers of experts, especially considering this is about the 10th cannon-based episode they've done at this location?
Is someone at fault? Maybe. They likely won't use this range anymore. But its really hard to look at what they've done and say it was reckless when its what they've been doing for years with layers of experts greenlighting things every step of the way without any dangerous problems.
It is potentially foolish. Possibly quite foolish. But it's also at least possible that whoever built the houses talked to the sheriff first and believed that things would not be coming off the range with large amounts of momentum.
As far as the location, I don't think I have to think I am smarter than the experts in order to take the position that they shouldn't be hitting houses with cannonballs. It may not end up being a consensus in a world where people want to shoot cannons, but it is a defensible position.
When I consider that they have repeatedly shot the cannon at this location, I end up thinking that 1/10 is still a pretty high rate of hitting houses.
It is a high rate, but as of the 9th time they had a 100% cannon safety record. And as I said, I doubt they'll do it again in this location. Its definitely an unfortunate outcome.
I'm just pointing out that its easy to point fingers and say that something was stupid idea after the fact, even with all the experts in the world working on something. Before it went wrong, I'm sure they were certain they were being as safe as they could be.
I'm fairly sure they had a very good idea of the potential range of the cannon. I'm sure they were aware of the advantages of a larger facility. They chose to use a more convenient facility that they thought would be safe enough.
I guess we probably don't need to keep going back and forth on it though.
