CREDIT CARD SIZED GUN Unveiled

[Worst Username Ever]

Gun shop unveils credit-card-sized gun
Steve Karnowski, Associated Press
October 6, 2004


In a new twist on the idea of concealed weapons, a local gun maker and gun shop are debuting a new type of firearm: one that could almost fit in your wallet.





http://www.startribune.com/stories/462/5018648.html

[Huckebein the Raven]

1. Just what the world needs

</sarcasm>

[aden_nak]

2. Great. Now I have to empty my WALLET at the airport.

[Placebo]

3. Oooooh, how very JAMES BOND-ish

[slackmaster]

25. More like Get Smart

I'll take one to go along with my shoe phone.

[Maestro]

4. Well, you never know when

those rabid quail might jump you in a back alley! :rolleyes:

[On the Road]

5. Now Watch Them Make This in Plastic

so it won't set off metal detectors. We'll be really safe then.

[HiddenInVA]

7. Nahhhh

Anything plastic that size wouldn't be able to handle the pressure from the blackpowder. It'd blow up in the shooter's hand.
Tester<--- not the job that I would want!:o

[On the Road]

10. So How Do They Make Plastic Guns Now?

Just curious. It was really a throwaway line.

[DonP]

13. FWIW, there is no such thing

Plastic guns don't exist, never did, outside the pages of fiction anyway.

A few years back people mistakenly thought the Glock was a "plastic" gun. But it has around a pound of steel in it and makes metal detectors go off like an alarm clock.. It just uses polymer components on the outside so it looks like it's plastic to most people.

Some folks created a big stir about "plastic guns", even though it didn't exist and actually passed legislation controlling something that never existed.

[K-W]

16. They could exist, that is the point.

So they banned them before someone got killed by one first.

I like how you mock them for being ahead of an issue for once.

[HiddenInVA]

23. Not banned

I didn't see anything in the article saying that they were banned. Just
that the manufacturer had brought it out and was showing it off.

If the 'powers that be' start banning everything that comes out on
the market, even before it's produced for public purchase, we wouldn't
have jack on the shelves, due to 'potential for abuse.'

That fits everything: Cars, guns, medicines/drugs, etc.....

[DonP]

27. "They could exist"

Sure they could. So could men from mars or an honest republican.

Do you have even a hint of proof or evidence for that statement?

And yes, I was mocking them. It's a stupid idea.

Just let us know when you find a polymer or ceramic that can handle the 25,000 - 50,000 explosive and instantaneous PSI generated by a cartridge without any metal being used as a casing or reinforcement.

Then we can have our congress and state legislatures get busy and start banning those phasers from Star Terk. They don't exist yet either.

I'd rather have our legislators concentrate on real problems we have today like education and health care and leave the Buck Rogers crap alone.

[On the Road]

26. Really?

I knew about the legislation so I assumed they were real. I had heard that there were a few metal components like springs which could be removed to pass through a metal detector (the part by itself being innocuous) and then reassembled.

[HiddenInVA]

18. "Plastic guns" are a myth

The idea of a 'plastic gun' is both a political & Hollywood boogie-man.
The 'blood-suckers in suits' in DC like to throw out the line about
'plastic guns', how 'people will be able to go through metal detectors at will',
etc.... It's all a scare tactic.

With the exception of some lab experiment somewhere, using exotic
materials that cost more per ounce than we make in a month, the
so-called 'plastic guns' actually use quite a bit of steel in their manufacturing.
Glock, which is the whipping-boy in this discussion, coats the outer
portions of their pistols in a polymer-resin, which helps cut back on wear and
tear on the internal steel portion of the slide. The slide,
barrel and frame are all steel, needed to handle the pressures that
modern 'smokeless' gunpowder produces.

This 'credit card-sized' weapon uses black powder, which doesn't produce the
same amount of energy (and pressure) as modern powders do, but still
enough to blow your hand off.

(Despite what that Hollyweird movie, "Under Fire" with Clint Eastwood,
had the badguy using.) (I think that was the title.)

[ProfessorGAC]

28. But Ceramic Ones Aren't

They've been made. They've been tested. They're not available, but there are ceramo/epoxides that have temperature resistance to over 4500 Kelvins. They have a surface hardness considerably greater than and tensile strength roughly equivalent to a titanium/steel alloy.

They have a surface smoothness capacity that is far greater than steel so, they are being tested for use in engine blocks that wouldn't need lubrication.

The same materials have been used to make both weapons and the projectiles and casings.

I know one of the chemists who's been working on the process to commercially manufacture the ceramo/epoxide. He isn't directly working on the applications, but he is well informed as to the progress of the applications folks.

This information is essentially in the public domain as well, since they've been working on these things for 8 or 9 years.
The Professor

[GreenPartyVoter]

17. Welcome to DU. :^)

[slackmaster]

21. The projectiles would have to be plastic as well

You might put someone's eye out with it.

[scarlet_owl]

6. Finally! I've needed one of these for years!

Kidding, of course.

[realFedUp]

8. Don't leave home without it....n/t

[Romulus]

9. still need a "license" from BATFE to own this

Since this is not compliant with BATFE regs for shotguns, rifles, or handguns, it is no doubt considered "Any Other Weapon" (AOW), and requires the whole BATFE background check (form completed in triplicate with photo & fingerprints), approval of the state or local law enforcement agency where you live, a special Treasury "tax stamp," and related registration with BATFE before you can buy one.

http://www.atf.gov/firearms/faq/faq2.htm#m1

The fact that the credit card gun may be a two-shot muzzleloader (similar to Davy Crocket's musket) may not render it exempt from BATFE regs. http://www.atf.gov/pub/ind_circulars/ic9802.htm

[HiddenInVA]

22. True....

I agree with Romulus on this: It all hinges on whether this is supposed
to use a modern primer, or the old-style cap, like antique muzzleloaders use.

If it uses caps, it'd be considered a BP type firearm, and wouldn't
fall under AOW. If it uses a modern primer, it's regulation city!

[htuttle]

11. Didn't they used to call these things 'Derringers'?

Hardly seems like a new thing to me...

[alfredo]

15. A lot of people lost fingers

using one of those. They'd pull the trigger with their middle finger, leaving their index in finger in front of the barrel. They only did that once.

[slackmaster]

20. A couple of differences...

Anything that is disguised to look like something other than a gun may be regulated under the National Firearms Act.

OTOH the credit-card thing is a muzzle-loader, so it may be unregulated.

:shrug:

[w4rma]

12. I bought a magnum flashlight a while back and it would keep turning on in

my pocket so that it's batteries would run out. To turn it on you had to screw the end of it, and somehow it always got screwed in my pocket from just normal walking.

This credit card gun seems to me that it might have the same problem as my flashlight did.

[LoZoccolo]

14. I have several weapons which are even smaller.

Maybe an inch and a half to two inches long, and a 1/16th-1/8th of an inch wide. They are called "rubber bands", and you can flick them at people.

[slackmaster]

19. Link to Gungeon thread on this subject for anyone who is interested

We're not sure whether or not this item would qualify as an item regulated under the National Firearms Act as an AOW (Any Other Weapon). If so it would require a federal background check and approval of your local chief law enforcement officer to buy one. The process would be similar to buying a machinegun but the tax stamp would cost only $5 as opposed to $200.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=118x89758

I know for sure it won't be available in California.

[RamboLiberal]

24. Here's a pic of one - bet Secret Service not thrilled

or the TSA.



The new guns don't count as firearms under federal regulations because they're muzzleloaders, Koscielski and Teel said. It's illegal to carry one without a permit to for a concealed handgun, they said, and they both pledged not to sell them to anyone without valid identification and either a carry permit or a purchase permit.


http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/10/06/national/main647747.shtml