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Company Creates Gun That Looks Like a Cellphone (nbcnews.com)

Earthquake Retrofit writes: Sometimes you want to carry your gun in peace, but people keep drawing attention to your piece. This very issue plagued Kirk Kjellberg, the creator of Ideal Conceal, a [.380-caliber pistol] that folds up to look like a smartphone. "A boy spotted me in [a] restaurant and said loudly, 'Mommy, Mommy, that guy's got a gun!' And then pretty much the whole restaurant stared at me," Kjellberg told NBC News. He developed Ideal Conceal to avoid those awkward situations. According to NBC News, "In locked position, the two-shot plastic gun with a metal core can be discreetly slipped into pockets, like a real phone. But 'with one click of the safety it opens and is ready to fire,' Ideal Conceal claims. The Department of Homeland Security has contacted him about the pistol, and he plans on giving them x-rays of it so law enforcement can distinguish it from cellphones during airport screenings. An Ideal Conceal prototype is slated for June, with sales beginning in October. The gun is listed for $395."

13 of 678 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Trying to get shot? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    If you are of color, holding a cell phone can already get you shot, in some situations.

  2. Re:I don't want to live in this planet anymore by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    You need to look up the Luby's incident in Kileen, Texas.

  3. Title II Any Other Weapon? by blindseer · · Score: 5, Informative

    I'd think that this gun would fall under the BATFE classification as "any other weapon" under Title II, making it very difficult to purchase in most states. It is a gun designed to not look like a gun, which even if it was allowed by federal law would make it prohibited as a "zip gun" or some other designation by state law.

    I believe that the problem is the hopolophobes can't stand the idea of people being armed for their own defense. Disguising weapons to look like something else is only going to make their phobia worse.

    I also believe that this is an inevitable development. People have been looking for ways to conceal their ability to defend themselves for many reasons for many years. Swords and guns that look like canes are not a new idea. There have been pocket pistols that look like pocket watches since the Civil War, if not earlier. With technologies like 3D printing getting cheaper and more widely available ideas like this will be easier to implement and more difficult for law enforcement to control.

    Not I new idea, far from it. What is new, I suppose, is that this guy wants to market it at a time and place where they've been effectively banned for a century. The laws are changing though. Expect the BATFE to either throw a fit over this or make some ruling that will open the flood gates on guns like this again.

    AOW reference:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    Another thing, concealed carry is getting popular. Nine states in the USA now have provisions in law that do not prohibit concealed carry without first obtaining government permission.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    --
    I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
    1. Re:Title II Any Other Weapon? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      It's not considered an AOW so not regulated as an NFA item or requiring the $5 tax stamp. The AOW distinction for this type of devices is based on it's design when in a firing position. As this "cell phone" cannot be fired till unfolded into a pistol, it is regulated like any standard pistol. If you're curious about a historic example of this, look at the Stinger Pen Gun - which resembled a standard pen gun (NFA item) - but can only fire when configured into a pistol form (non-NFA item).

  4. Re:If you've got it why hide it? by ScentCone · · Score: 5, Informative

    Street crime in Florida dropped precipitously immediately following that state's concealed carry law allowing non-criminals to be armed. It wasn't because all the criminals suddenly went back to school and got really caught up in their French Literature studies.

    --
    Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
  5. Re:Trying to get shot? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    This is a parody, right?

    The shooting occurred shortly after 2:30 p.m. after the man set off an alarm while going through a metal detector and "drew what appeared to be a weapon and pointed it at a police officer," Capitol Police Chief Matthew Verderosa said.

    http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us...

  6. Re:Trying to get shot? by mjtaylor24601 · · Score: 3, Informative

    4) People who understand what a false dichotomy is.

    --
    I wish I were as sure of anything as some people are of everything
  7. Re:Trying to get shot? by Flytrap · · Score: 5, Informative

    The Guardian has been running a live counter of people killed by police in the US. The site is pretty haunting... showing a picture of the deceased as a normal smiling person before they died. While statistics can be projected so as to further any agenda, even a racist one as you rightly state, the raw data - without any biased analysis or interpretation - speaks for itself: 1145 people were killed by police in the US last year, and if you were black, you were 2.5 times as likely to be killed by the police as a white person.

    But this is only part of the story... the Guardian counter allows you to click a link in the image of each person killed by the police to read about the circumstances under which they were killed, and it is clear that the vast majority of these people (regardless of race, ethnicity or sex) were out looking for trouble when they met their demise - criminal intent knows no racial or genetic boundaries - and maybe many of these people got what they deserved.

    I think that the issue that many people take umbrage of is the clear disparity in which police handled the 226 unarmed people they killed in 2015. Once again, many of these so-called unarmed people were not innocent in their endeavours at the time they had their untimely encounter with the police. However, what the facts tell us is that if you were an unarmed black person and had a violent encounter with the police in 2015, you were 3.8 times as likely to be killed by the police as a white person. This includes people such as Keith Childress who failed to drop an object in his hand when instructed to do so by the police - the object turned out to be his cell phone, and one might understand why he might have hesitated flinging that onto the floor - as well as Leroy Browning who allegedly reached for a deputy's firearm during a physical struggle, prompting officers to open fire; Keith did not deserve to die while Leroy probably got what he deserved.

  8. Re:Slice Statistics by Xabraxas · · Score: 1, Informative

    Actually that's kind of the definition of the type of thing that should be restricted.

    --
    Time makes more converts than reason
  9. Re:Slice Statistics by Goonie · · Score: 4, Informative

    OK, then, what about this study? Good enough for you?

    --

    Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
    --Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
  10. Bullshit. by denzacar · · Score: 1, Informative

    You are conflating several bullshit statistics, cherry picked without rhyme or reason.
    Meanwhile, back in reality, concealed carry laws have been debunked as the cause for lower crime rates.
    And no, it isn't the stand your ground laws either.

    Hint: Florida ain't the only state with conceal carry nor stand-your-ground laws. Where are those supposed low Florida numbers in all other states?
    In fact, ALL 50 STATES have concealed carry laws. It's just that some require a concealed carry LICENSE.
    Of those that DON'T REQUIRE A LICENSE - two (Alaska, New Mexico) are first and second on the list of the most dangerous US states, due to their high violent crime rate.
    Florida is ninth.
    Shouldn't easier concealed carry mean less violent crime?

    And what about three other states (New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont) that also don't require a license - but which are among the most peaceful states?
    Vermont and Maine being the most peaceful states.
    How can the same easier concealed carry actually create less violent crime in these states but not in others?

    I.e. Concealed carry, with or without a permit IS NOT the cause nor is it an indicator of violent crime rates.

    --
    Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
  11. Re:Trying to get shot? by Flytrap · · Score: 4, Informative

    This is the problem with selecting a single element of detail out of a body of data and using it to make an argument that completely ignores the rest of the data.

    If you look at the data in its entirety you will realise that no race, sex, or whatever is immune to being killed by the police... especially if you charge at the police with a knife or point something that may look like a firearm at them... the police will shoot you no matter who or what you are - this is just Darwin's theory of natural selection in action - weeding out the stupid gene so that it hopefully does not multiply, regardless of race.

    However, if you look at all the data... not just the part that support the argument that you have already decided you want to make... all of the data... you will see that from time to time innocent men and women, black, white and everything in between, are sometimes killed needlessly by police. Sometimes it is an error - a civilian crossing the street in the middle of a shoot out with criminals - sometimes it is a cop who has had a bad week and that innocent person just happened to in the wrong place at the wrong time when the police officer lost control of their faculties. Regardless of the reasons, if you look deeper into the data... once again all of the data at the same time, not individual strands separated from the rest of the data... you will see that all too often, when this happens... when an innocent person is killed by the police... there is a disproportionate probability that that innocent person is going to be a black male than any other race or sex.

    This is not a point of view to be debated... this is a matter of fact as evidenced by the publicly available data - we can debate why this might be the case, but not whether or not it is happening... that would be disrespectful to all he innocent people, of all races, whose deaths at the hands of the police make up the data we are discussing.

    Now lets go out and celebrate one more gangster, murderer, rapist, etc who was stupid enough to go toe-to-toe with the police... and is now six feet under pushing daisies. We should not forget that sometimes the officers may not have had an alternative option that would safeguard life and property at the time or may have already exhausted non-lethal options at the time they took the lethal action.... sometimes.

  12. Re:If you've got it why hide it? by kwbauer · · Score: 3, Informative

    No, the reality of the situation was that criminals realized that many more non-criminals would now be carrying guns and so the odds of targetting an unarmed victim decreased dramatically.

    Your stupid comment about the police concealing their weapons would only make sense if 1) the vast majority of police were also plainclothes and 2) there were as many police as there are non-police. Since neither of those apply, then your little ranting is pointless or as you put it "a gross insult to intelligence."

    But please keep trying because you just may get lucky enough one day to have a rational thought. They say that if you give enough monkeys enough time and enough typewriters that those monkeys will be able to reproduce the works of Shakespeare so you too have hope.