Tom Henihan,
Smoky River Express
Reporter
@SmokyRiverExprs
There is no justification for producing another configuration of the handgun except that there is a market for it, which is also the best reason for not producing it.
A US company called Ideal Conceal is set to produce a gun that is not just a concealed weapon but a disguised one, created to look exactly like any regular Smartphone.
As Ideal Conceal proudly advertises, the two-shot .38-caliber Derringer is capable of “hiding in plain sight.”
To any law-abiding individual, the advantages of having an invisible gun are difficult to fathom.
However, in regards to public stability and safety the disadvantages can be easily identified.
On its website, the company rather glibly declares:
“Welcome to Ideal Conceal. Carry with confidence, conceal in style. The best gun is always the one you have with you. In today’s day and age, carrying a concealed pistol has become a necessity. But what if you didn’t have to conceal?”
It goes on to tout its new product saying, “Smartphones are everywhere, so your new pistol will easily blend in with today’s environment. In its locked position it will be virtually undetectable…”
The tone on the website is somewhat menacing, almost sinister in its use of the vernacular:
“Ingeniously designed to resemble a smartphone, yet with one click of the safety it opens and is ready to fire.
“The product was designed with safety as a priority. A brand everyone can trust, a piece they can rely on, over and over.”
A piece they can rely on, over and over! What kind of environment must people live in to call for a gun that can be relied on, over and over?
That Smartphones are everywhere is certainly not a good reason for creating a gun that resembles one. In “today’s day and age,” when hyper-vigilance is necessary in places such as airports, train and bus terminals even restaurants, having guns that resemble smart phones hardly contributes to anyone’s sense of security.
It is also a concern, that the Ideal Conceal gun retails for as little as $400 US, considerably less that any top of the line Smartphone.
Democratic Senator, Chuck Schumer asked the US Justice Department and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) to examine this Ideal Conceal gun, wondering why the agency would allow manufacture of a weapon that makes it easier for terrorists and common criminals to pursue their deadly objectives.
This gun also creates a whole new set of contingencies for law enforcement to wrestle with; is a phone just a phone until it fires like a gun, or is every phone a gun on which an officer must fire in self-defense.
A spokesperson for the ATF said the agency had no comment, which in circumstances such as this with potentially far-reaching and tragic consequences, “no comment” amounts to tacit approval.
It is alarming that a country with such a paranoid obsession with personal safety and national security, allows its even greater obsession with firearms to eclipse its sense of reason and moral responsibility.
Of course, now that the Ideal Conceal smart-gun is to become a reality in 2016, very soon, I suspect, there will be Americans claiming the right to own one, a claim guaranteed in the Bill of Rights adopted in 1791.