Posted on 10/30/2013 8:05:55 PM PDT by marktwain
Zip guns are dangerous and shockingly easy to make, according to police. One New Haven resident has been making them and has been doing it for a while. These homemade weapons were powerful enough to kill.
New Haven police found a zip gun on one of three juveniles arrested in a pair of East Rock robberies over the weekend.
Detectives later arrested a fourth teen on Mountain Ridge Terrace. The juvenile, whose name is not being released due to his age, was accused of making and selling up to a dozen different fully functioning zip guns for $200 apiece.
According to investigators, the minor arrested for making the zip guns has been doing it for years and sold the weapons to suspects who are accused of robbing people in the East Rock section of the city.
Police said the teen is highly intelligent. Officers believe he's been building them since he was 7, and is fascinated by the mechanics of the manufacturing process. They don't think the teen ever used them himself, but the boy is known to police.
(Excerpt) Read more at wfsb.com ...
Does the kid have a Fast and Furious model?
I made a single shot 22 via high school Machine Shop. (In between shop projects). Finished at home in our basement shop. Fired it one time. No one know but God and I up until now. Happened in 1952 when I was 17.
Our shop teacher from junior high school promised us if we got through the 19 “easy” projects he gave us the 20th was a zip gun.
I led the class in projects completed. I had nine.
That’s a pretty crude looking piece of crap that kid made. Iuilt a better one in my early teens with a door bolt, a (charitably) falling block firing mechanism and a big spring. It worked but you’d have to be inside the barn to hit it.
in 1952 you could take .22 rifle target shooting at public schools at the school’s own shooting range.
and don’t forget in 1952 you could still direct mail order pistols and rifles from magazines.
My Brother did in 1958, Long Island, New York.
They had a great Gun Club at his School.
I made a bludgeon in my shop once.
That is why all the hype over 3d printed guns is so laughable. Even if you had a 3d printer you could still make a gun that was cheaper, safer, more durable and in less time by visiting your hardware store. Personally I prefer the professionally designed and manufactured firearms that we own.
If left alone he might have become the next John Browning, Bill Ruger who started in home workshops.
> “If left alone he might have become the next John Browning, Bill Ruger who started in home workshops.”
Take a look at the picture of it before you say this. I made better looking zip guns when I was a teenager. I was partial to shotgun ones.
Killing the spirit of invention is more the point.
Yet more evidence the gun violence problem in places where guns are illegal is the fault of places where they are not....
The original 1959 version of Bobby Fuller’s 1966 classic hit “I Fought the Law” as recorded by the Crickets (after Buddy Holly’s death) had the line “Robbing people with a zip gun”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6om4ssqM2lc (cool video, too)
Later versions were changed to the more politically correct “six gun”, giving it an old west flavor, and cleansing it of any connection to “juvenile delinquency”, a societal problem of the day.
“The original 1959 version of Bobby Fuller’s 1966 classic hit “I Fought the Law” as recorded by the Crickets (after Buddy Holly’s death) had the line “Robbing people with a zip gun”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6om4ssqM2lc (cool video, too)
Later versions were changed to the more politically correct “six gun”, giving it an old west flavor, and cleansing it of any connection to “juvenile delinquency”, a societal problem of the day.”
Fascinating bit of history, another example of how we have been programmed.
I would love to know who insisted on that change and what pressure was brought to bear to do it.
Interestingly, there’s another version of the song with the word “shotgun” instead of “zip gun” or “six gun”.
We’ll probably never know the reason for the change. Bobby Fuller was found dead in his car in 1966. Officially, it was said to be suicide, but some say it was a mob hit over a woman.
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