Lethal Mobile Phones
Created | Updated Aug 12, 2004
'And they used to wonder why I always looked worried whenever someone was pointing their mobile phones in my direction...'
Extract from Loup d'Argent's (unpublished) Memoirs.
It was something that, at first, seemed to have come straight out of a James Bond's story and was, for a while, just seen as a rumour on the net and through emails...
Unfortunately, it appears now that the 'mobile phone guns' do exist after all.
Description1:
The 'phone guns' fire four .22-caliber bullets in quick succession through their top when the 5, 6, 7 and 8 buttons are pressed and are said to be lethal at close range.
They are definitely not the most attractive mobile handsets around and would probably fail a close inspection with their four holes in the top, their odd looking 'aerial'2 as well as their extra weight due to the four barrels and bullets...
Oh and you can't make or receive phone calls with them.
But, in a badly lit area they could still be mistaken for the real things, which could explain why already a German nightclub owner has been asking his customers to leave their mobile phones at the entrance...
A 'better safe than sorry' policy that could be the best one of all in this case somehow.
European Market:
Quite a few of the 'phone guns' have already been seized by the Police during drugs raids in the Netherlands, Germany, France and Great Britain these last four years...
They are believed to be smuggled into the Western Europe from Eastern Europe, where they are originally made.
So far, they do not appear to have found their way into the USA...
Don't Panic:
Security experts are adamant that the screening equipment in use at airports can detect those deadly mobile phones as well as other 'improvised explosive devices' such as fake calculators, cameras, laptops and PDAs.
They seem to know all the tricks in the book somehow as they've also acknowledged that: 'Even a screwdriver could conceal a shotgun shell in a hollowed-out handle.'.
To be on the safe side, it might be a very good idea to not point your mobile phone toward anyone, and especially not in the direction of a Police Officer, when wanting to make a phone call though...
'We find it very, very alarming. It means Police Officers will have to draw their weapons whenever a person being checked reaches for their mobile phone.'
Wolfgang Dicke (German Police Union)
See what I mean now?...
Post Scriptum:
Hmmmm... Thinking about it, I'm wondering now how long it will take for the use of mobile phones to be banned in public places.
Not that an impossible thing to happen, really...
