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A US-based firm that specialises in concealed weapons has created a gun that looks just like a smartphone.
Ideal Conceal says the new handgun, which is set to go on sale in the middle of this year, will look like a modern smartphone before folding out into a double-barrelled pistol.
“Smartphones are everywhere, so your new pistol will easily blend in with today’s environment. In its locked position it will be virtually undetectable because it hides in plain sight,” the company’s website says.
No one wants to be in a dreadful situation that may require you to defend yourself with the use of deadly force,” the company adds.
“Yet as the old adage goes: ‘It’s better to have a gun and not need one, than to need a gun and not have one.’”
The device will be available for $395 – around £277 – and is already in huge demand according to Ideal Conceal’s chief executive Kirk Kjellberg, who says the idea for the design first came about when a kid spotted his gun.
“This little kid says, ‘mummy, mummy, that man’s got a gun,’ so the whole restaurant looks at you like you’re about to shoot the place up,” Kjellberg told International Business Times.
“So I thought to myself there’s got to be another way to be able to carry without bothering other people.”
The new smartphone gun can not be fired from the closed position, with the trigger not becoming reachable until the gun is unfolded.
Gun control remains a hugely controversial issue in the US, where the ‘right to bear arms’ is part of the country’s Constitution and therefore seen as a given right by many citizens, despite a huge number of high-profile mass shootings in recent years.
