Eighteen-year-old girl shot dead with pen gun in Thailand
There was a sad story down here in Thailand’s South about an 18-year-old girl who was shot dead at a birthday party. A small altercation between a youth and his girlfriend let to an argument and the result was that a girl at the party died with a bullet to the heart.
Guns are everywhere in Thailand. When I was living in Bangkok a guy got shot outside my apartment. What caught my attention about the story I read today was that the girl was shot with a .38 millimeter pen gun. I had to read the story a few times, and even then I was still confused. A pen gun? It made me think back to when I was in primary school and we used to flick elastic bands with pencils – kind of like a gun.
I asked someone in my office what a pen gun is, and sure enough, it’s a gun that looks like a pen. I would never have thought that such a device could be used to kill someone, but it turns out that these types of weapons are commonplace in Thailand (in Phuket at least). I found this diagram that details the mechanism of how a pen-gun works:
It’s pretty simple, which is why they are so popular – anybody can make one. According to the worst news network on earth (Fox), pen guns could be used by terrorists:
A pen gun is a small-caliber, single shot weapon that resembles a fountain pen.
In its weekly bulletin to law enforcement agencies throughout the country, the FBI said that bullet cavities of pen guns could be filled with poisonous chemicals or biological toxins, including cyanide, mercury, arsenic and ricin.
Pen guns are easy to carry around, it’s difficult to outlaw them and they can kill people. Makes you think twice about having an argument at a restaurant. Why do people carry around things like this?
August 7th, 2007 at 10:50 pm
Common sense would say ban them, and impose hefty jail sentences for possession.
IMO the only people with a right to bear arms are police, military, security personnel & some farmers & sporting shooters under strict conditions.
Make it illegal for anyone else.
I know it's wishful thinking, but I'm allowed to dream.
August 8th, 2007 at 2:26 am
have you not seen Johnny English?
August 8th, 2007 at 5:22 am
.38 caliber is a nice sized round… how in the hell do they hold the device and not have it fly out of their hand backward? You'd probably want to drop that thing pretty quick too as it would be easy to catch the shooter… look for the guy with 3rd degree burns on his hand. Vern
August 8th, 2007 at 6:11 am
No, I haven't seen Jonny English yet. Should I?
August 8th, 2007 at 9:41 am
i saw this documentary on the cold war where they showed a similar kind of weapon…..the only difference was that a lipstick was used instead of a pen…so i guess it was more like a lipstick gun.
August 8th, 2007 at 9:58 am
It's more commonly used among vocational/technical school students in gang fights. Easy to make and carry around. Only problem is the accuracy so the chances are that it's probably going to hit the wrong person.
August 8th, 2007 at 10:56 am
i mentioned johnny english cos there is some 'pen gun action' in that movie. i wouldn't say it's particularly worth watching but if u like rowan atkinson it passes a few hours comfortably enough.
January 2nd, 2009 at 6:32 pm
pen gun are illegal and have been for decades. Being illegal only means honest people don't have them. when you get your wish and only police have guns the best armed people will be criminals. Who could be so foolish as to believe that taking guns away from honest people will stop criminals. Gun control increases crime…always has and always will.
March 10th, 2009 at 12:21 am
"make it illegal for anyone but police to have guns" pathetic! you've such a slave mentality. the biggest advocates of gun control are the following, hitler,stalin, mao, pol pot, george w bush. only in a society which has the right and responsibility to keep and bear arms is a people truly free.
May 1st, 2009 at 5:33 pm
ok so all this talk about penguns…
1-why do people have them?: cause they are willing to shoot you.
2-penguns don't take higher than .22 caliber short, anything else and you're looking at serious harm to yourself or annyone near you.
3- thanks for the schematics way to go??!!! you wanna impeed people to make em don't put the schematics online idiot!!! remember when the drug "crack" came out?? they gave you the freakin recipe too…. i don't get that??? if you don't wanna make it easy for people to kill you don't give them the plans to do so.
May 1st, 2009 at 5:36 pm
and by the way your gov't has the moral obligation to protect you so… why are'nt they listening???…… this is why—$$$$$$$$$ and many more $$$$$$
May 15th, 2010 at 8:34 pm
penguns and zipguns (made from older collapsible autmobile antennas are usually small caliber such a .22, however in New York City while consulting for police station I saw photos of a confiscated .44 caliber that was made to appear to be a large machine bolt–in that case look for the person with the big bruise on his hand
But just banning guns do little when Molotov cocktails exist, will you also ban petrol.
Is Thailand losing it's Buddhist culture?
July 26th, 2010 at 8:30 pm
Hobby is a total moron who doesn't understand the simplicity of the pen/zip gun. The zip gun is so god damn easy to make, if teen gangs found out how easy they are to make then countries with low gun violence could all of a sudden have higher gun violence.