In the wake of recent terrorist attacks in New York City and at the Pentagon, U.S. officials have begun beefing up security at airports, at border crossings, in ports across the nation and at other points of entry.
A new type of gun could cause authorities problems, however, because it doesn’t look like a gun – it looks like a cellular telephone.
“We certainly don’t want to start pointing our weapons at people just because they have a cell phone in their hand or a pager,” Sgt. Wayne Allen of the Tulsa Police Department told ABC News last year. “So it makes us – it heightens our awareness, it certainly does, and it makes us be more aware of these type of weapons and the people that may use them.”
American officials say the small, high-tech guns have not managed to find their way into the U.S., but analysts and experts say that’s just a matter of time, despite the new heightened security following the Sept. 11 attacks.
On the surface, the gun resembles a normal cellphone. But underneath lies a .22 caliber weapon capable of firing four rounds in rapid succession. The user need only push the 5, 6, 7 and 8 keys to fire it, ABC said.
The guns were first discovered in October when Dutch police stumbled on a cache during a drug raid in Amsterdam. Shortly thereafter, a Croatian gun dealer was caught attempting to smuggle a shipment through Slovenia into Western Europe.
Police say both shipments likely came from Yugoslavia.
“If you didn’t know they were guns, you wouldn’t suspect anything,” Ari Zandbergen, spokesman for the Amsterdam police, told ABC.
“Only when you have one in your hand do you realize that they are heavier,” Birgit Heib of the German Federal Criminal Investigation Agency, said.
The “phones” are loaded by twisting them at the center, which exposes four empty chambers underneath the “digital display,” or the top half. The lower half, under the keyboard, holds the firing pins. The bullets fire through the antenna by pressing the buttons on the keypad.
Amsterdam police said the weapons are “very sophisticated to make” and use the shells of real cellphones.
“We believe experts are involved,” Zandbergen said.
Jim Crandell, a spokesman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, told WorldNetDaily that U.S. officials have not seen the phones turn up here.
“We haven’t seen them here,” he said, “and I haven’t heard of any other agency – Customs, for example – finding them, either. But obviously, in the wake of what has happened recently, we continue to keep our eyes open.”
