Gun That Looks Like Pen Cleared ATF

ByABC News
October 30, 2003, 10:59 AM

Oct. 31 -- The guy ahead of you in the airport security line empties his pockets into the plastic tray: keys, coins, wallet, pen. When he clears the metal detector and collects his belongings, he's gotten a gun past security, right under the guard's eyes.

The weapon in this scenario is the Pengun, a single-shot pistol under 6 inches long designed to look to the untrained eye just like a pen until it is reconfigured for firing.

Because of the weapon's shape when it is to be fired, the Pengun requires none of the special background checks the federal government requires for most so-called gadget guns the kind of weapon so well concealed inside an everyday object that it is hard for the untrained eye to notice.

"If I put it on the table, no one will know it's a pistol," said Marc Lefebvre, who described himself as a major investor in the weapon's maker, Stinger Manufacturing Corp. of Saulte Sainte Marie, Mich. "If no one had ever seen our product, 80 percent of them would not know what it is."

There have been no incidents on planes involving the legally sold weapon, and a spokeswoman for the Transportation Security Administration said no travelers have been stopped trying to bring one onto an airliner since federally trained screeners began working at airports 19 months ago.

But gun control advocates say the cleverly disguised gun should be seen as a threat to security and that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should reconsider its decision to classify the weapon as a typical handgun.

Pen-guns are normally classified as an "Any Other Weapon" under the National Firearms Act, and therefore would require stricter background checks to buy than would be required for the purchase of a typical handgun. But because of the design of the Stinger model, which has to be reconfigured to be fired, it is classified as a Title I handgun, an ATF spokesman said.

"We have the ability to re-evaluate this gun but I don't know if we are going to at this time," ATF spokesman Bill King said.

The Pengun received its classification in June 1990, when it was designed by the R.J. Braverman Co. Stinger Manufacturing only began making the gun about two years ago, Lefebvre said.