Unlike the UK, in many countries it’s perfectly legal to wander down the local shop to pick up your Sunday paper with a machine gun slung over your shoulder.
But while the right to bear arms in enshrined in the US constitution (amongst others) what it actually means differs from state to state and, more worryingly, from person to person.
“There are twisted individuals everywhere cooking up a home made alternatives to standard weapons in their garage.”
Even in countries where there are legal controls in place, more often than not there are legal grey areas which lead to twisted (if enterprising) individuals cooking up a home made alternatives to standard weapons in their garage.
Across the world, thousands of wannabe McGuivers are beavering away creating frankly worrying devices like these:
1) The Discs of Death
If there was any licensing for tools this should definitely be on the watch list as he’s managed to a regular circular saw into a projectile weapon of death:
The self-styled ZednoughtAlpha is part of a group called “the Zednoughts”. They might sound like that group of geeks who spent far too long in your local LazerQuest as kids, but they are in fact a collection of artists, creators, and apocalypse junkies preparing themselves to err “stand up for what’s right” come Armageddon.
“In practise ‘fighting for what’s right’ involves wandering around the garden beating the shit out of bookcases and breeze blocks”
In practice what this seems to involve is wandering around the back garden beating the shit out of tatty bookcases and breeze blocks with a variety of medieval looking weapons.
There’s no denying they’ve got talent, however worryingly applied. Their arsenal of axes, body armour and crossbows all look like they could do a good job of messing up whatever they hit.
It’s just… well, it’s an odd way to spend your spare time isn’t it?
2) The Homemade Taser
There’s enough evidence already on the internet to tell you that Tasers are bad news in the wrong hands, so making them easy to get hold of seems like an awful idea.
But worryingly there are also plenty of how to videos for bodging together your own stun gun. Most of them work by modifying bug zappers – which are painful enough to begin with:
This enterprising gent has managed to knock up a 3000 volt model for just six dollars (that’ll be six Kiwi dollars judging by his accent), placing muscle-clenching hurt at your finger tips for less than the price of a Lady Gaga album (which admittedly would probably cause a similar amount of pain).
Thankfully this guy decided to test it on himself. With common sense like that, the day when every home has its own gaffa taped Taser seems a mercifully long way off.
3) Getting Bang For Your Bucks
Firearms are lethal so at least they’re both expensive and require licenses to stop them falling into the wrong hands right?
Wrong, as the little clip above shows it’s completely possible to knock together your own handgun for the princely sum of $5. It kind of makes a mockery of firearms laws when you can just build one in your back garden doesn’t it?
This incredibly homemade looking number fires just one round of .25 ammo at a time, which is less powerful and shorter-ranged than the 9mm stuff found in most legal police handguns, but that wouldn’t be much consolation if it was aimed at you.
4) The Steampunk Sniper Rifle
This steampunk/sci-fi inspired device makes great use of simple science to create an alarmingly cheap boomstick.
Using nothing more than a household blow torch and some plastic tubes this propane powered ‘pop gun’ combusts a perfect mix of gas and air to propel whatever’s in the end of the gun out of it at high speed.
In the upgraded version towards the end of the clip it sounds like a regular gunshot when the gas ignites and the range is not to be sniffed at.
In the video the weapon’s inventor, the Backyard Scientist, actually has to aim low just to keep the missiles in view of the camera. Thank god he’s only firing golf balls…
5) The Small but Mighty Cannon
It turns out that homemade cannons are easier to put together than you might imagine. The Fourth of July favourite above takes just a couple of food tins and some lighter fluid to construct, but it sounds like it means business.
Polish Cannons are used to fire little more than tennis balls most of the time but there are some cannon makers who like to go a bit bigger on Independence Day.
PrepperKip is a YouTuber with a penchant for all things that go bang and he’s got a channel packed full of gun demos from assault rifles to soda can launchers.
Kip has decided to use all this lethal knowledge to fashion his own miniature salute cannon. Made from a couple of pieces of welded pipe and packed with gunpowder this thing goes off like an army mortar.
6) The Lightning Sabre
As we’ve already mentioned there are plenty of cheap tasers lurking around the internet, so how do you make yours stand out? Strap it to a sword of course!
It doesn’t appear like this fearsome-looking blade needs anything else to make it seem more intimidating. After all, if you’ve taken off someone’s leg with one of those wickedly serrated blades the last thing they’re going to be worried about is a little electric shock.
“The charge from the taser embedded in its handle races up the metal and fries whatever it hasn’t already chopped into bits.”
The mental-looking weapon is basically two swords stuck together with nylon pegs. The charge from the taser embedded in its handle races up the metal and fries whatever it hasn’t already chopped into bits.
At this rate it can only be a matter of time before we see the world’s first DIY light sabre.
7) The Wolverine Claws
This has got to be the pick of the bunch. There’s a reason that usually only superheroes have access to this kind of weaponry and that’s cos if everyone could get their greasy mitts on them it’d be carnage down your local on a Friday night.
The frightening ingenuity on display here is nothing short of what you’d expect from a man who has previously created a 70 mph mobility scooter, a jet powered kettle and magnetic boots that let him walk on the ceiling.
It’s great fun watching comic book fantasy come to life but then you realise there’s a guy out there with pneumatic death claws. Frankly this much brain coupled with the childish imagination of a cartoon character can only spell trouble.
Colin Furze, we will be watching you….
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