Well this puzzle to the right looks harmless enough. It’s an intricate, probably difficult-to-assemble 125 piece puzzle made with differently shaped blocks assembled from different kinds of metal. What a quaint conversation piece for the coffee table or fine gift for that young man down the street with a knack for puzzle-solving. The puzzle’s name? The Intimidator.
And that name isn’t just because it’s difficult. It turns out, The Intimidator could also be one hell of a TSA security problem if they’re not careful. It may not look like much, but first of all, it’s a block of metal. That’s probably going to hurt if you bash someone over the head with it, but that’s not the main area of concern here.
It turns out if you disassemble the puzzle, which requires a special key to take apart in the first place, about 20 of its pieces can be re-assembled to create this:
That is a single-shot .45 caliber handgun. A working one. One that can fire a bullet at gun-speed, like a real gun. Because it is a real gun. And that is a terrifying notion. It even has a laser sight. Below is a video of the disassembly/reassembly-as-a-gun process. The video is over seven minutes long, so it’s comforting to know that if someone were to try to do this on a plane, they’d probably get noticed.
Published: Jul 29, 2010 11:15 am