America is still a nation of creativity and ingenuity without a doubt. If there was any question in your mind, look no further than Kirk Kjellberg. Having run into some issues while carrying his firearm concealed in his home state of Minnesota, the inventor went to work on coming up with a gun which might be a bit less… conspicuous out in public. And what’s the best disguise for a gun in the 21st century? Make it look like a cell phone! (KFOR)

Kirk Kjellberg from Minnesota says he came up with the “Ideal Conceal” pocket gun, designed to look identical to a smartphone, after a little boy pointed out Kjellberg’s own larger, not-so-concealed gun at a restaurant.

“When a little child, a boy about 7, saw me, and said, ‘Mommy, Mommy, that guy’s got a gun,’ and the whole restaurant, of course, turns and stares at you, and I thought there’s just got to be something better to do than this,” said Kjellberg. “It’s more so for people that want to be able to carry a gun when they need to and not have to engage other people about why they’re carrying that gun.”

It hasn’t even hit the market yet, and already the double barrelled .380 derringer-style cell phone look-alike is triggering a lot of debate on social media.

Here’s what the phone gun looks like:

I’ll just start by noting that I’ve probably spent too long being exposed to liberal, anti-gun rhetoric in the media over the years, because even I took a look at this thing and initially thought, er… what?

Upon further reflection, though, I can’t really say there’s any reason not to make this gun or to forbid it. It will drive the gun grabbers crazy, of course, because of the potential for law breakers to use it for crime, but that applies to any potentially dangerous object. The gun has a metal core so it won’t make it through an airport scanner or metal detector and the TSA makes you take your cell phones out of your pocket when you go through the line anyway. It will demand that law enforcement be a bit more vigilant during traffic stops and searches of suspects, but that’s just the nature of the job.

But does anyone really need this gun? $400 isn’t that pricey for a weapon, but I’m not sure what you’re getting for your money beyond the novelty aspect. A .380 packs a wallop to be sure, but like any double barrel Derringer style weapon you’ve got two shots and a long reload process. Also, with a barrel that size you’re going to be accurate out to an astounding distance of ten feet or so. (I’m just spitballing from a first glance at a photograph, of course, so I may be off base. I’d love to see one of the folks from Bearing Arms do some field testing on it.) If you’re in a situation where you’ll be shoving the barrel into somebody’s rib cage at point blank range it’s no doubt going to get the job done, but that’s probably not the default situation.

Further, one of the frequent scenarios described in the need for concealed carry rights is the ability to quickly access a weapon which the assailant doesn’t realize you possess and put it to use. Unless I’m missing something here, this gun is not ready to fire as soon as you pull the “phone” out of your shirt pocket. It needs to be unfolded and (I presume) locked into place in its firing configuration before you can draw down. That may only take a few seconds, but as we’ve seen too often in criminal encounters, those few seconds could represent the rest of your life.

So is this worth the money? I know we have a lot of concealed carry holders among our readers, so let me know your thoughts. Here’s a brief video of the local news coverage to close this out.