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It’s hard to comprehend how much the world changed during my lifetime. Twenty-nine out of fifty states now allow Constitutional Carry without a permit. This was unimaginable to me as a child. Tear gas pen guns, however, were readily available and offered a viable option for self-defense.
Why Tear Gas Pen Guns?
Permitless carry should be allowed. The founders didn’t intend to limit the ability of a law-abiding American to defend themselves. Since 1934, a slew of gun laws have been passed to combat this reality.
In the 1970s, I didn’t know anyone who carried a firearm. Today, every crowd includes at least some armed civilians, at least in the Deep South, where I live.
It doesn’t mean that the world was safer then. In fact, the murder rate was roughly twice as high per capita in the 1970s/80s as it is today. Back then, people used other tools to protect themselves from the wild things.
The tear gas pen gun is one of the strangest options.
Morphology
A pen gun is literally easy to make. The pen gun is a simple metal tube with a steel slug that acts as the firing mechanism, sliding on top of a spring.
Most pen guns have a knob that slides into a slot in the body to activate the bolt. Like a Sten submachinegun, most pen guns have a safety notch to hold the bolt in the rear. The barrel is removable and threaded at the end. This makes it easy to load.
To operate the gun, remove the barrel and drop in a cartridge. Thread it back into place. The bolt is cocked, pointed at something you don’t like, and the bolt knob is loosened. Recoil was fierce in any serious caliber, and accuracy was a joke.
The pen gun was only useful for intimate combat in a phone booth. The pen gun’s real strength was its concealability. Uncle Sam hates such things.
Legal Stuff
The National Firearms Act of 1932 addressed pen guns as well as firearms that looked similar to umbrellas, canes or other innocuous household objects. To accommodate, Congress created a new category of firearms known as AOW or any other weapon. AOWs were not illegal in and of themselves. They were heavily regulated.
You must go through the same process to own an AOW, as you would to buy a machinegun, artillery, or sound suppressor. The transfer tax on those other items is $200 (in 1934, this was equivalent to $4,679 in today’s dollars). Transfer tax for an AOW only $5. The fingerprinting requirements are the same.
Pen guns that fire bullets are really stupid. This legislative subterfuge effectively ended the sale of them. There is no reason for a normal person to ever want one. I own two of them.
It gets even worse
While pen guns that fired conventional fixed ammunition fell under the restrictive purview the NFA, enterprising American entrepreneur proposed a similar device engineered to fire a suffocating fog of tear gas instead of a bullet.
The BATF examined these devices and determined that they were safe as long as they could not be used to fire conventional ammunition. So the world shook for decades.
Since the 1930s, tear-gas pen guns have been available for purchase over the counter. I bought my first tear gas pen gun for a quarter in the early 1970s at a yard sales with money I earned cutting grass. Although you could buy them in stores, the majority were advertised in male-centric magazines at the time.
These tear gas pen guns look and act just like the AOW type. The barrels are usually shortened to exclude live ammunition. They are also typically made of aluminum, rather than steel.
The barrel could theoretically be bored out using a drill press. Aluminum would most likely fail, with disastrous results. Why not build an illegal submachine gun instead? Laws only impact those who choose to obey.
Tear Gas Pen Gun: Technical Details
I did some research to find out what exactly these things were. One example produced by Penguin Associates of Parkersburg, Pennsylvania, advertised its active ingredients as 50% Alpha-chloroacetophenone and 50% Silicic anhydride. Each cartridge is 6.5 grams in weight and can project 3 grams of payload.
Silicic gel is silica anhydride. This is the same active component that you find in those annoying little moisture control packets found in vitamin bottles. It’s just to keep the other things fresh, especially while your tear-gas pen gun is in your sweaty, mucky pocket. The packaging states that the cartridges need to be rotated every 2 years.
Alpha-chloroacetophenone is the chemical description for CN riot control agent. It is also an active ingredient in Mace – a irritant/tearing agent used by Law Enforcement and the Military to control hostile crowds.
I can tell you that this stuff is a real sucka in large quantities. I’m not sure if 1.5 grams of it fired from a pen gun will be very intimidating.
They had lawyers back then, too
This is what you will find on the back of the Penguin gun package under Important Notes.
“When using the Pen as a defense, aim for the center of mass of an attacker and fire. The head will be engulfed by a cloud of gas. The range of the Tear Gas Pen varies from 6 to 12 feet depending on wind speed and direction. The cartridge fires a loud report, similar to a pistol’s, and the gas is projected away from the user instantly. There is no recoil.”
It continues to say, in a paraphrased form, that you are screwed if you shoot it inside an enclosed space.
In researching this piece, I came across a 1937 lawsuit filed by a guy who had allegedly nearly blown himself up using a tear-gas pen made by Lake Erie Chemical Corporation. The case was tried, and the jury ruled in favor of the defendant. The Plaintiff (the guy who was blown up) had to pay for court costs.
These little devices have been reported to blind or burn people. In one instance, a man was shooting a.45 caliber version when it jumped out of his hands, punched his eye and killed him. The report was short on details but I can only assume that he had somehow inserted a live round.
Many of these guns were available with tear gas or blank ammunition. The majority of blank cartridges contained a wadding which was dangerous up to a certain range.
Where to Buy a Tear Gas Pengun
As mentioned previously, tear gas penguns were exempted by the dicta in the 1934 NFA. In 1975, BATF changed their mind. All tear gas penguns made after June 1, 1975 were considered AOWs. Those already in use were grandfathered. There are no tear-gas pen guns on the market that were manufactured after June 1, 1970.
In addition to the one that I bought as a child, I found a second example at a nearby antique store still sealed in the original container. The bottom of the container is made up of foam, just like the ground beef you buy at the supermarket.
I then found three more at an auction for small guns in my region. They were all cheap. No one would want to buy them. I own five.
One is marked with “Lake Erie Chemical Company” while another simply says “Made In The USA”. The example produced by Penguin features the word “PENGUN”, along with an engraving of a pigeon, on the pocket clip. The gun at the yard sale simply reads “EIG-Japan”. The Lake Erie gun has a.410 chamber and a rotating safety. The rest are.38.
Live Fire Report
Just kidding. I would never touch one of those things in my hand, for love or money. YouTube has many examples of people doing this. The results are all pretty disappointing.
This warning was printed on the packaging of one product:
“When entering a hazardous area, have the Protector at hand and retract the trigger screw to the FIRING position. After leaving the danger area (without shooting), lower trigger screw back to SAFETY. “Do not grip the cartridge with your hand over the open end.”
In the last half-century, America has seen many changes. Not least is the art and science of personal protection. If I were to “Enter a dangerous area” today, I would just as soon carry a decent 9mm pistol.
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Keep ReadingThe article Over-the-Counter tear gas pen guns: Personal protection in the Dark Ages first appeared on Athlon Outdoors.
