WASP - Compressed Gas 'Divers' Knife:

Patricia Cornwall - author of authentic crime stories centred around forensic pathology - spins a great tale - so when I read her adventure story about a mysterious corpse that had been seen to collapse in a public place with no obvious wounds or bleeding - but was subsequently found to have massive disruption to its internal organs and to have copiously leaked blood while stored in a body-bag - I was intrigued as no doubt all her readers would be!

 Our fictional heroine later determines that the victim had been stabbed with a "Wasp" CO2 powered 'divers knife'.

                                                     WASP Knife - section view. 

In  USA the Wasp knives are offered both as 'Divers Knives' and as "Military and Tactical" weapons and as suitable for defence against large mammals like bears (or sharks) because it's discharge of 40 - 80 cu.in. of freezing gas is immediately devastating - by causing extreme trauma and freezing of surrounding tissue.

This will no doubt be of only passing theoretical interest to New Zealand readers as our Border Control Authorities will likely have been instructed to prevent the entry of any such item into our crime-free land.

Totally futile of course - because any home D I Y handyman with minimal knowledge of pneumatics  would be able to screw together a CO2 capsule (cartridge) with an air valve and six inches of sharpened small bore steel pipe in minutes - to have the same effect!

                                       Wasp attack on Water Melon.

The 'Wasp' knife works something like a 'Powerhead', 'Shark-stick', or 'BangStick' - names used by SCUBA Divers for various arrangements of modified firearms cartridges mounted on the forward end of a shaft or spear. When the 'shark-stick' is forcefully pushed into direct contact with the body of an aggressive shark - the cartridge is fired (by a static pin) and the full power of the propellant gasses (and any projectile load) is absorbed into the target - destroying organs and surrounding tissue.

                                                 'Bang Stick' from Google.

That's the trouble with technology - once something has been invented or discovered - nobody can dis-invent it or 'wipe-out' that knowledge.

- Think about the current media favourite - the **3D Printed Gun** - It's certainly going to present some new issues for our 'leaders' to worry about - but anyone with a hack-saw and a set of spanners (wrenches) has been able to build a crude firearm for the last couple of centuries - well certainly since steel pipe was produced ! - Think 'Zip-Guns'.

                      3/4" pipe plus a rubber-band and a nail = 12gauge shotgun.

Oh well - if only the useless politicians would give as much thought to controlling and getting rid of their WMD  & nuclear missiles as they do to our small arms. - Flipping Heck - do our rulers seriously think that we believe they are telling us all they know that happened to Malaysian MH370 and all on board?

Marty K
After researching & writing 1,036 blogs I've got something NEW to try .. I've signed-up to Patreon. - In over five years I've not made one cent from this .. NOW you can send me a wee support $ - starting from $1. to get all this stuff from New Zealand - over a year that's nearly the price of one Shooting magazine. - Am I worth it?

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