Gun Groups Fire Pot Shots at ‘.45’ Phone

Tom Tizzard’s novelty telephone looks and handles just like the Colt .45 semiautomatic pistol it was modeled after.

But some anti-gun forces and the National Rifle Assn. think that there are dangers in a telephone that looks like a gun, especially when it’s a realistic replica of a popular weapon.

Tizzard’s “Forty-Five” model is held to the ear, like any other phone, with its barrel pointing up. It is a nearly exact duplicate of a real Colt .45, except that its grip contains electronic equipment instead of ammunition. Instead of a holster, it rests on a standard telephone base.

Telephone for Gun Lovers

The phone that Tizzard introduced last month at a consumer electronics show in Las Vegas is targeted for gun enthusiasts like himself, Tizzard said. It is in answer to such things as football-shaped phones for pigskin fans, duck phones that quack instead of ring for hunters and golf-bag-shaped phones.

“Why can’t the gun lovers of America have their own telephone set?” he asked, demonstrating how models worked in his Covina home that serves as an office for his company, West Coast Competition Shooting Supplies.

The National Coalition to Ban Handguns objects to the phone and the National Rifle Assn. has expressed doubts about it because they fear it could reduce the distinction between handguns and toys.

“We obviously are fighting an image problem,” said Marjolijn Bijlefeld, spokesman for the Washington, D.C.-based coalition that represents 31 organizations seeking to ban handguns from private possession.

‘Absurd’ Contraption

“Anything that further reduces our respect for a handgun as a lethal weapon is absurd,” Bijlefeld said. “One child under the age of 14 is killed every day by a handgun. There are about 1,000 fatal gun accidents a year, and that’s a conservative figure.

“We just try to point to the absurdity of owning something like this. We can’t do anything to stop it, but I personally am someone who would not hold a gun

to my head.”

Ted Lettanzio, spokesman for the National Rifle Assn., said the NRA is concerned that owners of the gun-shaped phone “could become lax in aspects of firearm safety.”

Lettanzio said the NRA believes “that if you own a gun, you have to accept responsibility for its proper use. This (the phone) is like toy guns, but, because it’s such a close replica, you could lose sight of some safety aspects of real handguns.”

Bob Morrison, vice president and spokesman for Colt Firearms in Hartford, Conn., said his company would not comment on the telephone because he has not seen it.

Appeal of Authenticity

Tizzard claims that the authenticity of the phone is part of its appeal.

A gun collector himself, a member of the NRA and a former gun-safety instructor, Tizzard said the phone offers a good opportunity for parents to instruct their children in safe handling of handguns.

Tizzard’s partner is Frank Chen of Studio City, who is in Taiwan arranging for the phone’s manufacture there and in Japan.

“We’ve designed the ultimate phone of all phones,” said the 60-year-old truck driver who is making his debut as an entrepreneur.

Pointing to stacks of orders that were placed after the Las Vegas show, he said his company hopes to have 100,000 phones on the market by Christmas.

Working Detail

The metal phones retail for $150 to $200, Tizzard said. They have cock and have safety features just like real Colts but Tizzard said they cannot be fired.

“Our first design had the receiver in the barrel and the transmitter in the clip,” Tizzard said. “That was pointing a gun to your head and people in the gun business told us that’s a no-no.”

Redesigned, the receiver and transmitter are in a single removable unit in the grip and the barrel points up.

Each telephone will be sold with two sets of warnings and a third on its box, Tizzard said, cautioning the owner not to disassemble the phone, remove it from its base or try to adapt it into a real handgun, warning that it could explode.

Tizzard said he hopes additional models will be ready for display when his company exhibits at the Los Angeles Home and Garden Show in the County Fairgrounds in Pomona on Feb. 20-22.