‘Colt .45’ Phone Draws Fire From Both NRA, Anti-Handgun Group

The novelty telephone looks and handles just like the Colt .45 semi-automatic pistol after which it was modeled.

The “Forty-Five” model telephone is held to the head, 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.

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

The pistol phone was introduced last month at a consumer electronics show in Las Vegas by its designers, Frank Chen of Studio City and Tom Tizzard of Covina.

Aimed at Gun Enthusiasts

The phone is targeted for gun enthusiasts, Tizzard said. He likened it to such things as football-shaped phones for pigskin fans and duck phones that quack instead of ring for hunters.

The National Coalition to Ban Handguns objects to the phone, and the National Rifle Assn. has expressed doubts about it because it fears that the device will reduce the distinction between handguns and toys.

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

“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.

‘Can’t Stop It’

“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 pistol-phone owners “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.” The pistol phone, he said, “is like toy guns, but, because it’s such a close replica, you could lose sight of some safety aspects of real handguns.”

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.

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

Sales Taking Off

Pointing to stacks of orders that were placed after the Las Vegas show, he called it “a Cabbage Patch Kid situation,” referring to the popular dolls. He said his company hopes to have 100,000 phones on the market by Christmas.

Chen is in Taiwan arranging for the phone’s manufacture there and in Japan, Tizzard said.

The phones retail for $150 to $200, Tizzard said. They cock and have safety features just like the real Colt.

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.

“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.”

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