4 March—It’s against the law to make your own guns in Connecticut unless you stamp serial numbers on the receivers or barrels and register the weapons with big bad brother. Firearms without serial numbers are what are known as ghost guns. They’re commonly assembled from parts often purchased (or otherwise obtained) separately and from a variety of sources. The purpose, of course, is to render the firearms untraceable for whatever reasons.

It seems to me that grinding away serial numbers and filing down grooves in the barrels of firearms would be easier and just as effective as building ghost guns. And even that wouldn’t be necessary with stolen guns. But I haven’t had the need to do any of those things, so I can’t be sure.

In all events, even though I think I still can disassemble and reassemble most simple firearms, I wouldn’t know how to make a ghost or living gun from component parts, even with detailed, step-by-step, illustrated instructions.

Back in the early fifties, however, when I was a callow wannabe juvenile delinquent at brand-spanking-new Russell Sage Junior High School 190 in Forest Hills, I put together and fired a very rudimentary type of ghost gun that might, for all I know, be perfectly legal even in gun-shy Connecticut.

The firearm of which I speak was a zip gun. And, as far as I’m concerned, it wasn’t a real firearm. So my assertion in My first time stands. That my zip gun was able to discharge a bullet was without a doubt no more than a happy accident, a matter of luck, or both. It worked as intended and I didn’t injure myself or anyone else. And that’s all that mattered.

Back in the day, zip guns were the firearms of choice for juvies who couldn’t get their dirty hands on the real things. But even the kids who probably could have got their clean hands on the real things, like Donnie Trump in Queens and Richie Blumenthal in Brooklyn, must have contemplated the romance and thrill of zip guns and juvenile delinquency.

The wannabe JDs who worked alongside me on their own zip guns at JHS 190 were the sons of a judge and a congressman, Howie and Comrade Conrad. (Connie was a girl’s name and how could we not call a congressman’s son Comrade? His father was a Democrat, of course, but we innocent kids didn’t consider things like that even as Joe McCarthy was ruining lives.)

Frankie, a state senator’s son, chickened out after Howie gave him some bullets to hold. Looking back, I think Howie’s bullets were .22 caliber rimfire shorts. I don’t reckon I’ve seen any .22 shorts since then.

The zip-gun project was Howie’s idea, by the way, since he had the bullets and wanted to use them. Howie also knew how to assemble the non-firearms. And, if you’re wondering, I was Rocky, not Paulie. Only Italians and Victoria Sansing have ever called me Paulie. At university I morphed to Rosie.

Looking back more contemplatively, I now realize that fearful Frankie was the only sensible kid among us. What did we sheltered, inexperienced, spoiled suburban brats know about bullets, let alone zip guns? Anyway, next term Frankie transferred to the local prep school, which several years thereafter was to expel Donald Trump (who even then must have been a miserable bully).

Our zip factory could have been anywhere, but, believe it or not, we built our zip guns right in the school’s bright new metal shop. Right under the shop teacher’s nose. He had no idea what we were doing and probably wouldn’t have given a damn had he known. JHS 190 was a convenient location. And the metal shop provided the sine qua non of our zip guns, the steel tubing for the barrels.

In addition to the steel tubes, all we needed for our non-firearms was wood blocks for the quasi-receivers, small door-bolts for the quasi-hammers (our only out-of-pocket expense, less than a quarter apiece), strong rubber bands (a.k.a. elastics around here) for the quasi-springs, and tape to hold everything together; since the cloth electrical tape of the day (plastic electrical tape wasn’t available in those antediluvian times) was too sticky on the non-sticky side, I provided cloth surgical tape, which was strong, wide, and sticky only where it counted. We used thumbtacks to anchor the quasi-springs to the quasi-receiver, tape for everything else.

We had no access to the school’s wood shop, so I provided a few blocks of scrap wood of various sizes from our garage. Size didn’t matter. Putting the zip guns together was easier than building wood model airplanes, cars, and ships. (No molded plastic models in the good old days. And the Duco cement smelled great.) I won’t describe the zip-building process, lest big bad brother have conniptions. But it’s obvious and intuitive and no tools were needed. I remember it well and could build a zip gun today if I had to. A better one than ever.

Each of us young armorers built one zip gun and all three non-firearms worked flawlessly when we test-fired them, about a half-dozen rounds each, in the schoolyard with lots of kids and some teachers watching and probably hoping for the worst. No misfires or mishaps. We were careful not to aim our zip guns at the police station across the street. Or at people.

The demonstration went so well that we considered upgrading to bigger bullets for our next project. If we could get the ordnance, that is. But a friendly teacher who had fought in Europe in World War II, after congratulating us on our monumental achievement, reminded us that Eisenhower had only recently ended the Korean War and advised us to destroy our magnificent firearms before we hurt someone or got caught . . .