• Ah, ye olde gunblade. Despite being a collector of weird and novelty knives, somehow I still don’t own one of those.

    I will add that one time many years ago, I took an offhanded joke from a forum post (remember those?) and developed a functional rocket propelled machete. I’m certain the video of it is still out there on the early internet somewhere. It was just bodged together out of model rocketry components and a $5 machete from K Mart. Duct tape was involved. It didn’t work very well but it was worth it for the gag.

      • The rabbit hole in question being why the hell anyone in the government in the '80’s actually believed that these things could “defeat police body armor,” which is why there was a big scare regarding them and they’re now federally regulated.

        Spring loaded ballistic knives are a novelty at best. I’d be far more concerned with a theoretical ne’er-do-well stabbing me normally than pinging a ballistic knife at me with which he only gets one shot anyway.

        • VindictiveJudge@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          Knives are significantly better at getting through kevlar and such than bullets, but if you’re going to use one at any kind of range you would probably need more force than whatever you’re going to get out of a spring-loaded device that can be reloaded by hand.