You’ve heard of Breaking Bad where a normal, everyday man decides to make his own drugs.
But have you heard of Breaking Windows?
Instead of making drugs, a man decided to make his own guns and went around breaking windows.
And no, it’s not a new Netflix TV show.
Man Makes His Own Airguns
64-year-old Lee Keng Hee came across a Nerf gun back in 2017.
A sheet-metal worker by trade, he started studying the mechanism of the gun and decide to make one himself.
He collected scrap metal from his workplace and learnt to make them from scratch by watching videos on YouTube.
In 2018, Lee completed his first two airguns.
To test them, he brought one hundred 6mm steel ball bearings and a hundred 8mm steel ball bearings.
According to ST, he tested them at home.
Bigger, Better, Badder
In Oct 2018, he completed a third, more powerful, airgun.
He had wanted to make it more powerful and consistent compared to his first two attempts.
To achieve that ambition, he built the third airgun with a bigger air chamber so that he can fire more ball bearings with a full pump of the chamber.
This time, instead of testing it at home, he took to shooting out of his eighth-floor unit at the trees and surrounding HDB blocks without letting his wife and son know about his illicit activities.
He determined that he was able to consistently shoot ball bearings into the concrete walls of Blk 453 Jurong West St 42 and continued to use that particular HDB block as his target board until Apr 2019.
Caught
On 3 Apr 2019, a resident of the block lodged a police report.
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He had heard a loud crack before discovering that his bedroom window was broken.
The police arrested Lee after discovering an airgun in his home. Flats which were damaged were also in the line of sight of Lee’s unit.
Dangerous Weapon
Tests run on Lee’s DIY airgun found that it is able to inflict “non-lethal” injuries if aimed and fired at a person.
The speed of ball bearing was also discovered to be fast enough to crack glass.
According to court documents, Lee had spent 10 months manufacturing his own airguns and shot more than 200 ball bearings.
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Sentencing
On 16 Dec 2020, Lee was sentenced to 18 months in jail and fined S$2,000 for manufacturing an arm without a license and firing them at a neighbouring residential block.
Lee’s lawyer claimed, in his defence, that he has made restitution without being asked to and sold his late mother’s jewellery to raise up the amount required for it.
He was also remorseful over his actions, the lawyer added.
For manufacturing or dealing guns, he could’ve been jailed up to three years and fined up to S$10,000.
For committing a rash act, he could’ve been jailed up to six months, fined up to S$2,500, or both.
Featured Image: Google Map
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