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In about 10 months, a 64-year-old sheet metal worker manufactured three air pistols, then used blocks from the Housing Board near his home for target practice.
Singaporean Lee Keng Hee was intrigued after coming across a Nerf pistol at a mall in 2017 and was determined to make one more powerful than the one he saw.
Yesterday, Lee was jailed for 18 weeks and fined $ 2,000 after pleading guilty to manufacturing an air pistol without a license and committing reckless acts.
After seeing the toy gun, he decided to make an air pistol from scratch and use metal to make one that could fire steel ball bearings.
He used scrap metal from his company’s workshop and did cutting and welding work there.
He began studying tutorials on YouTube and began making his first weapon in late 2017.
After learning that he could use a bicycle air pump valve for the air gun, he set about building a second air gun using this design idea and completed both guns sometime in mid-2018.
He also bought 200 steel ball bearings as bullets, buying more when supplies ran out.
He initially used a cardboard box at home for target practice, but progressed to shooting trees 10 to 15 meters from his home because he was curious about the firing range of his second air pistol, Assistant District Attorney Regina Lim said. .
Its third air pistol was completed in October 2018.
Once again, he used the trees for target practice and then went on to shoot other nearby HDB blocks from his kitchen window to test the firing range of his third air rifle.
He continued to fire at a block of targets until April 2019, firing about 10 balls each time, and in total, he fired at least 200 6mm ball bearings with all three air pistols.
In April 2019, a resident of one of the nearby blocks called the police after hearing a sound from his bedroom window and noticed a crack.
Lee was arrested a day later after extensive door-to-door investigations.
OTHER RESIDENTS
Following a press release about his arrest, seven other residents filed police reports claiming that their windows had suffered similar damage.
DPP Lim said that the airgun Lee had made is inherently dangerous, and said the third airgun was capable of breaking glass from more than 77 meters away.
In mitigation, Lee’s attorney, Favian Kang of Peter Low & Choo, said Lee had fully restored the victims by selling the family jewelry given to him by his late mother.
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