_{*Quick Summary: The author made and sold potato guns until a few incidents led to him abandoning the practice.*}

It’s time to talk about one of my lower moments in judgement. Years ago in between jobs in the early-mid ’90’s, I spent a lot of time and money doing R&D on, and later building/selling potato guns. These were fun toys for adults to launch potatoes, rag balls, apples, or whatever else you wanted to try to stuff down a 2″ PVC tube and send flying through the air. I did pretty well selling them to friends, and traveling around with batches of them in the back of my truck, at times selling large quantities to single buyers.

I sold a bunch to the guys who did all the personal watercraft stuff for Vanilla Ice in Miami. They appeared to have had a large client base of “questionable income”, and those folks wanted anything with the word “gun” in the name. Miami was by far the home to my biggest buyers, and back then, I was more than happy to be their supplier of choice for spud launchers. As I sold a few hundred or more in Miami, the demand became increasingly high, and supply was low as trips were so infrequent, others started building the guns there. They’re easy enough to build, so I knew it was only a matter of time until they didn’t need me any more.

I found out later from a connection down there that my guns were the direct inspiration for the gun built by the guy in the Dave Barry article below. If you Google it, you may find other, no-so-funny articles where gangs were using them to shoot each other and innocent people as well. There were even some deaths. That, along with the local police here beginning to ask questions, and leaving word at my stops that the guns could/would be treated as weapons, and my tater gun building days were over. Even knowing you can kill someone with a tennis racket if you want to, it really bugged me that people got hurt and killed in Miami and elsewhere. While it is certainly possible, none of these violent events were ever directly tied to my guns, but still, it was clear I was part of the problem. If I could take all that back, I sure would, but it taught me that even if you don’t intentionally want to hurt someone, your actions have consequences beyond what you may realize.

To lighten the mood a bit, here are two comedic takes on potato guns, one from Dave Barry, and one from Gary Larson:

UPDATE September 17, 2020: Imagine my surprise when I see, all these years later, a documentary mentioning some of the people and places in Miami I was familiar with! I knew I was dealing with sketchy people, but WOW! It’s a small world! Check out this movie, then come back and ask me which of these guys I sold potato guns to! https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7983794/