A political scandal broke out in Mexico today when a photograph of a young congressional candidate posing with a firearm was published on Facebook. The politics of this is far outside the scope of TFB, but what I do find interesting is the gun itself. The Mexican press are calling it an “UZI submachine gun”. It is about as close to an UZI as it is to an AK-47!

I believe the gun is an Intratec TEC-22 / Scorpion. Back in the early 90s Intratec tried to capitalize on their infamous TEC-9 pistol by producing a cheap .22 patterned after it. It was mainly made out of ABS plastic and used Ruger 10/22 magazines. The TEC-22′s designer was none other than George Kellgren, the founder and Chief Engineer of Kel-Tec.

Kellgren was ahead of his time. Today just about every infamous gun of the 20th century has a plastic .22 patterned after it. A couple of years ago Ruger decided a forward magazine fed .22 pistol was not a bad idea and produced the Ruger Charger.

[ Many thanks to Ztryfe for emailing us the link. ]