What is "bug-a-salt"

Bug-a-Salt is a plastic gun that sprays table salt like a shotgun, in a conical spread pattern.

Lorenzo Maggiore invented it to kill houseflies at a distance, without creating a mess. Maggiore sold 21,400 guns for over US$577,000 on Indiegogo by September 2012.

Michael Dickinson of the California Institute of Technology says flies cannot dodge the tiny salt particles but they will be protected by their arthropod exoskeleton and only be stunned. However, the inventor demonstrates in his YouTube videos that flies are indeed penetrated by the salt which causes them to dehydrate and eventually die (leaving them whole for easy cleanup).