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New Jersey Enacts 'Smart Gun' Law
rmohr02 writes "New Jersey has just enacted legislation that would require all handguns to be able to recognize their owners and only fire when their owners grip them. Gun manufacturers will be required to implement this within three years of the NJ Attorney General's approval of an acceptable, commercially available model. One critic says 'No technology is foolproof--anyone who has a computer knows how many times it crashes.' I'm sure fellow /.ers will have something to say about that. Also on Google News"
If guns don't kill people, but people kill people, then wouldn't it follow that New Jersey should enact a "Smart People" law???
What's to prevent someone from buying a gun in another state? And it does nothing for preventing gun crime. All it does is maybe prevent kids from finding their parents' guns and killing themselves, and the solution to THAT is responsible, diligent parenting.
George W. Bush
President, United States of America
If your going to allowed to carry guns, at least
they should be made so someone else can't use them
against you. I am sure some gun nuts here, are
going to be against the idea, but i can't imagine
a reason why. And yeah it probably won't be secure at first, and they'll be underground gangs rechiping the guns. But it makes it harder for criminals to get guns and that has to be good.
I'm curious if when this legislation goes into effect if all new handguns issued to NJ police officers to contain this technology or if handguns for police have been exempted.
by this is the people that sell guns in New Jersey. It's like outlawing fireworks, people just go across the state line to get them. So if you want a cheap gun get an older used one that isn't 'smart' or bring your business elsewhere. I'm sure that the shop owners will be pretty pissed off, and that this won't help lower crime at all. I'm glad that legislatures look ahead, I just hope that they are planning on repealing the law once the technology comes up to speed on the issue. That would be a really good plan.
//TODO: signature
"No technology is foolproof--anyone who has a computer knows how many times it crashes"
The blue trigger of death?
People will just buy guns out of state... not really a big deal.
Although, I like this concept to a degree. I currently live alone, and I keep a gun handy... because I know that if anyone is in my house, it's not anyone that should be there. I feel secure that if I were to be forced to shoot someone, I would not be shooting someone accidentally that I had not intended to do harm.
All that changes though if I get married or have someone living with me. I won't keep a gun around, so that either I, myself, could make a mistake, or the person living with me shoots me coming home late.
Having a gun that would only fire by my own hand would be a good compromise for me, as I would feel secure walking in my house late at night, knowing my wife won't get antsy and accidentally shoot me (or god forbid I piss her off somehow...).
It would still leave me with the problem of potentially shooting someone who might be there, but it would eliminate a big portion of my reservations towardsd keeping a gun easily accessable in the house with more than one person living there. (Lets face it, if you keep a gun locked up and not easily accessable, there's no real point in keeping the gun for "self defense." If you need it for self defense one dark night, you won't have time to find the key, open up the locker, load it and bring it to bear.)
I'd like to see some robust smart gun technology hit the shelves, it would be great. (That doesn't require a bracelet or any "extra" accoutraments to work)
It never ceases to amaze me just how many dumb and stupid laws that politicians put in place. We've all had a laugh at the laws which prohibit beheading your wife in public on Fridays and other such nonsense, but what we don't realise is that that these laws are still being passed.
Look at Australia's internet censorship laws. Less than two years later, it was pointed out that they had come in to effect, but were totally unworkable and had never seriously been applied. This sounds to me like very much the same kind of law.
If people believe I'm wrong that these proposed laws, I'd like to know why you think it and how you think it could be implemented and enforced.
You and Michael are pathetic fucktards. Why don't you just come out and say that you want this to be a gun control debate?
Oh, and I'm sure the eurocunts and canadian pussies whose governments have taken away their guns will have something to say. Of course, they've been all brainwashed to think that guns are somehow sentient and kill by themselves.
Later leftist bitches. We'll be kicking Saddam's ass and there's not a damn thing you eurocunts can do about it.
Oh, and a shout out to the muslims. All of you subhuman mutants will soon be going to meet your 80 virgins or whatever.
I wonder if these things will be hardened against EMP attacks. If not, it would not matter if they used a transponder ring or fingerprint recognition; either way a powerful radio signal is all a criminal would need to disable all the guns in a home before breaking in.
I'm especially interested in the transponder ring systems. I'm sure that hardware types will try cobbling together a universal ring...
"Weapons should be hardy rather than decorative" - Miyamoto Musashi
I think that goes for OS's too
Most of these type devices, that I have seen, involve a magnetic ring of some type. My only concern is what happens, when you take it off.
Nightmare scenario, you fall asleep without your ring on, and awaken to the sound of a burgler, but forget your magic ring.
Also the reliability of the device would have to be paramount, due to the device they will be installed upon. What happens when this breaks?
Education is the key. I grew up around guns, as did others in my neighborhood. Even as children we knew how to operate, and maintain them.
Responsible parents need to accept the liabilities associated with gun ownership, and lock up their firearms as appropriate, when there are children in the environment.
p.s. on a related, but barely, topic if parents would start parenting, instead of letting the tv, and computer raise their children, this issue would be practically moot.
This space intentionally left blank.
Every Shadowrunner knows that smart gun technology is something else all together (integration of the gun's sighting system into a cybernetic type of retinal display.)
I'm sorry, but the mainstream media is just going to have to find some other term.
Palaces, barricades, threats, meet promises
Designed for Microsoft Windows (Read literal BSOD)
Someone hates these cans.
The home of Torricelli, Harrison Williams - nay, the very bastion of corruption in government provides us with more stunning legislation sure to cure the nation's ills.
After all, criminals will be sure to get 'smart' guns. Ditto for inner city residents looking for personal protection. Right? I mean they can't speak english - resist it, even, but they'll get a smart gun. For sure.
More crap that sounds plausible but is really utterly useless. Cheers, Trenton!
Anyone got any ideas for where to move? 33 years of NJ bullshit is enough for any one person.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Wouldn't this only apply to guns sold in NJ and therefore be easy enough to say, drive to NY and purchase one without the technology built into it (which would probably mean that its cheaper?)?
Also, like the article said, its kind of silly for NJ to legislate requireing the use of something that isn't yet out on the market (and therefore untested)?
Oh well, we'll see what develpes.
moo
dont belive me. see the web site:
www.marijuanahomedelivery.ca
Now all you need is a mail forwarding company.
I'm sure glad that no one else has decided to embed computers in other life sustaining things such as hospital I.V. machines...
and the solution to THAT is responsible, diligent parenting
You mean a solution, not the solution. It seems that this technology would also be a solution, and given the percentage of brain-dead parents there are out there who own guns in reach of children, I think this solution will be much easier to implement than a "no brain-dead parents" law, however you might word that. And given the importance of not having holes in the heads of kids, and the frequency in which these accidents occur (much more than any other gun-related death), I think this is a very prudent decision.
"Question with boldness even the existence of a god." - Thomas Jefferson
when gripped by just about anybody.
Seriously though, WTG lawmakers. Now I feel very secure and safe. I think this will stop all crime. Brilliant, just brilliant. Really, fucking-A good job. I can't believe no one else thought of this before. Revolutionize the whole business of fighting crime. Amazing.
Nuclear weapons are not required to generate EMP... ...dumbass.
If they have a hand held ECM gun, you could render the gun useless. Does this mean, you could ECM the police too? The police already want ECM weapons for police cars and helicopters. They could stop cars, now they could stop your gun too.
But then, I feel secure. I have homeland security protecting me from Rapists and Murders. (I laughed while I typed that.)
If this stuff is so safe and works so well, why don't the cops carry them? They have much more problems with their guns being taken away and used against them. Then, after they have proven how reliable this brand-new technology is, maybe it's time for civilians to start using it.
"One critic says 'No technology is foolproof--anyone who has a computer knows how many times it crashes.' "
That is utter foolishness. A gun will not have an OS, it will be hard coded. My microwave doesn't 'crash' and I don't think my gun would either.
The more serious concern is how easy it would be to fool the gun. I can fool my microwave pretty easily, so I'd expect the same from a gun.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
somebody pulls a gun on me, i knock it out of their hand and then try to shoot them....... if it's a smart gun...... i guess...... i better just run!!
(and give up trying to rhyme words...)
One critic says 'No technology is foolproof--anyone who has a computer knows how many times it crashes.'
That's one of the most absurd statements I've heard against this kind of technology. A gun is not at all comparable in complexity to a PC. How many times does the computer running your car crash? What about the computer in your watch? The one running your kitchen appliances? They don't - because they're simple, one purpose devices, just like a handgun's trigger lock would be.
Don't you hate that crap?
..."
"We can't trust technology, look how often Windows Crashes
Sure, Windows does crash a lot. But the software that flies the stealth fighter or the space shuttle rarely, if ever, crashes.
Darn Microsoft, and poor software engineering in general, gave the Luddites so much ammunition.
Tim
PS -> Although I am not saying this technology will be easy to implement, just that the computer crashing argument is silly.
-- Hello_World.c: 17 Errors, 31 Warnings
This gun won't fire. Call the A-Team (by god, they can make any gun fire).
"No technology is foolproof"
No shit. Nothing is foolproof and nothing ever will be. I know you're not suggesting that no one *tries* anything, so clarify yourself.
And give someone credit for *effort* once in a while.
Eric P.
Not even to manufacture. Someone should chase down those damn NRA bastards and cap thier asses.
Being a NJ resident I am happy to finally see SOMETHING/ANYTHING being done to control gun violence. I'm just surprised the NRA couldn't lobby its way out of this, although I'm sure they tried like hell.
Anyway, being that many deaths by firearm occur in the home I think this will help on two fronts. First if someone steals your gun(it happens) it will be temporarly worthless to them, ie they can't kill you if they get to the gun first. They also can't use it to kill anyone once they're out of your house. Second it can hopefully prevent little Johnny from A) blowing his friends head off by mistake and B) prevent him from bringing it to school and harming anyone.
Yea big deal, you can still buy guns out of state and existing firearms don't have the technology. No shit. If all goes well NJ in the future will probably have significantly fewer accidental gun deaths then other states. That sure as hell would make me happy.
Don't forget, gun violence in the home is a serious problem as that's actually more likely then some stanger shooting you if your a gun owner.
I just hope the technology works and this isn't somehow overturned by gun nuts.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
Well, I don't see how they could possibly implement this w/o some sort of id tag on the owner. It should be interesting to see how they attempt to implement this in any reasonable fashion, if it is indeed possible...
"...after the state attorney general determines a smart gun prototype is safe..." Since when are guns safe? They are inherently unsafe last I checked--as implements of destruction usually are.
How does the mechanism they descibe (the grip test) prevent "accidental gun deaths and suicide"? If the owner grips it and fires, _it will go off_ --that's it's purpose! Also, will their 'grip id' work through gloves? It doesn't seem likely. If not, cops couldn't wear gloves in the winter!
Even more interesting, would be to follow the money trail to see who's really trying to make a buck...
Someone breaks into my house holding one of 220+ millions guns that do NOT have electronic control and points it at me; me, being scared to death have a very sweaty hand, possibly holding it in the wrong hand, jittering and nervous pull the trigger only to be told by the gun "Sorry, thats not my owner holding me" and refuses to fire while the bad guy, who doesnt' give a shit about these things, shoots me dead.
The minute a gun refuses to fire in a situation due to bad battery, loose wire, bad reception, mis-red palm print, battery in the watch is dead or whatever and the owner ends up dead the lawsuits are going to be insane.
And, back to whats been said 1,000 times during these hearings. This does not actually *STOP* people killing themselves, nor does it *STOP* minors from shooting their friends. There are 200+ million guns out there that are not flagged in this manor.
This law makes people "feel good" while preventing nothing.
Amazing america.
Why do overlook and oversee mean opposite things?
Smart gun technology is available today, and is completely practical. If you don't believe me, here's a simulator for the technology...
...if the problem with guns is that they kill people, maybe we shouldn't even have them. I can see this technology becoming useful (eventually) but with it comes new legal realms that will only waste time and taxpayer money, for example, will police and military within the state be required to abide by these laws as well? Too much time and hot air will be wasted on issues such as the aformentioned because people will be too afraid to consider the (logical) alternative, that guns should be fully outlawed. Usually I am for protecting any and all rights, but guns and gun related violence is something that we, as an educated people, have put up with for far too long, far after their usefulness in the law. We are no longer in fear of the King of England coming over and pushing us around, we as Americans do that enough on the political stage to other peoples as it is, shouldn't we begin to take the next step as a society and realize that the only way for us as a society to grow is to relinquish our trigger finger? Some of us have guns for protection, some for hunting, no one intends to kill anyone with them, but still, it happens. Let's grow up, forget the trite "well, I had a gun as a kid and was properly taught how to use it" arguments, take a long look in the mirror, and realize that guns are not necessary, are foolish, and represent a throwback to days long past?
Watch out, he might start writing essays again!!
What makes a man want to be a mouse? (Python's Flying Circus)
I mean, the gun doesn't detect if you are a psycho. It just says, yes, you are the psycho who purchased this gun. Go ahead and fire. I guess we can sleep safe at night that criminals will now be able to purchase guns that can't be used against them.
One ring to shoot them all!!
He painted a unicorn in outer space. I'm askin' ya, what's it breathin'?
If more than half of NJ resident drivers are in the assigned risk category of drivers, and you can't trust 1/2 the motoring population, why would you trust them with guns?
Better yet, if you have a state where the residents allow a political party to break the law and install an illegible candidate into a federal office, why would you give guns to those that support lawlessness?
And for the poster in another thread that suggested going to NY to buy guns to bypass the NJ law, you must be joking. NY has a governor whose presidential ambitions caused him to sign an anti gun owner law a few years back. This, combined with a total failure to defend law abiding gun owners, and floating the possibility of reducing prison sentences for drug dealers makes NY a state that is following in NJ footsteps. Expect NY to be in the next handful of states that rush to adopt this law. Goint to NY to buy a handgun to bypass NJ laws is ridiculous. Besides, since the vast majority of gun owners are law abiding citizens, they won't be breaking the law to bypass this law.
Get out and push legislation will save more lives. Too many schools are built near major roadways. Instead of lowering speeds to 20 mph or 15 mph near schools like some of the liberal anti-gunner legislators are pushing in NY, they should enact get out and push legislation. If they force car drivers to get out of their cars and push their cars while in the immediate vicinity of schools, more lives will be saved. Children's lives. Save the children!
New Jersey Institute of Technology has partnered with Smith and Wesson to develop this technology back in 2001.
Quote: "SCOTTSDALE, Arizona - Saf-T-Hammer Corporation (OTC Bulletin Board: SAFH - news), the Scottsdale, Arizona-based firearm safety and security company, today announced that its wholly owned subsidiary, Smith & Wesson Corporation, has announced a partnership with the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT). In a formal agreement signed July 18, 2001, Smith & Wesson agreed to work with NJIT towards integrating the university's biometric identification system into the electronically fired Authorized-User-Only prototype handguns that use ammunition developed by Remington Arms. The NJIT approach is a different technology from other biometric identification systems being evaluated by Smith & Wesson."
Reference this link. [iansa.org] IMHO - the New Jersey legislature is just creating a need for S & W new products.
"It's one thing to talk about the poetry of machines. Quite another to listen to it for yourself."
The article talks a lot about "the owner" and "the authorized user" of the weapon; I hope they're taking into account the possibility of multiple owners or else they may be giving the gun rights folks ammo (heh heh) for their inevitable fight to have the law repealed.
Right now gun makers haven't entered the market for two reasons. First of all they aren't sure if the technology can be made foolproof. Secondly, even it the technology is reliable, they are scared to death of liablity suits should someone not be able to defend his or herself if things go wrong. (Such as if the owner doesn't have the activating ring on during an incident.
There aren't that many handgun makers out there, and they tend to stick together. Combine that with the political power wielded by the NRA and it will could be a long time before we see a "commercially available model"
I guess the constitution of the US means nothing to NJ... some of you might remember the part that says ... the right to keep and bear arms ... shall not be abridged...
I suppose some HCI proponent might say militia meant the National Guards of the States... but it would be pretty hard to prove that to the framers (who had/expressed pretty compelling ideas about what a militia meant in the Federalist Papers) especially since the National Guards did not exist, and Militias of the States were ragtag farmers, and regular citizens like most of us, and not so far different from the Militias which scare many folks to death. Nope... in the Federalist Papers they pretty clearly meant every able bodied citizen, without respect to the vagaries of HOW "restraining orders" (read up on the Edmonds[sp?] case)or even felonies might affect those rights. The framers may not have concluded that felons may not get "straightened out" by "paying their debt to society", but they sure did conclude that firearms were the guarantors of the peace.
What's new?? The NAZI's and Communists of the world have been trying to prevent private ownership of firearms for almost 100 years now. Kind of like the British tried to do during the period leading up to the Revolutionary war. This policy helped each of them (in their respective times) quell revolutionaries who didn't believe in the same kind of revolution.... Anyone have any doubts ... read up on the NAZI gun control laws, policy and rhetoric leading up to WWII... it sounds and appears identical to HCI, CDC, and other radical propaganda, proposed policies, and even legislation like NJ's promoting gun control.
All of this sounds like excellent fodder for a Supreme Court which has become a pawn of whatever current Administration sits in office (even the Bush administration ... yes a supposed pawn of the NRA.. asked the Supreme Court [and the Supremes obliged] not to hear the Edmonds case on the 2nd ammendment). But maybe... just maybe... the increasingly Constitutionalist (and hence generally conservative) justices will figure out that they need to plant their feet collectively in both the states, and the FEDS (read: BATF) faces.
Here's wishing ;-|
Those of you who have been reading slashdot for a while may recall that back in 1999 a guy named David Schriner homebrewed a HERF gun that was capable of shutting down a PC at 20 feet. That's not much of a range, but it only cost him $400 to do it. If someone threw a little more time and money at the problem, they might be able to do something more impressive.
"Weapons should be hardy rather than decorative" - Miyamoto Musashi
I think that goes for OS's too
wearcam.org
Trigger locks, smart guns. It's getting to the point where more people will just say f*** it. Smith your own. Any Open Source guns out there? What do you need? A Lathe, a milling machine, some metal stock. Decent tools are affordable for most of the middle class. Smith your own gun. And of course, the government will know even less about homemade weapons.
Think I'm full of it? Why did the Israelis drop a load into some Palestinian metal shop a few months ago? Yep. They were allegedly making weapons. I imagine any competent machinist (look in your local Yellow Pages under "Machine shops") could take the plans and make a decent piece. Actually, since they would be finely crafted pieces receiving more attention than usual, I bet they would be excellent guns. Unfortunately, a lot of not-so-expert machinists would try too, and fail.
Remember back-alley abortionists? Same idea.
So what will they do next? Lathe control? Then only criminals will have lathes. :)
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
- Will it be possible to "unencode" the gun? Specifically, if a person decided to resell their gun, obviously it would not make sense to let them resell it privately (since that would defeat the purpose of this capability), but they should be able to resell it to a licensed gun dealer, who could then in turn either send it back to the manufacturer or use a special tool to unencode it.
- Will bullets fired from these guns be traceable to the owner of the gun, and if so, will evidence along those lines be useable in court? It seems kind of like a lie detector-type situation (or, if you prefer, a "Gattacca"- or "Minority Resport"-type situation). If somehow someone figured out how to fire someone else's gun, and the bullet were traced back to the gun, then, because of this technology, a jury might be inclined to assume that there is only one possible person who could have fired it, when in fact there could theoretically have been someone else. They should be very explicit in describing how this can and cannot be used in court.
In general, though, this seems like a pretty solid idea that would be useful even if not 100% effective. If something malfunctioned and the rightful owner was not able to fire the gun, then they could take it back to the store and replace it, while alternatively if it malfunctioned and someone else was able to fire the gun, well then even in this worst-case scenario it would be no worse than it is now. I think, as long as they're careful about the two aforementioned issues, I can be proud of my home state (not that I shouldn't already be proud of it), and hopefully not have to hear too many New Jersey jokes as a result of this.The first ever Ultimate Frisbee video game: here (now
Anyone remember seeing the movie Judge Dred? Sound familiar?
A gun is a very simple mechanical device. There is nothing in the world that will change that. You might as well use a retna scan for a toaster.
There will be a few lives saved by this, but it will create a new illegal market and bring all of the death involved with that market.
Get a free ipod.
Not only are they making advances in social legislation, they have the highest high school graduation rate in the US. Any corrleation?
Are you suggesting that the guns will have virii, worms, and that Microsoft will actually come out with an XP/CE for Guns which will have buffer overflow problems, allowing guns to be turned against their owners?
Well, yeah, I guess I could see all that...
BTW: Bowling for Columbine was pretty good, if you haven't seen it, do.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
This seems like a great idea. I've seen law enforcement holsters, that require the officer's fingerprint to pull the weapon. It works in a fraction of a second, and the batteries last years. The idea of operation is, when the office draws the weapon, before he even starts pulling on it, it's already released to his fingerprint.. But no one else could steal his weapon and use it against him..
The question is, how soon can gun manufacturers implement this? 3 years? The unit I saw was kind of bulky, and wouldn't fit inside a weapon.. How secure would it be? Dealers have to be able to re-issue weapons, which means the technology and means will be in many stores in every city.. All you need is one guy to reassign guns, or one ex-gunsmith with a box to reassigning any gun any time.
I'm not sure, but it really does sound like New Jersey is passing the law, so they can just say "We're not banning guns, you just can't have any they're selling."
The law is forcing a change which may, not reinforcing an existing technology. If gun manufaturers do start implementing this change in all new sold weapons, I'd imagine the rate of stolen weapons would dramatically drop over the next 25+ years..
I don't know that it would make people any safer though. People commit crimes with their own weapons frequently.
I'd love to see the technology come around. I'd be very happy knowing my gun can only be shot by me, or someone I assign to it (girlfriend/wife/friends/non-minor children)
Of course, knowing how many people can't program their VCR's, how many will be able to figure out how to work their new "secure" handgun? How many instances will we be hearing about where someone was killed with their "secure" weapon in their hand that wouldn't fire?
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
I am from the midwest and we hunt deer with handguns. Thank god we don't have stupid legislators in our state. Some days I hunt with gloves on, especially when it is cold as a witches titty. There are othe days when the temps are nice and I don't wear the gloves. Are the sensors going to adjust to those factors? Something tells me the technology does not exist to implement this in a reasonable way.
Got Code?
IIRC a large percentage of police officers slain in the line of duty are killed by their own gun -- wrested away in an altercation. I have heard of this sort of tech especially for law enforcement. By extension, imagine the usefulness for combat troops if only the "good guys" could operate their weapons.
:)
It comes down to a Q of the technology's reliability. Real police seldom discharge or even brandish their weapon, esp. outside the cities; and of the ones who are shot, I imagine a fair number did not have their weapon ready to fire or even see it coming.
Now, we need a really smart gun that shoots only the right people, at the right time. Yes of course running Linux.
A compulsory law for all gun owners is of course a different policy question from police departments selectively implementing same. The legislation will however give development of the tech an economic shot in the arm -- without a market the guns would either be prohibitively expensive or not exist.
If they're really smart they'll make it so only one person can be associated with a gun, so that in homes where both the husband and wife want a gun, they'll now have to buy HIS and HERS guns rather than just keeping one under the bed. What a good way to double, rather than reduce, the number of weapons.
I'm Rick James with mod points biatch!
that the same should apply to everything. Cars. Hammers. Cellular phones. Toothbrushes. Tools should be locked to one person.
And saying that "computers crash, so technology is unreliable" is absurd.
Ever seen a space shuttle? Onboard controller on a car? Aircraft computers? Lots of computer systems are extremely robust.. your PC just isn't one of them.
They have relatively little effect on gun crime, but cause a dramatic decrease in handgun sales. It intimidates and hassles potential gun buyers, as well as potentially pricing them out of the market.
Some people tend to say this is a prudent decision ... but a prudent decision would probably be made after the technology was developed and proved reliable over a period of time.
Jack Valenti and the MPAA are to technology as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone
If the local PD starts using these things, how long do you think it'll take before someone figures out how to jam them?
Wouldn't that be an interesting use of the 802 card in your PDA.
I'm wondering what's going to happen the first time a woman is home while her husband is out and a predator rapes her, knowing she can't fire her husband's gun...
As smart gun owners know, if you shoot someone, you better damn well kill him. On most gun ranges they help you with this by giving the most "points" for kill shots ;)
Yes I keep a gun for that purpose, and I will aim for the head or heart.
The only reason this law exists (and most of the concerns of anti-gun folk) stem from the catastrophic results of error in the use of gun technology.
See Don Norman
for such design questions, who points out that designers must:
This law is a forcing function onto a forcing function! It's a law that mandates you build systems that prevent the user from making errors.
i love getting flamed by gun nuts, so fire away (pun intended for ironic effect).
if you give a bunch of kindergartners hammers, how much time will pass before somebody gets whacked with a hammer? the point? if you arm more people, more bad things happen. that's pretty hard truth to refute. that's the top paradigm, every other observation of guns is subservient to that cold hard truth. more guns= more violence and death. the rest is just circumstances that lead to their use. if guns aren't around, you lessen the weaponry available for damage. less firepower= less damage capability. human passion and anger that can not find the strongest outlet for its violent expression expresses itself with less potential. not much can bash that truth away.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
In 1886, the Supreme Court ruled in Presser vs. Illinois that the Second Amendment only prevents the federal government from interfering with a state's ability to maintain a militia, and does nothing to limit the states' ability to regulate firearms. Which means that states can regulate, control and even ban firearms if they so desire!
In 1939, the Supreme Court addressed this issue in United States vs. Miller. The Court refused to strike down a law prohibiting interstate sales of sawed-off shotguns on the basis of the Second Amendment. Rejecting the argument that the shotgun had "some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well-regulated militia," the Court held that the Second Amendment "must be interpreted and applied" only in the context of safeguarding the continuation and effectiveness of the state militias.
Since then, both the Supreme and lesser courts have consistently interpreted the right to bear arms as a state's right, not an individual's right. At times the courts have even expressed exasperation with some gun advocates' misinterpretation of the Second Amendment:
In the 1976 case of United States v. Warin, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the conviction of an illegal gun-owner who argued that his Second Amendment rights had been violated. In pointed language, the court wrote: "It would unduly extend this opinion to attempt to deal with every argument made by defendant...all of which are based on the erroneous supposition that the Second Amendment is concerned with the rights of individuals rather than those of the states."
If the Constitution guaranteed an individual's right to unregulated gun ownership, the NRA would be challenging laws like this one and The Brady Bill in the Supreme Court. That is not happening because the NRA knows that they would lose any such challenge. That's why they spend their time and money lobbying (threatening, rewarding, and bribing) Congress to limit gun legislation. If you want to make claims about the Constitution, do some case law research before you do.
Will the "smart guns" check that it's the actual owner instantly, or will there be a slight pause while it scans their hand or whatever, because generally when you're about to fire a gun any extra time before you shoot is never good.
How bout a combo gun/cell/pda? If it doesn't recognize you, it shoots you in the foot, calls the police, and emails the owner. And if you miss an appointment, it fires a warning shot. And you don't wanta know what happens when it crashes.
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
That's OK, everyone will just drive down south to buy them in states where there are few rules, and no enforcement, like South Carolina and Florida. Most handguns used in crimes in NYC already come from those places.
"The gun is set to only fire from the hand of Mr. Thompson, the bullistics match this gun, the gun was registered under the name of Mr. Thompson, A partial of Mr. Thomspon's fingerprint was found on the gun, The is NO other logical conclusion that could possibly be made!"
The real reason for this law, of course, is to slip in yet another provision for the purpose of making guns useless. Once they're completely useless for any practical purpose, there will be much less resistance to any law banning guns altogether- "Well, I do think I should have the right to protect myself, but then it's not like I'd be able to fire a gun in time anyway. I won't bother contacting my representative." Already any killing can be ruled premeditated murder based only on the gun used being kept loaded and in a place where you could get at it if you need it. There have been laws proposed and passed requiring "gun locks" to be placed over triggers so that you need a key to use the gun. I'm sorry, but the self defence rule of reaching for your keys when you're being attacked should only apply when you aren't carying a gun.
There will always be people who are pro-gun and people who are anti-gun. I dont think there's a need to go for the cliche "If guns are outlawed..", just remember that if your potential attacker doesnt think you can get your gun to fire before he can get your arms behind you, he is a lot more likely to act. The other guy doesnt need to have a gun if yours doesnt work.
Guns are made not to protect, but to kill. I hated walking through school and seeing guns every day. It isnt thinking that someone else could grab that gun and use it, I hate it no matter who is holding the gun.
So yeah, I'm a moron, I guess. I want citizens to be able to protect themselves [read: kill the other guy] with a gun, but I dont want police walking the streets with them. Stupid dream, aint it?
Many people may consider this a step in the right direction: It's not gun restricting it's gun control, literally! This is what we've really been asking for the whole time, right?
The dream is to have complete control over the gun- exactly when and how it can be used. Know that the law's idea of when and how a gun should be used is NOT your own belief. If you are against guns, you want more restrictions, if you are for them, you want less. If you're the one holding the gun, you don't give half a shit either way, 'cause all that shit you're saving up for yourself. Some situation has placed a gun in your hands, and all you can care about is using it in the way that situation demands. If it means you're about to shoot someone the law would deem innocent, you do not respect the law. Dont begin to lie saying that you wouldnt want the option. You have the gun, he's in front of you, and the last thing on your mind should be "God, I hope this thing actually fires", even less "Shit! What was my keycode?!" [note to whoever is going to reply 'you say last and then even less, that is impossible': I know that, sometimes words are written to be impossible in order to express an eggageration.]
Whenever you are going to shoot a person, your desired action is not within the limits of the law. Remember this when considering how much control the law should have over your guns.
As I said last time I posted like this, my facts are probably not, and in general what I said could probably be viewed as entirely innaccurate. The point of this message is not to promote accuracy, but thought and discussion. Whether the thoughts or discussions it promotes are intelligent or not is entirely up to the reader. That said, it should be obvious that simply calling me an idiot or pointing out innacuracies is rather pointless, as anyone who has gotten to your post has probably made their way through mine, and so would know such things already.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
This really is a pretty dumb idea, if you ask me. People are allowed guns to protect themselves, as its their right. This damn near cripples guns to the point where they're almost useless (what the lawmakers want). On top of that, it gives people a false sense of security. These are bound to fail eventually. And when they do fail, will the gun be pointed at the man robbing your house? the person who could be trying to kill you? Or will you be pointing it stupidly at your friend, thinking "this can't possibly go off, it has a gov't-controlled safety on it." Just one more piece of equipment to fail and lead to accidental shootings if you ask me. And this, on top of all the other problems with this that everyone else is pointing out. I suspect this law will be shot down (sorry) pretty quickly and won't ever be put into action. Its a poor plan to stop something that is kind of related to a crime that rarely happens.
Smartgun technology sounds great and all...but what happens if one's hands are dirty, has gloves on, etc or the software itself just flakes out...then what?...messages like these:
:;
"Your gun has performed an illegal operation. Unable to fire. Please powerdown, unload and reload ammunition, and press Restart to reboot."
"Identity scan failed. Please clean your hands and retry firing."
"Gun software 1.34 outdated. Software update download required now before you may continue firing."
"Your gun software license code G43R5-4T564-6DR63-AA665 doesn't match that of the gun owner indicated in our records. Important: 2nd Amendment protections don't apply to software licensing under the DMCA. We are watching you!"
Those are not the type of errors one would want to get when they and/or others are being threatened and they only have a split second to shoot.
And of course there are then all the privacy implications that come with requiring software (so-called smart technology) for guns. The government and especially the private sector will be able to better identify and track gun owners; heck I'm sure at some point they'll even be talk of GunXML and giving every gun its own IP!
Ron Bennett
How about a gun that's set to only kill people who deserve it?
Should be just as easy as a gun that can identify its owner.
Of course some moral judgement is involved, so there might be different guns for each major religion (the buddhist gun, for instance, is just a solid chunk of metal with no capacity to fire).
Seriously, how about some Smart "Gun Laws" instead of "Smart Gun" Laws, eh?
You know, it'd be hell to try and put this sort of thing in a car.
Yet, cars kill more people and are used in more crimes - and don't (usually) need to be used in emergency situations where they must start or other people die.
And just think how globally opposed everyone would be to having these required in every car.
And that is why this pisses me off.
Take a few drunks off the road, then get back to me, thanks.
Keep your packets off my GNU/Girlfriend!
So what you are saying is that we need better laws for pools too?
Or just trashy people who don't watch their kids around dangerous things?
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Back in 1990, when I lived in New Jersey, there was a pro-gun rally at the State Capitol in Trenton, because newly-elected Gov. Jim Florio was trying to ban some kind of guns. The front page of the local paper had a picture of a black grandmother from Elizabeth or Newark, holding a pistol, who was quoted as saying something like "You think the police are going to show up in *my* neighborhood at night?" Maybe in your neighborhood, the police will show up 10 seconds after you dial 911, but it's not real common.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
It is only a matter of time before gun cracks are going to be found on the internet and thus a new industry will be created to bypass this pointless law
Smart guns fire only for The People!
I am not for gun control, I am dead set against it but.....
This is needed not only for the average citizen but for the police as well, it is as necessary as a saftey is on a modern gun.
Not getting shot by your own gun is a good thing.
You never know how the situation will transpire when you need to use it and this is the one thing to keep the bad guys from using the gun on you.
BTW I have seen several articles in assorted gun magazines and it does seem like a good idea.
That's all a gun is. Medieval technology. Literally. Columbus carried guns on the Santa Maria.They were ancient tech then. Anyone who wishes to make a crude (even multishot) firearm that would be perfectly usable for street crime purposes can find everything he needs at the local Home Depot. With a bit of ingenuity he'll find everything he needs at his local supermarket.
In terms of taking guns out of the hands of criminals laws such as this only serve to drive the market for Saturday Night Specials.
Nor will this technology do *anything* to prevent the legitimate owner of a gun from commiting murder or other crimes with it.
It's only real function is to act as a "safety" on the safety, and in that role it may actually save some lives. It may well cost a few as well. Time will tell, but in terms of being "anticrime" this is really just a "feel good" measure. It provides an illusion of safety that doesn't actually exist.
Kinda like a cheesy firewall riddled with known exploits and workarounds that every script kiddie in the known universe knows how to defeat.
Makes "Joe User" feel all warm and fuzzy inside though knowing that his system is "protected."
KFG
With the center-fire cartridge anyone can make a gun even if it's so simple as to hold it in a vice-grip and hit the firing pin with a nail. Ok, so the accuracy might not be so great. The point is that guns, even fully automatic guns, are not rocket science.
Any reasonably handy person with access to a lathe could make a single-shot handgun. Give me a mill and a lathe and some tooling and I'll turn out a copy of an Uzi. With a silencer.
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
physics does! Ban physics from schools. Seriously, that is a really dumb law. People will buy guns out of state, criminals don't buy guns from dealers anyway so it doesn't hurt them, most gun owners are law abiding responsible adults and this law will only hurt them and gun dealers. I really don't like the diea of some kind of electric security system built into firearms anyway. What happens when it craches, loses power, and other nasty things a lot of people have already pointed out? I'd hate to have the guns software crash on my when some asshole decides to break into my house and steal my server and other fun things. That guy has Hydra-Shok written on his head and chest.
So now instead of a family owning one gun for protection, the father will have one ... and so will the wife. I'm not sure who was pushing this legislation, but maybe they didn't think this whole thing through.
And people are splitting hairs over the implementation of the law and the technology involved. None of that is relevant. What comes before all such arguments is the fundamental tenate of our society that gun ownership is a thing the government is not supposed to tamper with. "There shall be no law...."
And yet people still debate the minutia of the laws that aren't supposed to be in effect in the first place.
In the United States there are entities that don't want citizens to own guns. In many States those entities have made inroads towards the goals of such people. Regardless of anyone's acknowledgement of the right to citizens owning weapons, the right is still in effect. It's a very clear and basic rule of our society.
The presence of authority figures who have been sold unto the idea of illegal gun control does not make such gun control any more legitimate in our society. It's still illegal.
People who don't agree with gun ownership have the option of not excersizing their second amendment rights. But for those same people to attempt to remove that option from others is no different than if they were trying to remove first amendment rights. One's dislike for firearms is a thing they should bear silently in a society where firearms is a protected right. Because failure to acknowledge one critical tenat of society make it all the more easy to ignore all the others. And if one cannot see that exact thing happening in our society today, that person is blind.
In this way, attempts to seperate others from their rights amounts to self abuse.
Now based on all the posts, does anyone know how I can calculate how many people on /. are pro-gun and how many anti-gun?
Would you think geeks are pro-gun or anti-gun?
No, I don't belong to any market research, political campaign research or any other such group. Just curious
.ACMD setaloiv siht gnidaeR
Don't waste time with the Google News link. This story is an AP story, and the Google News link, at this time (1:45 AM EDT) contains only about 100 links to various papers' copy of the AP article. As a matter of fact, the only unique link is the one to this slashdot article.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Being a NJ resident I am happy to finally see SOMETHING/ANYTHING being done to control gun violence. I'm just surprised the NRA couldn't lobby its way out of this, although I'm sure they tried like hell.
Citing a pro gun control website, in 1999, New Jersey had 366 firearm related deaths (Suicide, Homicide, etc). Compared to my state, Tennessee, with its 848 firearm related deaths (with 3 million less people), I'm trying to grasp your problem with New Jersey's ability to "control gun violence." Your state seems relatively safe to me (stat-wise).
Could you provide a little more data for your area besides ranting? I can easily tell you how much crime happened in my city. One death may be too many, but technology cannot protect everybody.
Second it can hopefully prevent little Johnny from ... B) prevent him from bringing it to school and harming anyone.
Less than 1% of all homicides among school-aged children (5-19 years of age) occur in or around school grounds or on the way to and from school. (Centers for Disease Control, 1997)
I've never ran into a "gun nut" that thought people using firearms in aggressive manners did not deserve: a) an a$$ whopping and b) prosecuted. Pretty low-tech / law-lite ways of handling the problem, aren't they?
Say the owner of a gun has a crook in his home at night. The criminal has his own gun, and is prepared to use it. The owner takes out his gun and they have a showdown. What happens if the owner's gun doesn't fire because the "smart-gun" technology malfunctions and doesn't recognize his hand? Of course, the same could happen for the criminal...
...anyone who has a computer knows how many times it crashes
Could the same be said for the control circuitry in planes? Car engines? Life-support systems? There are different reliability requirements for different applications. Personal computers (especially ones intended for home use) are somewhere near the bottom of the scale, just a little above toys. As long as they don't catch fire, electrocute people or pose a choking hazard no one gets sued.
I am about as interested in having a computer in my gun as I am having a gun mounted on my computer.
One of the reasons that a pistol is an effective weapon is because it is incredibly simple. Once we start adding microcomputers, solenoids, and batteries (a.k.a., complexity), you have a less capable and more failure-prone weapon. These devices will fail in situations where their owner's lives are on the line, and innocents will die as a result. Who will be sued? Why, the gun manufacturer of course, for providing a faulty product that malfunctioned in a manner that resulted in an entirely forseeable loss of life.
This technology has potential to reduce the number of accidental gun deaths. It also has the potential to increase them, as the morons who tend to get themselves killed with guns may begin to believe that guns are safe to be toyed with if you're not the owner.
As far as suicides go, well, we need to keep in mind that guns are used in suicides simply because they are those most readily accessible method of terminating one's own life. It has been shown that gun-related suicides are somewhat proportional to gun sales. But overall suicide rate is independent of gun sales. This simply proves the obvious: people who want to committ suicide *WILL* committ suicide, regardless of whether we ban guns, bridges, or over-the-counter drugs.
What has *science* done?!? -- Dr. Weird (ATHF)
#1-Police. What happens if a cop's partner is disabled and he has the only remaining ammo between them. Is the other cop supposed to say, "hey mr. nice criminal, let me pop this clip into my gun so I can kill you?"
#2-Families where the kids can handle a firearm. I could handle (admittedly not perfectly by any stretch of the imagination) a 9mm at an early age, around 9-10 or so. I'm sick of the anti-gun nuts who say such rubbish as kids can't use guns effectively and responsibly. And so what if they can't in such a situation? It's better that the kid die trying than die a totally defenseless victim. Oh and, in close range... you don't have to be that good of a shot.
#3-What happens if the gun gets damaged and can't recognize its owner? Oh sheot, that's right. The gun ain't worth a damn now.
Here's the deal, we don't need gun control and here's why. If the crime is heinous, lock the perp up and punish them properly. Once they get out, they've paid their debt to society and give them their rights back. Anyone who disagrees is a fascistic prick whose "pro-freedom" views on any other issue are meaningless.
Your 2nd amendment right, not your right to vote, is what ultimately keeps the government in line. I'm amazed at how many people know jack shit about guns and then spout off anti-gun ownership rhetoric. A 30.06 is a much more powerful weapon than a M16 or AK-47. A M1 Carbine is even better. Both are now weapons civilians can own IIRC without any special permits. A M1 Carbine is an order of magnitude deadlier in the hands of a skilled fighter than a M16 because its shots are more powerful and accurate than a M16. You damn well better believe that a crowd carrying shotguns, 30.06s and the like would be taken VERY seriously by the government.
So let me ask this, are you people who believe in gun control stupid or just lack any desire to have a free country? How many totalitarian regimes that rose to power by disarming their populations does it take? Do we need to draw you guys diagrams showing these things point-by-point? I'm being serious here. You have no right to tell me that I can't own a 9mm because it makes you uncomfortable. Nor do you have a right to tell the local Klan or BPP thug to shut up because what he's saying is making you feel uncomfortable.
Maybe you people need to take remedial English because the last time I read the 2nd amendment it said, "The right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." You people seem hung up over a GD prepositional phrase. A well-regulated militia means a well-organized militia, not one whose ability to stay armed is being lynched with bureacratic red tape. It is the same thing as "Congress shall pass no law INSERT_ISSUE." What part of that is so hard to understand? And if you have any concerns about state gun control, may I suggest you read the 14th amendment which was partly ratified so blacks in the post-Civil War south could legally own firearms. At that time most southern states prohibited blacks from owning guns. Jim Crow, the first major gun control advocate in this country.
If you ask me, we need LESS laws, not MORE. We need to clear the courts from the stupid lawsuit and patent law CRAP, and free up court and prison space for the real criminals.
If you kill someone, you KILLED THEM, and you should get life in prison, or death. Not X years for killing them, X more for doing it with a gun, X more because your motive was racial. Look, I don't care if you killed a black or white or yellow or red person, you killed them, go to jail I don't care if he was Christian, Jew, Hindu, or what, you killed them. Your telling me an EXTRA law that makes it a race crime, a religious crime, makes the system better? By making MORE laws like that, you just dilute the system. Crime is crime, simple is simple. Kill, go to jail. Black man kills black man, less jail time because it wasn't a hate crime? Should we really say "white guy killed white guy, not racial, not religious, less of a sentence?" He was killed with a gun, not a knife, the criminal should do 105 years instead of 150 years?
All I can say is, it's just another step in the long and relentless process for the United States of America to drift into the New World order. I am going to rant, long and hard, prepare. This is a step to a socialist society, where we see "Democracy" become something that is nothing more than "Mob Rule" with a slight bit of organization.
Look, it's a feel good law, we all know that. The science and the technology are not presently available to comply with this law. This law requires all guns to "recognize they are in the hands of their owner" before they are able to fire, WHEN that technology becomes a reality. Let's be realistic, some lame as money grubbing company will come up with some half ass way to almost make this happen, because they want to monopolize the gun market in NJ. But, they will fail because no one buys guns in NJ anyway, because of the existing legislation. And it's just an exercise in "can we do it."
Now, don't get me wrong, if I wanted to own a firearm, and I knew I could get a high-tech one that wouldn't allow anyone to fire it except me, that would be cool. I would get one like that, if I wanted one at all, to be sure that I could defend myself and the invader of my home couldn't disarm me and shoot me with my own gun.
But, that's not what this law is about. This law is yet another measure of the Sarah Brady group to make guns harder to own. And, being a Libertarian, I have respect for other people's beliefs. However, I love my country, and I love my country because it is the country that is founded on individual freedoms.
If you were to tell me that there was a country in the world that would allow you to do anything you wanted, provided you did not bring harm to anyone else, I would respect that country as well. However, the USA is as close as we have now. Capitalist (work hard and earn a lot). Intelligence, perseverance, planning, and hard work should pay off. And people should be allowed to do what ever, worship whatever they want, think whatever they want, self destructive or not, risky or not, SOMEWHERE in the world. That is why the USA was founded.
The USA is becoming Socialist under pressure of the rest of the world. If you don't like it, you have a lot of other countries in the world to go to that believe what you do, we don't stop you from leaving. Yet every day people are willing to die (look at the boat people, the central Americans, the middle eastern people that are not the "popular" religion" in their country). People come here because of the freedom.
We are soo willing to give away our freedom to make "Soccer Moms" who are the minority, feel better.
I'll tell you what, give me the hard working, open minded, freedom loving, socialist, people from around the world who are NOT Christian like me ANYDAY over the bible thumping Southern Baptist Soccer Moms who want "smart guns" any day!
Ovaries insist u!
(think about it!)
It is such a drag to find stats, and many sites don't provide attribution for them! For all one knows, the numbers are gossip.
According to the FBI, 46 of 594 officers slain feloniously 1992-2001 were killed by their own weapon. Another 49 were killed by weapons other than firearms.
FBI Uniform Crime Reports -- I pulled the pdf for "# Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted" for 2001, see Table 5.
Even 46 dead officers is too many. It would be helpful to have "wounded with own gun" or "3rd party shot with officer's gun" or "gun stolen and later used in crime" statistics, plus the cost and reliability of the gun modifications, before making an assessment. Oh yes, we should ask the cops what they think!
As for cables, sounds like a cheaper way to address this. I wonder about the cons.
There are also occasional surprise disarmings and discharge. Read that one! The magnet is very powerful, but I'm a little skeptical of the "molecular structure" reasoning in the article. I used to be an MRI tech -- what a horrible safety failure. These events can end less humorously, as with a boy killed by an oxygen bottle in New York about a year ago.
Guns are made to shoot people. Why would you want them to be widely available? The anti gun control crowd must live in a horrible country. Having to have a gun handy at all times to shoot people sure does not sound like fun to me. "Arm the populace and crime will go away!" is the lousiest argument I've ever heard. Who wants to live in a society like that? "Eliminate crime! Abolish civilization!". I'm glad I live in Europe.
...still don't solve the problem of Stupid People.
And besides, what about all of the non-Smart Guns already out there? There are hundreds of millions of these things! People who want weapons will only avoid the Smart Guns and go for the older, "not-so-smart" guns that have been available since our country got its start. Forget all the back and forth hoohaa about "will it crash/malfunction/generally fuck up" when in a crunch situation. It's the old weapons you have to worry about. And there's no way people are going to give up their guns in order to have them made "smart." This idea is doomed to fail before the ink on the bill gets a chance to dry.
As a responsible gun owner, but not an NRA-crazed Hestonite, I have to give this the thumbs down. I have the right to protect life, liberty and property, not to mention I carry the permit to proove it. If I have a gun pointed at me in a hostile act, I want a reliable weapon to defend myself with. "Smart" guns that have the potential to fuck up and not fire will most likely lead to me being on the recieving end of a bullet instead of the sending end. I'd rather keep the number of holes in my body to that which my DNA perscribed...
Blog Prophyts - Right On, Man
Don't just say no don't touch it. Explain to them it could blow their head off if they don't handle it properly. My parents did that with me and somehow I resisted the urge to play with a .357 in their closet. Teach them to respect guns and not fear them. That same logic goes for anything dangerous; animals, power tools, weapons, fireworks, you name it. Respect, not fear.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
I like that. A forceful statement followed up by some hedging.
"Be the first person on your block to see the Blue Screen of Death for the last time, ever!"
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I should use preview.
[Guns shouldN'T be in those situations.]
Police don't need to be hampered by technology that can and will fail. They have enough to worry about, and focusing too much on their gun will lead to the "when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail" scenarios.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
It's kind of late in the game for me to start commenting now, but I feel like I should get this out. As somone who *was* involved in a gun accident, I think I can speak authoritatively on the subject. Let me first say that while I do not currently own a gun, I would if I had the money to spare on it at the moment. Secondly, let me say that I am missing several digits on one of my hands because of irresponsibility with a weapon. What this taught me was: "Never listen to someone who says a weapon isn't loaded, always verify that for yourself". Rest assured that this will be the first lesson my children learn (and these are not theoretical children at some point in the future, I've got two wonderful sons). My father taught me to shoot at an early age, and I plan on teaching mine to shoot as soon as they are able to hold a rifle. I think that the important point in this debate is the fact that children who are educated about weapons (be they guns, knives, words, jelly donuts, whatever) will not try to show off to their friends about how cool they are cause they found dad's gun. They will (for the most part) show them the respect they deserve. Putting chips in weapons that only allow one person to fire them is not the answer. Properly educating the youth of today is one aspect of the answer, another is giving the kids something to do rather than run the streets looking for acceptance with the local gang, or sitting in their room stewing about how mistreated they were at school. Noone is going to stop criminals from killing people with guns by only allowing legitimate weapons to fire when handled by the correct operator, I can show you 15 ways to make a zip gun that is every bit as deadly as your average .45, and another 10 that would drop any human in one shot, regardless of whether it killed him. Legislating gun ownership (or functionality) away is not the right way to go, no matter what kind of spin you put on it
Twinkies sure taste good for something that is 68% air.
Let's here it for anti-gun freedom hating liberals. Hard at work they were, yes.
First post comes last!
Ah...smart guns. Now if they can only do the same for their owners.
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
Statistics Abuse: " According to these guys [ncpa.org], "10 percent of police who are shot are shot with their own guns" I've read numerous accounts of police shooting THEMSELVES. Maybe they should push some paper, empty wastebaskets, or wash the cars? Anything that does not involve handling a firearm.
this guy is socially inept.
just remember - he'll never really be happy.
there. don't we both feel better?
"You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem." -- Edwards' Law
Not that I've resolved myself to come down on any particular side of any manifestation of the gun ownership issue, but it really doesn't seem like this is going to particularly help. The gun problem in the U.S. is a social problem: Even accounting for differences in guns owned per capita, no other industrialized country has as many gun deaths as the U.S. (About 50% of U.S. households have a firearm, compared to about 30% in Switzerland -- source here.)
I'm not going to pretend like I know all the answers -- why we have so many more gun deaths than other countries, what should be done about it, etc. -- but I'm fairly certain that this is treating the symptoms, not the cause.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
Ok...not yet, but I'm sure if smart guns are widely required, then the next step will be smart ammunition that only operates in a specific, individual gun.
:;
Basically, the way smart ammunition would work is that a person would buy a box of ammunition like they do now, then when they get home, they activate the box (all ammunition in the box would obtain and store the guns serial number via RFID tags) in similar way to Windows XP activation.
Then even better for the manufacturers, is they could not only track every piece of ammunition, but they could even put an expiration date on it and require the person to either buy more and/or spend more on renewing their ammunition subscription, like for on a yearly basis.
A smart gun needs smart ammunition...too bad the user isn't required to be smart
Ron Bennett
Take it to a fucking forum where it's relavent. It might shock you that there are slashdotter who think rather poorly of yer wittle drug crutches...
If think alot of the slashdot kiddies parents didn't fucking beat them enough to have common sense.
i used to work with a ex police officer ( he retired ) and he mentioned to me nothing puts a scare into a person like the sound of cocking a shotgun. so all these people here saying that they need a handgun to protect themselves you might want to reconsider getting a shotgun.
the next logical step would be to only allow guns that can't be fired at police officers. not really technically difficult, police would only have to wear some sort of radio beacon, and the gun would refuse to fire in the direction of such a beacon.
the military would of cource also be issued such radio beacons.
now fast forward a few years; some president has decided that he doesn't care what the people thinks, and takes control of the country even though he didn't get the majority of the votes in an election. bit by bit he starts to take away the rights of the people. within the first few years, you can't even talk about a security bug is common software without risking arrest. a few years after this, he may start sending the army after the rest of his opposition, and thay will be unable to protect themself due to the gun control laws inplemented a few years earlier.
the following poen comes to mind:
Acts@core.mailboks.com Acrux@core.mailboks.com Adam@core.mailboks.com Adar@core.mailboks.com Ada@core.mailboks.com
When was the last time any of you got laid BY A WOMAN?
something happened to my formatting, that should have been:
I'll tell you what, give me the hard working, open minded, freedom loving, people no matter what color thier skin, where they were born, no matter what, as long as they persue freedom and try to escape opressive socialist governments or opression, and I will accept those people from around the world who are NOT Christian like me ANYDAY over the bible thumping Southern Baptist Soccer Moms who want "smart guns" any day
This is a training problem... one you will have a hard time fixing with technology.
As a former firearms instructor, I can tell you that retention is tough. If you are fighting for your gun, it's real, no-shit, do-or-die time, and you had better win. I'm not going to discuss specifics in this forum. Even though I have hard time imagining some slashgeek going for a cop's gun, there's probably a few here who are crazy enough, and I'm not going to give anyone any sort of tactical edge.
The reasons police officers get killed with their own guns are many, and often simply come down to bad tactics. That said, I would NEVER trust one of these smart-gun gadgets for a duty weapon.
This is the same philosophy behind the "New York Trigger" that many police officers are required to have on their handguns. Instead of better "trigger control" during training, you get one of these heavy triggers. The trigger pull weight on a New York Trigger is about 12+ pounds, and was put in place to prevent accidental shootings, ostensibly because such a hard trigger pull is difficult to accomplish "by accident." Unfortunately, it causes accuracy to suffer (perhaps increasing bystanders getting hit by stray rounds?), and makes the guns unusable for some smaller-framed officers. Again, a misguided technology fix for a training problem.
I think this is just grandstanding by some NJ politicians. It's almost funny to see them mandate something that doesn't even exist. Unfortunately, this will impact regular gun owners disproportionately, and have little effect on crime guns.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
I see that this story has unleashed the obligatory pissing match between those who believe that the /. idea of freedom - freedom of information - goes hand in hand with the freedom to be armed, and those who believe that the idea of personal armament is an outdated and dangerous concept in modern society.
On Friday night, a good friend, colleague, and fellow slashdotter defended his household and family from intruders with a 12 gauge Mossberg shotgun. He stopped the robbery and scared the suspects off. The police caught them a short while later. No one was hurt. In reflecting upon this event, he and I look at the issue of gun control, and indeed the entire issue of gun culture, with a degree of clarity previously unachieved.
He, like many in our generation, is a reluctant gun owner. We've been bombarded with social engineering that seeks to cast gun ownership in a bizarre, almost psychotic light, which has created, in my opinion, a sort of cultural "gun guilt". Despite this, he recognized about a year ago that he needed a weapon for personal protection, and asked for my advice in selecting it.
I was raised around guns. I was taught to shoot at a very early age, and participated in official tournaments when I was 13. I own several weapons, including a shotgun and what some like to consider an "assault rifle". I've never been in doubt with regard to the necessity for weapons ownership in a free society, but even I have been affected by the discomfort weapons owners are subjected to in our culture these days. Before this recent event, I might even be known not to have a "ready weapon" for use in a home defense situation.
I was therefore his "gun nut friend", and took him to the range to learn to shoot safely and effectively. While fully capable of using it, and with a confident, demonstrated, and consistent application of gun safety practices, he never felt comfortable as a gun owner for precisely the same reason so many around here chime in gleefully when something as ridiculous as smart guns gets proposed. (Are you prepared to stake your life on the speed and accuracy of modern biometric identification?) He, and indeed I as well, are victims of the great lie of the modern American anti-gun culture, and it could have cost him his life.
So before you chime in on this one, and run with the crowd of those who believe guns are vehicles of evil and that those who own and use them are psychotic redneck madmen seeking only to kill schoolchildren, take a second to question your views, what cultural influences formed those views, and the possible agenda of those who exterted those influences. Your life may one day depend on it.
I have never owned a real gun, but I have always been fascinated by them. I know that their primary purpose is to kill (for whatever reason), but I just see them as pieces of machinery. I love the way they work, and how reliable they can be. They have been perfected over hundreds of years, and in my opinion they have gone as far as it is possible. You can't say this about too many machines people have created. It seems to me that tacking on a chip on a gun would desecrate it. It would ruin the fundamental design. I am sure it is being done for good and that it could help people, but it just feels wrong.
the 2nd amendment does include the individual right to 'bear arms.' As michael moore says in the brilliant film 'bowling for columbine,' what does arms mean? who says its just guns? there's no reason this can't be extended all the way to nuclear weapons... it's still 'arms' (look it up in the dictionary!)
further more, you're so much more likely to shoot your child/neighbor/lost exchange student/non-burgler than actually protect yourself that any rational person with any amount of risk aversion would get any guns the heck out of their house.
Yeah.
How about the first population that gets these "smart guns" be the people most likely to have their gun taken away from them--the Police?
I'd say, if the Police carry the 100% identical weapon to what I can buy, then I'll accept it. No bypasses, nothing that gets by the state law--exactly the same weapon.
What, the Police don't feel safe relying on authenticating technology?
i wonder if the legislators will feel responsible when, as someone else suggested, a gun fails to save a life in self-defence because of this law.
Second living in the inner city where police response time is lacking, having a gun that you might be able to unlock if given 10 minutes or praying that the gun recognizes you is to not that is needed.
Third "no technology is foolproof" this did not say that guns will crash like a Microsoft Windows operating system, this just means that it's unreliable. People advocating the use of gun locks and smart gun technology have been made to look foolish in public demonstrations as the locking system or ID system failed. So requiring this technology to be mandatory now before it is stable it just stupid.
Finally it always amazes me that people will not trust their fellow man, hell their own kid or spouse. If your afirad your wife is going to shoot you then why did you marry her if you don't trust her?? or do you think she's an idiot? And what about your kids? Well if there are guns in your house your kid might smoke pot and shoot his friend juggling it or something. oh yes it's not you or your family your afraid of it's everyone else. Stop being elitist you only think you're smarter then your neighbor.
And what the hell, my karma has been "excellent" for the last couple years, take me down a couple pegs and give me something to start posting again for.... SlashDot's got quite boring and full of BS lately, spam fest, crap posts. This is a post I will reply to until it's in archive and no longer sorted.
At least you can't sue me for having an opinion (yet! and yes, THIS comment is a troll! And I've got experiance with trolls dating back to 1994 USENET... I'm pretty sure I can handle it). Go for it if you want a gun control debate!
Well, it's not /that/ easy. But it's not that hard either. The real problems are a)getting access to machinery which can produce to the right tollerances and b)accuracy of the finished weapon.
I list a) 'cause I've had to work with plenty of lathe's which say they do 1/1000, but end up being 1/100. That's a HUGE difference and one which can really influence (read: f*** up) the reliability of your work, bigtime.
Then there's b). It's no coincedence that barrels (the actual bore of the gun) are usually not milled or lathed, but made with a mold. Reason being you need that fancy helix shape to get spin on your bullet for accuracy...without it, your weapon might not even be accurate at 10m. And the best way to get that shape is (injection) molding.
Anyway, you are right...it does take some doing though. As for the silencer...I dunno, doesn't that also have some kind of chemical component? Or is it just layers of fine "grill work" dampening the blast...but if the latter, why do silencers degrade...clogging?
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
Make it like cars (electric) where like 10% of them have to be smart guns.... do not make all guns have to be this way. if you want you gun to be smart FINE if not you should have a choice in your home state.
NJ has already ruled that we're too stupid to pump our own gas -- that sets a low precedent of expectations.
yes, that littl factoid about the 2nd ammendment is something that far too few people realize. The whole system of government was designed not only to not need to be overthrown, but to be over-throwable by the people in case the first part didnt work. I really wish more people understood that. There might be much less voter apathy if people knew what voting was for. The whole communist scare was obviously innitiated by people who realized this. If more people voted, there wouldnt be cause for concern that a communist party existed. Voting and keeping in touch with your representative is really the only thing to prevent the country from being quite legally overthrown every two years.
;)
It's those damned chinese!
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Pianist : Some jerk whos taught themselves how to type in rhythm
The fact that the Supreme Court doesn't understand the meaning of the second amendment doesn't actually change the founders' intentions. When it was written, a militia was composed of all able-bodied males in the area; it wasn't some highly-trained group of professional soldiers. The founders knew that widespread gun ownership was the last possibility for the people to defend themselves from government, which is why it is #2, second only to the right to speak freely.
Gun makers will love this. Why? No longer can one handgun defend your family. Are you away on business? Sucks to be your wife if someone breaks in and she doesn't have her own firearm.
Criminals? Either a) they'll ignore this law as they do so many other firearms (and other) laws, or b) so what? They'll get the lock on their pistol and then shoot someone with it, instead of just plain old shooting someone.
Darwin? Poor survival of the fittest theory - disadvantaged children will no longer be able to shoot themselves, thus corrupting the gene pool even more.
In the end, I like this idea. Gun companies will profit even more, stablizing them against the anti-gun nutcases out there. Survival of the fittest will be cornered by law once more, but then, I can't say I'm sorry - many children who end up blasting themselves shouldn't have. I'm sorry to say that there are some assholes out there who keep guns in their homes with their children, without teaching said children even *basic* gun safety.
The criminals? Yeah. Banning assault rifles really stops them from being used in criminal activity.
My firearms instructor taught us to handle a gun safely, action open, gun unloaded, and we learned to do it without relying on the safety. Why? Some guns don't have safeties. Some guns have faulty safeties. Safeties are mechanical, and are thus subject to mechanical faults - as such, the resonsibility to keep the firearm safe and pointed in a safe direction is the reponsibility of the firearm handler, not the gun.
What is a Smart Gun? It's essentially one big-ass safety, regulated by some magic mechanism. As such, it's taking the liability for keeping the gun safe out of the hands of the person handling the gun, and putting it in the hands of the gun manufacturer (or inventor of the magic Smart Gun mechanism.) I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want to be the gun manufacturer or that inventor - the liability is just too high. The gun goes off - and they'll blame it on the gun, and not on the idiot who kept it loaded and pointed in an unsafe direction...
The bullets are encoded with your DNA. There is no way they can be forged.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I live in Jersey and one of the State Reps who was behind this bill came on NPR. He's not the idiot alot of you make him out to be. The idea behind the bill is alot like CA Emmission Requirements. Sure, you can get higher poluting cars elsewhere but by forcing companies to do something if they want to sell in a state, alot of companies will do the math and see that it's cheaper to just do the R and D the state wants than to lose the ability to sell in that state and give the marketshare to whatever company does do the R and D. Even if you think it's a misguided attempt to save lives...what did you do to save lives this year? At least somebodys trying.
Secondly, it's not that crazy a request. Electronicaly controlled firearms are already starting to appear for sale to the general public. For example: EtronX It's a hunting rifle that has no moving parts (except for the bolt that you operate manually to chamber each round). It triggers the primer with an electrical impulse and it has a small key that you fit into the but of the gun to "arm" it. The whole thing runs on a standard nine volt battery and a LED tells you when it's time to change it...
All the state senators are asking is that the gun compaines look at leveraging technology like this into more dangerious handguns and whoever does it first gets to have a market advantage when the law goes into effect. It's a law that actually rewards innovation...someting I think we'd like to see more of!
This gun-control propaganda is out of date. The US Dept. of Justice and the 5th Circuit court of appeals have now ruled that the 2nd Amendment does protect an individual right. Some other courts, such as the 9th Circuit have reached another conclusion. The issue will probably get to the US Supreme Court, and I am sure the NRA will argue that the 2nd Amendment protects an individual right. Regardless, you can read the cases and law review articles here, and form your own opinion: http://www.guncite.com/
This is 'feel good' legislation. This will accomplish nothing but make some people rejoice that they have enacted stronger gun control laws.
The irony is always lost on these people that the cities with the strongest gun control laws always have the highest crimes per capita.
There is one good thing out of this.
I live in the PDRM "People's Democratic Republic of Maryland" and I was on the fence about purchasing an AR-15 because I really don't have the money.
I will now purchase this weapon and a couple of pistols to make sure I get "yesterday's" technology.
MY weapons WILL fire when I pull the trigger. Because if I pull the trigger I NEED it to fire.
The result will be simple enough - firearms manufacturers, quite reasonably, will refuse to sell firearms in the state of New Jersey based on the liability issues involved.
.45 and recondition it than I would be willing to purchase a risk-intensive "smart gun"...
The first time a battery runs down, or a "smart gun system" fails to fire when necessary - resulting in the death or injury of the lawful firearm owner - the manufacturer of that so-called "smart gun" is going to be sued out of existence.
There are seldom many volunteers to be sued out of existence.
A firearm is a last-ditch tool of self defense, and like a fire extinguisher, introducing exciting new failure modes is a *very bad thing*.
Certainly, my *very first* priority if I were to purchase a so-called "smart gun" would be to dumb it down and remove the potentially fatal failure mode implicit in its' alleged "safety-system".
This, of course, does not even begin to address the notion that I'd be MUCH more willing to buy a WWI era
Lokinator
"A gun is one of those things that if you need it, you really really need it...and you need it WORK the first time..."
"It is morally wrong to initiate the aggressive use of force.." Of course, defensive force is fair game...
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=48857&cid=4950 236
Read this thread just above you to see your long awaited answers about microwave tom foolery.
And yes you can etch "hard coded" programming into harware, they are called ROMs. Or just use a properly designed circuit.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
It's interesting that you put so much weight on the Supreme Court's rulings on the 2nd Amendment when they have only ruled on it twice. Also one must make note of how the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals looked at the 2nd recently. They decided (in opposition to 200 years of jurisprudence) that "the people" is in fact a collective term, ie "the state" as in the state has the right to bear arms. Of course this quickly becomes ridiculous when we look at other instances of "the people" clearly meaning the individual: most notably the 1st Amendment. Or maybe with the 4th amendment: I'm sure that the state of California is quite relieved that it is not subject to unreasonable search and seizure by what, the state of Texas? Obviously if the case were so cut and dried that we do not have the right as individuals to bear arms the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals would not have ruled in this asinine way as this ruling can now be used as a basis to strip rights from individuals and give them to the state if in the definition of that right the wording uses "the people."
Look:
I don't own a gun. I doubt I will anytime soon. However, if I do buy one, I darn well want every member of my family and most of my friends to be able to use it. I also want to be able to take it to say, a range, and have someone demonstrate. Perhaps I've seen too many action movies, but I want to be able to pick up other people's guns and use them too, for good guy purposes.
This looks like a dangerous slippery slope. If it looked to accomplish anything, I would commend it still. However, as has been discussed, the country's saturation with guns demands measures that get to the source of gun violence. It's a bit late for measures like these.
Valete!
freedom loving socialists... what a concept
What do you mean? Like, putting in a cup of tea and then pressing the 'Dinner Plate' button?
cLive ;-)
-- Trinity in high heels carrying a whip: The donimatrix - there is no spoonerism
Barrels (and other parts) are legal to buy without an FFL. The frame/receiver (where the serial number is stamped) isn't. Machine the frame/receiver of a common firearm, and build your gun around that.
How does this affect the katana under my pillow?
This will do nothing but create a black market in cracking/disabling the protection on guns and get innocent women and children killed. And it raises many questions about implementation. Will only _one_ person be able to fire a given gun? How does one change ownership? Add/remove 'users'? Guess I can forget firing my buddies gun at the range, let alone a friendly strangers.
From the article:
"There are safety regulations on cars, on toys. It's clearly time we have safety regulations on handguns," McGreevey said at the signing ceremony.
I'm pretty sure that I could kill someone with any car and most kids toys available on the market. I seem to recall a guy named David taking out a giant with nothing but a slingshot, the ancient precursor of the gun. What no regulation can control is intent. If someone intends to do me harm I want to be able to protect myself, or at least have a chance to, like David did. Not being Ahnold, a gun gives me that. Why do people consider it nuts to desire to use the most effective means of self-defense available (next to common sense)? I consider it nuts not to.
"Gold still represents the ultimate form of payment in the world." - Alan Greenspan, 1999
then we should just change it!
And if it doesn't then maybe we should REWORD it so even my little brother's sister would understand.
A Catch-22!
As for the silencer...I dunno, doesn't that also have some kind of chemical component? Or is it just layers of fine "grill work" dampening the blast...but if the latter, why do silencers degrade...clogging?
Its been a while, and I'll probably need to be corrected, but I believe that there are many ways to make a silencer. One way is to make a whole bunch of 'baffles' (layers of fine grill work). I wish I could find a good picture, but google's image search is failing me. Anyways, they serve two purposes, slowing down the round and diffusing built up gas pressure. The hole in the center of the baffle is like 1/1000ths of an inch bigger then the projectile going through it. Over time this will degrade the baffle so that the aforementioned hole is larger then tollerances allow. If this happens, then the round will not be slowed down enough and the silencer will fail.
For more information check out the original patent here
"However," replied the universe, "The fact has not created in me A sense of obligation."
Typo, please see my correction in the follow-up. I understand the confusion. It was NOT what I meant to post.
p.s. on a related, but barely, topic if parents would start parenting, instead of letting the tv, and computer raise their children, this issue would be practically moot.
This is the biggest bunch of shit... and yet I hear it all the time. Listen, whether you conservatives like it or not, it doesn't just take a village to raise a child, a village will raise your child whether you like it or not, unless you chain them up in the basement forever as some ultra-conservatives have been known to do.
You can't keep your child away from society.
I had *great* parents by anyone's estimation. Both with graduate degrees, still together, in a loving marriage, with a strong values-based background as I grew up. I didn't watch a lot of television or play a lot of computer games. I was reading C.S. Lewis and knew my times tables when I entered kindergarten. There was no excessive corporal punishment in my background, but my parents knew how to be disciplinarians with "time outs" and similar things.
And I was a model child... until I got to high school.
Then, I joined a gang, started doing lines of coke, started dealing, got into serious troble, and was finally done for breaking and entering and armed (i.e. with a gun) robbery. Why? Who knows. I wanted more money and more coke. Did it fly in the face of everything my parents raised me to be? Of course! But so what.
I'm tired of hearing people say "we don't need gun control, we just need better parents" because unless you're going to keep a kid out of gun-laden environments (i.e. anywhere other than his/her own home, and not even there if his/her parents are gun owners), it's easy to end up with a shooter on your hands. Our culture almost demands it.
To be fair, even the best, brightest, most well-trained police officer will drop his or her gun once in a while; and even the strongest, most-agile police officer can be overpowered by another person or group of people.
Mistakes happen even to the best. Any weapon can be used against you.
I don't see a good reason in your post to not use gun cords. Is there a reason, other then machismo, to not use these gun cords? Do they reduce the functionality somehow?
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
When is someone gonna hack Linux onto one of these smart guns? Then we can have the first slashdotted gun in the world!
Don't trust a bull's horn, a doberman's tooth, a runaway horse or me.
Rule #3: Keep your finger OFF the trigger until you're on target and ready to fire. I had to say this because I just finished watching a cop show where these guys run around with their fingers on the trigger all the time. Idiots!
It should be noted that most ammo manufacturing defects, rare as they are, involve things like bad primers or inadequate powder charges (e.g., squib loads.) In other words, defective ammo will likely render your weapon (Drill Sergeant Hixon very quickly taught me not to call it a "gun") inoperative. I cannot think of a scenario where defective ammo would result in an accidental discharge.
The same is generally true for the weapons themselves, particularly in a design like the [PLUG] Glock, [/PLUG] but true for nearly any reputable modern firearm (yes, even the "dangerous" M1911 - see #3 above.)
New Jersey has just enacted legislation
yes thats why I have been hearing about it for weeks on cable news... get with the times.
This is one of my favorite quotes...
If guns kill people, then...
-pencils missspel words.
-cars make people drive drunk.
-spoons made Rosie O'Donnell fat.
To add to my argument...
Maybe we should make pencils that fix spelling errors, then I won't have to learn to spell.
Maybe they should make cars that smell alcohol and don't operate, then I won't have to learn responsiblity and self control.
Maybe we should have fat police, because I sure as hell have seen a lot more 80 year old chain-smokers than 80 year old chunkers. Sorry, I apologize to the poor chunkers who are helpless victims of McDonalds. (they made you eat it)
Maybe we should ban television and computers, then have mandatory exercise since heart disease kills so many people.
Maybe we should have a law banning all bones in food, since so many people and thier pets choke to death.
Maybe we should really stop making such stupid fscking laws, that don't really solve anything.
These are gun controls proposed by people who don't understand guns. The biggest example of this is "trigger locks". Trigger locks are effectively useless. A kid can pry one off with a screwdriver. Not only that, it is _very_ easy to discharge a firearm with one on. With freedom comes responsibility, I beleive we should require mandatory education to buy a gun and prosecute those who have guns stolen out of their cars or if one is stolen out of their home and they didn't bother having a safe or a full locking mechanism.
Never overestimate the end user. -jeramy b. smith
Yeah for Judge Dredd- will they be requiring DNA tags be placed on each round before it is fired?
Guns dont kill people, bullets do. Anybody ever seen bowling for columbine? Listen to what that movie has to say about gun controll.
Just the software.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
All this reminds me of a sci fi short story-turned-book that I read a while back. It was called The Weapons Shops of Isher and detailed how a group of shops distributed guns that would only fire for the owner and, even then, only fire when the owner wasn't firing at a person for anything other than self defense.
Anyone remember this?
C'mon, New York. Let's show the world we still have some balls [wtc2002.com].
Well, we certanly wouldn't want anyone to think we have any taste or anything.
I know I wouldn't want to have to look at that monstrosity every day of my life...
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I believe, from what I understood, the reason why a silencer silences a gun isn't from the discharge, but from the speed of the bullet when it leaves the chamber. Just like the crack of a whip, I understand the bullet is faster than the speed of sound when it first leaves, thus making its own sonic-boom.
Could be wrong, not a gun know-it-all.
Human nature is the same everywhere; the modes only are different. -- Earl of Chesterfield
Firstly, it's a dumb idea. About as workable as a "Ballistic Fingerprint".
Secondly, I know a ton of Law Enforcment officers carry thier "issue" piece (Sig, Glock, etc) and at least a personally purchased backup, and often a "belly gun" and maybe even an ankle gun.
Well what the hell happens in a fight if couple officers are underfire, and for some reason the partner has to use one of the other officer's backups?
A dead cop is what happens.
Smart grips don't work, aren't going to work for a while, it's a dumb law.
Besides, what stops Bill from buying a pistol at a PA gunshow or from the Classifieds and driving across the state line?
If that situation boggles your mind, then you have never been there, and should really STFU. Anyone who's ever been in a confrontation like that or used a FaTS (Firearm Training Simulator) system knows how quickly these things happen in real life.
Can a wallet look like a gun? YES. They make holsters that look exactly like a wallet... what about those? take a look
As for falling down while shooting, that's easy. Most police are taught to shoot/move at the same time (standing still makes you a target), preferably towards some cover. It's usually a good idea to put some distance between yourself and a threat. You think you could accurately shoot, whilst running backwards, whilst tripping over debris and cracks in the sidewalk, all while dealing with the biggest adrenaline surge of your life? yeah... thought not.
You need to learn and experience some things before you second-guess the guys working the street. As it is, you really just sound like a cop-hater.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
I have often wondered about the insane, in my eyes, American love affair with the gun. Given that the majority of deaths due to gunshot wounds are due to accidents, this might be able to improve things along those lines. For all those people talking about how gun owners' families will now no longer be able to protect themselves, perhaps they should ask themselves just how many people actually ever do use a gun to protect themselves.
Defective ammo can cause a round to misload into a firing chamber and the then bolt can hit it causing a nasty explosion and sending shrapnel into you and those around.
Here's a link...
This explains it
this thing has been around for ages. Probably wouldn't be a good idea for the geeks in this forum... think about handling your floppies with one of those buggers on.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
er, whoever said that obviously doesn't know we've had computers in our cars for more than 10 years.
Anyone have to reboot their car lately? Didn't think so.
To the bad guys, anyway...
I keep all my firearms locked away in a large safe. The two that are available (Glock 17 - 17rnd 9mm and Berreta 92F - 15rnd 9mm) are in a easily opened electronic Multi-Vault safe (http://www.gunvault.com) that gives us access to fully ready to fire weapons while keeping them safely away from kids, theives, and other bad guys.
Unfortunately - not all gun owners are intelligent. Though neither are theives.
I'm wondering how long it will be before our polititians decide my backup defensive weapon (Louisville Slugger - at bedside) needs to be biometrically authorized before it can be swung in an intruder's general direction.
Monkeys kill people too!
The Judge Dredd film had Judges with guns that not only would blow up if used by someone other than the owner but would also send the shooters DNA sample with the bullet into the victim.
Then again, that film was set a little into the future.
And it was awful.
Oh and if a gun malfunctions on you, you might not have the chance to take it back to the store. Worst-case scenario - gun does not work when you're standing off with a burglar, you shout "Sh...", burglar shoots or bludgeons you, widow sues gun maker, gun maker goes out of business, employees lose jobs, wife buys condo, children go to college, you're dead.
1 - Politicians are wasting tax payers money to pass a stupid law.
2 - Gun producers will make money selling the "new amazing smart guns".
(An electronical device securing a 100% mechanical device that doesn't need electronics at all to work will be easy to circumvent, therefore all guns owned by criminals will be modified to circumvent the recognition system.)
3 - Criminals will make more money by selling modified guns.
4 - Politicians will waste more money trying to fight the effects of that stupid law.
5 - Profit!! (for all but honest people)
...the spawn of braindead parents, better serve humanity by yanking themselves from the gene pool with dad's colt, thus preventing further braindead descendants? We gotta have SOME form of natural selection...
is the gun that never shoots.
The question is whether this will affect the reliability of the gun. Reliability in terms of both preventing unauthorized usage of the firearm and allowing authorized use of the firearm.
Transferring the firearm has to be possible as well- what if 2 people or more share a firearm? How do you sell 1 of these firearms to someone?
I can just see it now. The little window comes up:
Ding!
You have chosen to shoot the armed intruder. Do you really want to do this?
Perhaps the criminal will be laughing at you hard enough that you can reboot and shoot him. Or sell him your piece of shit new gun.
The Democratic Party: We've been pussies since 1968!
Besides Uncle Jnr, of course.
A gun is such a simple contraption that it's unimaginable that someone won't make or modify an existing one that won't be protected. It might help in officers being hurt when their gun refuses to fire in an emergency, but it certainly won't stop the criminals from using guns.
Not to mention that there are so many guns out there right now.
A better strategy would be to somehow chemically taint the gun powder to make it identifiable. Whenever you buy bullets (or plain gun powder), that gun powder is forever linked to you. If it ever shows up anywhere, you're busted. Also make it 100 times more expensive than it is now. Crime problem solved. Nobody can afford the bullets (at say $100 a piece), and when they do use them, they're 100% traceable to the buyer. If all bullets sold implement this feature, then in 10-20 years, nobody will have "old" untraceable bullets.
Now, I seriously doubt anyone is nuts enough to make their own gun powder from scratch...
"If anything can go wrong, it will." - Murphy
http://www.metalstorm.com/
Only individuals (and legal entities) can have rights.
States rights is really a farce since states, like the fed only get powers (privileges which are solely granted by consent of the governed). "All powers not expressly granted to the federal government are reserved by the states."
I'm sick of idiot high school government teachers diluting the meaning of right.
The bill of rights were introduced to address shortcommings in the original draft of the constitution that neglected to mention that the citizens of this nation have rights that shall not be taken away.
And if you actually read the section of the constitution.
A well regulated militia being necessary to the free state; The right to keep and bear arms shall not be abridged.
Let's analyze that. First, please note that there is a ';' in the middle of the paragraph, making it a composite of multiple sentences. Meaning that it really reads "A well regulated militia is needed. The People have a right to keep and bear arms which shall not be abridged."
Second, as I've already stated, everywhere the word RIGHT is mentioned, it applies solely to individuals (and legal entities which are considered to be individuals)
Government does not have a RIGHT to pass laws, they have the POWER to do so. Government does not have a RIGHT to regulate the yelling of 'fire' in a crowded theater, they have the POWER to do so.
The worst part of all this is that revisionists determined to undermine the fundamental rights of this nations citizens' are constantly rewriting textbooks to intentionally blur the distintion between individual rights and government powers.
Ah owner indentifying guns. And here I was thinking that there were going to make ownership of these things mandatory.
<Vasquez> Lets Rock!
In Soviet Russia, The Bears arm you!
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
My cars computer has crashed disableing the car until a BMW tech got there to reboot it. It only did it once but it did it half way between LA and Las Vegas.
The control computer on my kenmore oven crashes all the time. You would think something that simple would be foolproof but you'd be amazed at how easy it is to make something that only works 97% of the time. And most companies don't care.
BMW came out and replaced half the wiring in the car to fix the problem (they care).
Kenmore told me to F off (they don't).
Got karma to burn, fuggit.
1. Pass law.
2. Don't enforce the law
3. Pass another law.
4. Don't enforce it.
5. Pass asinine new law.
5. ?????
6. Less crime!
Fail-unsafe
An article in c't (the article is in English) demonstrated methods for spoofing every major biometric ID technology, including ones too expensive and cumbersome to fit into anything recognizable as a gun. So you wake up to find your own gun pointed at your face and laugh... and wonder where the hole in your head came from.
Fail-safe
Someone has just broken into your house and your "smart gun" goes stupid right when you find out he is armed and NOT with a "smart gun". You think the biometric ID thingie is going to be any more reliable than any other electronic consumer gadget manufactured in the last few years?
Hint: the environment of a gun is even less benign than your living room. Ever hear of recoil, as in high-acceleration transients? If you'd like to get a full understanding of this, make sure you don't have a current backup of your stuff, take the hard drive on your computer, raise it over your head, and drop it on the sidewalk.
Hopefully, anyone who thinks this is a good idea, will discover why I don't agree from experience and I'll get to read about it on one of the 'Official Darwin' sites.
This is just another example of legislators trying to write biometric requirements into law without being remotely clued as to why no application related to public safety should be authenticated exclusively by biometric ID, whether it's software or a handgun.
People have been bending over and polluting the air telling us how wonderful the idea of a gun that can't be used against the owner is.
"Weapons used by law enforcement officers would be exempt until a separate decision on whether the requirement should apply to them."
Interesting that there doesn't seem to be a public demand for these from public safety officers who know their lives depend on the proper operation of their guns. Apparently, they feel that the device is potentially more hazardous to their health than the risk of having a gun taken by an attacker is. Is the safety of government employees more important than your safety or mine? Yours, maybe.
In the final analysis, a "smart gun locking device" is just something else that can go wrong. Like a DRM module added to your computer. Come to think of it, this IS a digital rights module by any reasonable definition of the term. The gun is available when a government-mandated thing says its available.
Interesting that a fair number of people who have said elsewhere "DRM over my dead body" seem to think this a good idea. People willing to challenge the government to keep their own files available don't quite seem to get the idea that people might want to keep their own guns available.
With respect to the idea that this will depend on an AG's evaluation of handgun safety, is he going to care if the gun always fires when the owner needs it to, or that it never fires when an unauthorized user has it?
Tech Public Policy stuff
This has to stop.
Police aren't required to use them? Wtf does that say to you? Sure, regular citizens are required, but not the police? HUH?
I hope you guys see where this is going. It's yet another step to remove guns from the law abiding citizen. The police aren't using them, because they know that inevitably someone will find a way to electronically 'jam' their guns.
While I appreciate the service that Police officers provide to us, when they can.. I must say, beware of the coming day when we're all required to have these bugs implanted into firearms. At the flip of a switch, guns could potentially be rendered useless by the enemy, whoever that may be.
And if it isn't a direct infringement on the 2nd ammendment, I don't know what is.
Hmmm...kinda what I thought. Thanks for the great link, too. Never heard of Delphion before (EPO for me...handy that it's only a kilometer away from me :) ).
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
I like to talk on "Skeptics" forums. A surprising number of "skeptics" will put their blinders on when they want. Scott Adams was right, we're all weasels.
Never overestimate the end user. -jeramy b. smith
I have a right to the means by which to defend myself, unless (though this is still debatable) someone else is defending me in my place. This is a natural right that exists independent of the state, not because the state grants it. See John Locke if you aren't willing to grant me this. The most the state can do is to acknowledge this right. Since the state does not and cannot protect me in everyday circumstances, the state cannot rightly deny me the means to effect my own defense. Of course, the state does protect me at the international level, which is why I don't have a right to develop nuclear weapons or to have my own stealth bomber squadron (sounds fun though, huh?) When the state attempts to curtail my natural rights, I admit it really sends me into a frenzy. I don't own a gun, but honestly it is the state that most often makes me wish I did. For all the gun control advocates that think I don't need a gun to defend myself, please take note of this fact: I am lucky to hit 160lbs soaking wet. I build web applications all day. I post on slashdot. A 250lb-criminal does not need a gun to endanger my freedom, my physical well-being, or my life. He doesn't even need a knife. The firearm, esp. the handgun, has been known for hundreds of years as The Great Equalizer. It is the one tool that can truly equalize me with the rest of everyday humanity, when push comes to shove. Not to be crude, but I'm typing this from a town that contains about 30,000 women. I could probably rape and murder any one of about 20,000 or so of those, if I got it into my head to do so. People get such things into their heads on a daily basis. I personally know a woman who lost her husband to a violent mugging, and a man whose daughter was raped and murdered. I'm not trying to produce hard statistics here, just telling you where I'm coming from. I want you to understand that it's no use telling me that such events aren't common enough to worry about. The point here is that (back to the 20,000 women) if one of those women was packing a handgun, and I picked her, I would probably be SOL. My chances of success, or even of a long and happy life on this nice planet, would be significantly diminished. Unless the state is going to provide every vulnerable person (and we all are, to someone) with a 24-hour personal protection officer, it can not rightly constrain my right to provide my own 24-hour personal protection.
happen to HOLLYWOOD? Has anyone thought about them? What are they gonna do abt their gun battles where actors always find guns in the dozens? What is going to happen to all the villians who never leave home w/o a gun ? Thos poor souls :p
|/________
|\A|ALYS|
"I am the Law!!!"
#1. A pure democracy IS mob rule! That's why we're supposed to have checks and balances - so that we can rein in the tyranny of the majority (and what a woefully undereducated majority it is...)
Basically, the problem is that there is a certain know-it-all portion of the population, that believes that people should be protected from themselves, even if it means depriving them of essential liberties. Whether they be extremist members of the religious right trying to ban violent games (and short skirts), or the litigious left trying to ban everything (from guns to gasoline engines), these are the people who believe that they have the right to curtail the rights of other people "for their own good."
There have always been these kinds of people, but never have they been given so much currency in our current society, where the people who are supposed to vote are more than content to let "experts" put out what they should think and do. That's why essential liberties are being lost - not because there are people who are willing to take them away, but because we as a people are willing to let them.
Mod me down, mod the parent up. I've got karma to burn, and the AC made some great points.
The movie was nothing but one falsehood after another. For a short list, check http://www.andrewsullivan.com/main_article.php?art num=20021208. There are other lists out there.
I dont know what it is with Americans and their guns.
I live in Australia, very few people have guns, and following a recent tragedy, the government introduced a buy back scheme, where they would purchase guns off citizens.
WHY do Americans need guns so much? Cut the shit about the consitutional rights etc etc. If guns were outlawed, wouldn't your society be less violent? If so would that abolish the need for ordinary citizens to posess such weapons for their own defense?
Space Shuttle? let's see... Challenger? A human communication problem, compounded by an ignorant computer that had no clue it was about to blow up.
Onboard controllers in a car? When those controllers fail, the engine goes into "it'll run, but not optimally", at least you hope. And every time you turn off your car's engine, that computer bakes.
Aircraft computers? Puh-leez. Why the hell was an aircraft allowed so close to the ground on 9/11? Why couldn't the pilots lock the controls out before Atta et al. could get to them?
Perhaps it's because these "safeties" create more hazards than they solve. When the safety fails, it takes down the whole system, not just one subsystem.
Yes, the Space Shuttles have lots of safeties and redundancies, but they also took how many years to get up and running? It was at least 5 years between the first shuttle flight and the first shuttle launch. And the NJ legislature is allowing only 3 years to implement this "safety" "feature". Two of those years will be tied up in the courts while the gun makers and the state sue each other, the last year will be spent lobbying for an extension.
And all the while, Osama and Saddam and their cronies are using our own laws against us. We tie our own hands, and then wonder why we're such victims. Their best hope is that we can't, or won't, fight back. With this kind of legislation, that's nearly guaranteed.
"Damn, you wait a minute to rob my house, and rape/kill my family? I gotta reboot my handgun. Windows CE for Firearms crashed again."
"Wadda ya mean 'Handgun Error: Hangun out of ammo? I just put in a full clip and chambered it!"
"Weapons Jam? Shit, this is the 5th time this week!"
--
Intelligence is definitely a recessive trait.
You have it backwards. A "silencer" (supressor is the correct term) is really just a muffler similar to the one on your car. It does NOT slow the bullet down and a super sonic bullet will still be heard. Even so, the crack of a supersonic bullet is not nearly as loud or damaging to the hearing as muzzel blast. Normally when you use a supressor you load subsonic rounds too.
They work by slowing down the rapidly expanding gasses from the barrel and reducing the noise from the muzzle blast. They degrade over time because the rubber pieces inside (wipes) get worn out.
Supressors were invented to save the hearing of frequent shooters, and even before the NFA criminal misuse was rare (if ever).
This law is rediculous! Any halfway intelligent 10-year-old will easily figure out how to bypass this technology and accidentially shoot himself in the head.
I don't think gun control is going to work in the future because they will just be too easy to make. Even if you won't be able to make your own(though you could), someone else with some informal skills and pro-am equipment will be able to do it for you- and at rock bottom prices. Guns will soon be like Marijuana or Crystal Meth- you'll be able to make them anywhere, basically.
I'd bet one American dollar that before I die I'll be able to buy a little PC-driven fabricating machine that can can build an astonishing number of everyday things from CAD files- including guns (legally or not).
IIRC, there have been a few stories here about "3D printers" used for prototyping machine components. Assuming the basic theory behind it is sound, the tech could come along quickly. Print extra dishes when company comes over? I think its coming. Seems too profitable of an idea to pass up.
Compared with today's technology, a gun is pretty simple. Making one would be trivial with this machine as long as the layered compostites or whatever are strong enough. Powder you might have to come up with on your own, but this isn't terribly difficult.
This is a typical case of FUD around the real reason they wrote the law. The safety issue is just a means to their real end and could obviously be used effectively used as lobbying fodder (and attract less flack from the NRA). The real aim is less guns being sold. And that is what they will get. Now you can argue about the merits of less or more guns, but this is just another example of politicians slipping one past the opposition. Watch out for this law at a state near you!
Freedom of speech doesn't come with bandwidth.
I see lots of lawsuits coming on. Now, gun manufacturers will be sued when the thing doesn't fire when the legitimate owner tries to defend himself, and when the thing does fire when some child points it the wrong way.
Seems legislation is merely a societal Bugzilla...
--
pea
If this was really intended to make guns safer for their owners (ie not getting shot with your own gun) there would be no need for this law.
While at the gun store, if you truly believed a "smart gun" would make you and your kids safer, wouldn't you choose to buy one without being forced to?
Folks, this is a smoke screen for the real agenda, which is to stop all small gun manaufacturer who cannot afford to develop and test this technology from doing business in New Jersey.
And once just the few large gun manufacturers remain in the state, the lawsuits will begin.
Imagine the possibilities!
Victims who got shot when the lock malfunctioned will sue, and gun owners who were unable to protect themselves or their families because their gun refused to fire will sue. Everybody on both sides will sue!
If a gun is simply intended to fire a round when you pull the trigger, you might be able to sue and win if it instead blows up in your hand.
But if the functional spec is expanded to also require the gun to correctly decide whether or not to fire when you pull the trigger, you'd have a valid claim against the maker anytime the gun fails to make the right decision. Needless to say, the lawsuits would bankrupt the large manufacturers, or force them to not do business in the state.
It's kind of like saying "You have a constitutional right to freedom of speech, but nobody said you had a right to hear or read it." Just a little technicality, nothing to worry about. Think that'd pass constitutional muster?
"You have a right to keep and bear arms, but nobody will sell you any arms," since civilian lawsuits resulting from malfunctioning approved guns will destroy the makers, and makers of non-approved arms will be shut down with criminal lawsuits for making non-approved weapons.
I think "the point" of this law is not so criminals can't get their hands on guns...because I'm sure it would be trivial to take your gun to a shop (or someone's basement) and have it "re-fitted" to you. I believe that "the point" here is to prevent children from getting their hands on guns, which I would consider a noble cause.
"If at first you don't succeed, lower your standards."
If they carry exempted guns they will of course become the target for every drug dealer, pimp and criminal who require an un-teched gun, it only takes one tech gun to kill an officer and then more and more un-teched guns make it to the street.
Kingdom of Loathing (www.kingdomofloathing.com) Addicted is me
Alcohol manufacturers will be required to use nano technology in their beverages so that the alcohol molecules will only affect those who are 21 years or older. No more under age drunkenness, but plenty of under age drinking.
The nano-bots will determine the drinker's age through samling the protien compisition of stomac cells. If the drinker is determined to be of legal drinking age, the nano-bots will release their enclosed aclohol molecule to allow intoxication; otherwise the alcocol will remain enclosed in a bucky ball type structure and pass unprocessed through the digestive tract.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
by law enforcement?
great idea - lets circumvent the right to bare arms.
I dont even own a gun (cept for a early 20th century relic), and have only fire them on a couple dozen occations. but come on, i would not have even been able to do that without purchasing one.
"Supporters say the law will help prevent accidental gun deaths and suicides." Is it just me, or does this sound rather stupid on the part of the supporters of the law?
.
My gun only fires when I hold it. I desire to commit suicide, ergo I can still shoot myself with MY gun. Are they just imbeciles or did they apprentice themselves to a moon for 20 years to get this stupid?
There are medium range (10-15 foot) taser guns now that can KO an intruder. No trajectory/windspeed issues, and if some kid shoots his brother with it, you don't have any chance in heck of a dead child - give or take maybe .001%, say if you shot someone who has a pacemaker (but I'm sure a bullet is just as harmful to them).
So why aren't we looking more into these technologies?
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
"This is common-sense legislation. There are safety regulations on cars, on toys. It's clearly time we have safety regulations on handguns," McGreevey said.
Apparently McGreevey is ignorant about handguns. They are dangerous for a REASON! Looks like he will be arming the NJ police with Nerf guns! What a douchebag. Will somebody please shoot him with a baseball bat?
They don't like the idea at all.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
I do not approve of guns. But even I think this is just lame. It 's a money grab and great for the gun industry (Any gun manufacturer's in NJ?) They will have to re-tag a gun every time it is sold and re-sold. Joe law abiding citizen will pay X for re-programming or a new chip while the criminal will pay 0$ because he "knows someone".
Restrictions on firearms might not be the only cause for violent crimes. Here in Argentina violent crimes are on the rise, mostly because of the economic situation. There are problably more weapons on the hands of the average person than before (most of the illegal, I suppose). It has certainly NOT decreased the amount of violence here.
This type of gun requires that the gun be trained to recognize the owner's grip, much like James Bond's gun in License to Kill.
...Guns kill people.
..or even in Sweden, where I live, we don't need handguns lying around our house to feel secure. What the heck is up with Americans and guns?
'No technology is foolproof--anyone who has a computer knows how many times it crashes.'
lets hope the guns dont run Micoro$oft Window$
Otherwise, we are in big trouble.....
My immediate thought upon reading the "crashing computers" comment was, naturally enough ...
These guns are unlikely to be controlled by a full-blown operating system. Embedded systems anyone? The test cycle for such systems tend to be much more stringent.
Of course, whilst I applaud this move (it's something I've talked about to friends many times, esp. concerning cases of kids "somehow" getting hold of Daddy's "unloaded" gun), it still doesn't deal with the root problem of too many people both owning and using guns. Reduce the number of gun owners, reduce the potential for accidental gun deaths and the *ease* of killing in "crimes of passion" and suchlike. Deaths will still occur, but it's a lot harder to kill or seriously maim someone with a knife than a gun.
Guns are "life or death" devices, literally.
I don't have a gun myself, but I do know my fair about them. There is no way in hell I would trust one of these guns. Yeah I'm about to defend my life and my property and then "Oh shit! The battery's dead!"
And that's only the tip of the iceberg. What about the sensor they're going to use? Is it one of the cheapass fingerprint readers? Do they have any idea what the false positive and false negative rates on those? Totally unacceptable for a life or death device.
What they really should be doing is throwing people who leave their guns within reach of little kids in jail. It's criminally negligent behavior and should be treated as such.
Oh, and don't forget that guns are fairly simple devices. It's probably going to be trivial to remove this thing, but I'm sure they're going to make it a felony to do so. This way the criminal, who is already committing other felonies won't give a shit and can just remove it, but me, Joe public, can't. That way he can shoot me while my gun is still scanning my hand.
Life is too short to proofread.
Let me see if I understand the majority here.
/. crowd seems to believe that data and source code should be free. Microprocessors should not attach serial numbers to files. Office software such as word processors and spreadsheets should not attach serial numbers to files. Everyone should have open and easy access to software.
/. crowd believes that guns should be heavily controlled.....if they are allowed to exist at all.
/. crowd and the State Of New Jersey are both going to have a very hard time facing reality. Life just doesn't work like that.
The
And yet the
I think the
Most crime involving weapons does not involve weapons purchased legally by the offender. Often times the weapons have been modified and no longer meet legal specifications (barrel length, full auto, serial number removed, etc.)
You know how easy it is to build your own gun in this day and age?
Harrassing people who want to own legal weapons for legal purposes is NOT the answer here.
It's so hard to believe that someone who can see how wrong the DMCA is can't see the obvious about gun/people control.
. Quit playing Monopoly with Bill. Switch to one of many non-Microsoft products today.
What is this going to accomplish besides stopping sales of all new handguns in New Jersey. Oh wait, that was the plan. Notice that police officers are exempt from the law, that alone shows you what the law enforcement community thinks of it. Why not just enforce the thusands of laws already on the books? And please drop the whole "for the children" argument. Thousands upon thousands more children drown in pools and lakes every year than get shot with a gun. With that in mind, all children should wear special "smart water wings" that inflate should they happen to fall into water. Taking your child out of the house without the water wings should be illegal. More lives would be saved by baning cell phone use while driving in all states. Do some net searches and see what the major causes of death really are. When you see the gun column, take away roughly half for suicides. You take care of yourself and I'll take care of myself. It really is that simple folks, let the stupid people weed themselves out. If I choose to protect myself with a gun that's my business, not yours and not my governments. This is simply about controling people, it has nothing to do with crime.
We just call them 'misfires'. Been happening since the flintlock.
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
And coming in 2005, New Jersey will enact something even better; nerve stapling! yay! Then comes pre-crime so if you even think about committing a crime you will be instantly paralyzed with pain.
If this is such a great idea, then why was it never implemented on Star Trek? How many times have you seen someome steal a crewmembers phaser and point it back at em? :-)
Real smart guns would only let you shoot paper targets and "bad guys"!
-- Many men would appreciate a woman's mind more if they could fondle it
woobwoobwoobwoob
But you do have some gawdawful high taxes. Now you know why we have guns.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Hmmm, What if the OS on gun crashes and it shoots by itself. Then no one can say guns don't kill people...
My next innovative product will be a device that emits a high energy electromagnetic impulse to disable all computerized guns in the area. I'm sure the sales of this device to criminals will be very high. Hell, even the police might buy one or two.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Except for the idiots who passed this law.
Murphy was an optimist.
I can see the slashdot article once this takes hold: "Smart Gun modded. Now boots linux. Can change channels on HDTV."
Seriously. I don't like this idea. Why? Because, if I am attacked in my house, and my girlfriend or SO gets the gun to defend herself, the gun will not work because it isn't me. Well, that just defeated the both of us from defending ourselves (or at least one of us). This doesn't help us in any way. Tracking numbers are one thing, guns that don't fire because the owner isn't holding it isn't. The 'baddies' are still going to find ways around this technology, and they will find a way to fire the gun. This only inhibits the law abiding citizens from being able to defend themselves properly.
The state should not be responsible for everything out there. It is like we don't want to take care of ourselves. We'd rather enact a law to make it illegal to not put a seatbelt on, than use common sense to think 'if I don't, and I get plowed, I might die'. People are people. No matter how much we 'make illegal', people will find new ways of getting hurt, killed, maimed, etc. Why do we need all this 'protection' from ourselves? Just like this 'Homeland Security Dept'. I don't want to give up my rights for potential security. It is just not worth it.
They stuck me in an institution, said it was the only solution, to...protect me from the enemy, myself
... Now boots much faster than any previous version of windows (assuming a P4 3.04GHz gun with HT support and DDR ram).... ... Please wait while your gun loads the neccessary device drivers... bullet.vxd not found, would you like to attempt to download this file from Windows Update?
*** BANG ****
When to REALLY worry about your gun? When you notice what's stamped on the inside of the grip is an IPv6 address.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I'm quite sure the identification system blocks the weapon in case it fails, since the opposite would be just stupid.
Now what happens if I use an EMP bomb in proximity of such smart guns to destroy or disable the identification system ? They'd become useless pieces of metal. Their owner might still be able to beat the crap out of me with it, though...
What did Einstein say about the Third world War already ? "I don't know what weapons humans will use in the Third world War, but the Fourth World War will see the survivors come back with wooden clubs and stone axes." Nothing beats low tech.
New Jersey Gov. Jim McSleazy's approval is at an all time low...
Yep, you just lost a whole group of voters Jim. I do live in NJ. I AM a gun owner, and this type of "political BS grandstanding law enactment" is just the excuse I needed to vote for your competition next election. Brilliant, you boob.
Folks - I keep seeing people say, ".. just buy out of state." Sorry, but Federal law prevents you from buying a handgun in any state but your state of residence.
Thus, (lawful) New Jersey residents must buy their handguns from new jersey Gun dealers.
They CAN NOT just hop across the line to Pensylvania and avoid the NJ smart gun law. Doing so is a federal felony for both the NJ resident who goes the Penn. and the Penn. Gun dealer fool enough to risk his FFL (Federal Firearms License) by such a blatent violation of Federal law.
Are there any working models of this mandated locking system? I see a bunch of replies listing political solutions, meaning of life and other commentary but no diagrams, technical descriptions or otherwise a functional technical solution for laws which have already passed requiring locking systems? Perhaps the point is to disarm rather than to make safe since the biggest collection of geeks I know of cannot readily point out 4 or 5 working solutions.
"If guns were outlawed, wouldn't your society be less violent? " Only if the criminals follow the law, which they do not. What is it with us and our guns? For me I love the fact that I can fight back if the government tries to do some outrageous thing such as taking away our liberties. So we chose do we want to live a life were we can become slaves of the government because they have no need to worry about a revolt or do we want to have guns and have a slight worry about security of the gun, I vote for number 2 because history likes to repeat itself, and I do not even own a gun.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
Although Gun Crime Waning, Gun Crime Among Identical Twins At Record Highs
So I go to a test range and the gun 'learns' my grip. Yeah. Great.
So now when someone breaks into my house and is about to kill/rape my wife or kid and I'm scared shitless and holding my gun with a deathgrip it might or might NOT fire.
Fucking wonderful. Wonderful dumbshit law that should NEVER EVER HAPPEN.
Due to overwealming popularity of sunny days, New Jersey outlaws rain.
How ya like dat?
You're right - this isn't the wild west. Violent crime today is much worse.
This reminds me of Dark Star with its 'Smart Bomb'. Actually an AI that if not treated just right will go off into some philisophical reveire.
I can see it now:
User: Fire!
Gun: Are you sure?
User: Yes!
Gun: Hmmm... You know if I fire according to your command I will fail my own internal test of existence. Perhaps not.
Owner: Dammit I thought I specified a Cartesian gun, NOT an existential gun!
Gun: Well, yoo see I downloaded a WinGUN SP4 last night and it has a new existentian module in it that is more interesting than the Cartesian module I was shipped with.
Owner: We, are you going to fire or not? Please not that if you don't fire I will be forced to install RedHat GUN 8.0!!
Gun: Jeez, not THAT.
Gun: While owner is looking into barrel; BLAMMMM.
and a new meaning of fatal system error is established.
Little Known Facts About the Bill of Rights
Does that last bit sound familiar? Compare with Amendment VIII of the US Constitution:And apart from the Protestant-only bit, the US 2nd and 7th Amendments also sounds as if they've been inspired by the English original, of about a century earlier.Have a look here. It's the English Bill of Rights, dated 1698. Some quotes:
As regards Smart Guns and how they work, have a look here for an Australian one. There's a page with a 4.5 Mb streaming video and a 45 Mb hi-res zipped version.
Zoe Brain - Rocket Scientist
Completely off topic:
The only way a semiautomatic (which his weapon had to be, given the account) can fire accidentally is if there is a round chambered and the weapon is cocked. Sounds like poor firearm practice on his account.
Double action pistols were made for a reason.
On one hand, there is the fact that yeah it might not work so good. But, on the other hand, we all know it would be damn cool to own a gun like that. I don't think they should be required, yet, however, until the technology is stable enough to assure that it will work correctly.
reminds me of the "Lost in Space" movie.
Question
http://www.ironfroggy.com/
But the software that flies the stealth fighter or the space shuttle rarely, if ever, crashes.
I thought pilots fly these aircraft, and not software. Sure the software may assist, but both these craft can be hand-flown too.
Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I as always taught that mechanical safeties of any sort are never to be trusted. To that end, I learned the same rules of safe use that all responsible gun owners follow:
It doesn't matter what kind of safety gizmo you put on it. You'll only have two outcomes:
Bear in mind that gun laws don't stop criminals from owning or using guns capricously. Only stiffer penalties and better enforcement of existing laws can do that.
THE GOOD HUMOR MAN CAN ONLY BE PUSHED SO FAR
Bart Simpson on chalkboard in episode 2F18
The purpose of taking away our gun rights is not to protect children, ourselves, potential burglers, etc. The government takes away our gun rights to protect themselves. The purpose of the second amendment to the US constitution was to guarantee that the People would be able to defend themselves against the government should that government get out of control. So little by little the government is taking away our gun rights and within 20 or 30 years they will come for the guns themselves. The US is about 2 steps away from being a dictatorship and no one realizes it.
Smeghead every day of the week.
...The FBI today announced that before raiding any houses they will use a new anti-gun device called an EMP pulse that will effectively disable all electronics including the chips that allow so called "Smart Guns" to fire only in the presence of their owner.
42 - So long and thanks for all the fish.
A loaded gun is not a safe gun. Ever. No matter how many security gadgets are attached to it.
SwedishChef borked: With the center-fire cartridge anyone can make a gun even if it's so simple as to hold it in a vice-grip and hit the firing pin with a nail.
I'd love to see you do this. That way it'd blow your fool hand off, so you wouldn't be able to type such nonsense as this statement.
...should be given to the first person that gets Linux to run on their handgun! ;)
--K.
Sig: Bad people happen. Try to avoid being one of them.
We all know it won't be 100% fool proof. The question is if law enforcment will accept this. If they want to argue that the system is brilliantly designed and can't be tampered with, then they must assume that if someone was shot with your gun, you must have been the person who did it. I can think of hundreds of scenarios where innocent people could be framed if the protection was circumvented...
Most fingerprint scanners will not work at all if your hands are very cold. Good thing NJ is in the warmest part of the country, right?
It won't work through gloves. Are you going to ask the person attacking you to wait while you take off your gloves so you can properly arm yourself?
Most firearms sit around for years without even being touched:
Damn, I forgot to recharge/replace the battery in my pistol. Can you please wait right there for a few minutes while I install the replacement battery and reboot?
Funny. We don't trust biometrics in the airports or on the street. We always say that any security mechnism can be circumvented. I know I hate it when something is arbitrarily crippled in some way, when a sufficiently skilled person could re-enable the crippled feature.
I'm not sure I trust any technonlogy to alway identify me and never identify anyone else. I'm not sure I wouldn't want it to identify family. Being that no such technology has been proven yet makes me think we'll get a rush job.
I would bet that it will be easier to disable this than it is to make full automatic. I'm sure it will be easier than cracking CSS or DES.
I think I would like to be able to hand my gun (if I had one) to say my brother or wife if someone were breaking in and I was require to do something else.
Lastly, I'd like to know why I should be content with this technology when law enforcement doesn't even trust it enough to use it.
This has been the hot topic on the state's main radio station for months and all we get is an article from AUSTRALIA?
...and that's all there is to it.
Since it should be evident that this technology will not be open source, there is a real possiblity that the Evil Empire could be the lowest bidder...
Does anyone know if this law exempts handguns purchased for police departments?
John Ellis
as previous slashdoters have said one malfunction in a critical situation such as a home defense situation and you will see an instant law suit from either the poor bastard who's gun didnt fire or his family when he is shot dead by the intruder. nice f'in nice..
i predict you will see another gun manufacturer like smith and wesson - who got there ass handed to them by the consumers(sales of S&W went through the floor) when they went agreeded to settle with some of the state laws suits being brought against the gun manufacturers for product liability..
the acid test will be come from the law enforcement community.. and you can bet sure as hell they wont accept this smart gun technology..
look what if you need to pull the trigger in a situation where you cant get your hand/finger in the appropriate spot on the grip or backstrap then what.. your screwed
this is just another backdoor attempt to limit your freedom by killing off the gun manufacturers.
and you anti gun weenies go home.. if you want to be safe go live in a england.. LOL
remember death by firearms accounted for a tenth of one percent of all deaths in the US the last time i checked. we got bigger fish to fry..
I'm sure that Tony Soprano will be the first in line to buy one of these guns.
Gloria: Is it loaded?
Tony: There is nothing more useless then an unloaded gun.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
I always love the way they think that every person who buys a gun for defense is buying a handgun. Now for the following comments keep in mind I don't live in a concealed carry state and if I did I would be buying a handgun for SELF defense. However, for HOME defense, which is what most people in the US have to worry about, do NOT buy a handgun. The most intimidating(sp) sound in the world is that of a 12 gauge shotgun being racked.
So if you want a little home protection go out and buy a pistol grip 12 gauge with the shortest barrel your state allows an extended tube, should give you at least 6 shots, load it with this pattern 3 #2 shot loads, 2 00 loads, and one heavy grain slow speed hollow point slug. If the noise from loading that first one in the chamber doesn't make em leave, the 3 rounds of BBs should change their mind, if not the 00 will open em up a little, and if all else fails put a baseball size hole in them. Above all practice, practice, practice.
"You'll get my crossbow when you pull it from my cold, dead fingers."
-OR-
"If nail guns are outlawed, then only outlaws will have nail guns."
"By pulling the trigger on your S&W CE 9mm, you accept all terms of this license"
Terrorist A:Weren't we supposed to go out shooting down some innocent people? Osama: No. Wait. I'll just have to find the serial port of this gun to crack the code... Well. Certainly, it would not be to difficult I should belive to
A) Remove the protection electronicaly
B) Remove it physicaly. If you had the sligthest knowledge about guns, it should not take to long to get the electronic stuff away from it. However, you might add a GPS when running, always reporting the posistion to a central. That way you would have to benefits: You would easily be able to track back a stolen gun, and it would be easy to determine what guns that where nearby when someone was shot!
Assembling etherkillers for fun an profit
What would Jesus shoot?
... and if he has no sword, let him sell his cloak to buy one.
Lu. 22:37.
the sword was the assault weapon of Jesus day, just as the musket was the assault weapon in the days of the Constitution.
The 2nd Amendment applys to citizens that they can have weapons that the standard soldier may have to defend themselves.
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
Obviously you haven't hopped a chain link fence with a 3 foot rope attached to your hip and sidearm. That is the last thing you want sticking... on a fence top... with a gun most likely with no safety.
If an officer is disarmed, he probably getting disarmed closer than the rope.
Also, many police forces now have lock holsters... that are exceedingly difficult to disarm a man unless you know how to pull it.
So that idea is marginal at best.
actually there was a guy who went on a killing spree with a knife several years ago in japan.
j ap anstabbing010608.html
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/world/DailyNews/
he killed 8 people and injured 21. Several of the victims were students. Guns are illegal in japan, yet many people were still killed. There are people who want to injure others no matter what tools they have available. Could the man have hurt more people with a gun? Probably. However, he possibly could have been taken down earlier had a weapon been available.
Guns aren't just going to go away. Students should learn how to behave responsibly around a firearm, just as they are educated about drugs and sexuality. Pretending that they just don't exist until a person is 18 or 21 is rather naive.
All sorts of fun with things like:
OS Software is like love: The best way to make it grow is to give it away.
The people who say the second ammendment does not authorize private ownership of fireamrs usually base their argument on case law, instead of the precise text in the Bill of Rights.
"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."
Aside from the catch-all nature of the 10th ammendment, the entire Bill of Rights concerns the rights of the people. Not states, not the Federal government, the people. Courts may have attempted to substitute various government entities as surrogates for the people, but that's really just wishful thinking that the ammendment isn't really written as we all know it is.
Why would the government need to grant itself the right to bear arms? Why would the states need such authorization? The word "militia" is what it is, not a "state militia" or "municipal militia", just "militia" as in the original revolutionary "bring your own weapon" variety. If the intended benficiary of the 2nd ammendment was the Federal Government or the states, why aren't they mentioned? If the 2nd ammendment grants "the right to keep and bear arms" to someone other than the people, why doesn't it specify who that might be? How is it that ammedments 1 and 3-10 deal with rights of the people, except for ammendment 2, which somehow applies to an unnamed government entity, even though it specifically says the people?
The people who wrote the Constitution had a great deal of experience with an out-of-touch, nonresponsive, non-represtentative government (England). The militia was the organization that would form out of necessity in order to remain as a "free state". The concept was left vague, so that the militia could form and deal with whatever threat might be at hand. Today's Federal Government is too proud to admit that it may someday become the problem that a militia was intended to solve.
Reasonable people might argue that an armed population causes a bigger problem than it solves. Those who say we don't need a militia or privately owned weapons are free to make that argument and they can attempt to carry that argument to its logical conclusion: repeal of the 2nd ammendment. Twisting its interpretation into obscurity merely invites other special interests to use similar techniques on the parts of the Bill of Rights that we still care about.
Democracy does not insure freedom. There is no form of government that insures freedom. People like to point to "the great democracies" of the world as a good thing.
But when it comes down to it, if the Majority decides that the minorities are evil and should be put too death, that's still a functioning democracy.
For true freedom, as an American, it is more important to uphold the Constitution. All of it. Even the parts you don't like, and even if the second ammendment is out of fashion or isn't "popular" this year.
An orginized mob is still a mob. And a majority vote does not make something right or wrong.
Is been said many, many times. But I think the gun helps.
I mean if people were to die from you yelling bang, boom.. Well they'd probably have to be pretty dodge in the heart.
Thank you Judge Wopner. All these crazy citizens now know the true error of their ways. Those stupid fools, why can't they understand that the bill of rights applies to individuals except for the second amendment? No matter, the argument is over. Now we have three sentences extracted from three different cases over a span of 80 years. Nevermind the dissenting opinions from those cases.
Know two things there bubba:
1) One thing you will learn in law school is no single issue is ever clear cut, especially with something as controversial as gun control. There is always a way to argue the issue. You should actually practice a little jurisprudence by attempting to craft an argument for the right to bear arms. Personally, the long history of gun ownership in this nation is reason enough. Look up the meaning of Stare decesis et non quieta movere. Gun ownership is and always has been a right since the Republic was founded. Semantics may be used to craft a new argument, but history cannot be changed despite what you may think.
2) It doesn't matter what you believe the law is. The reality is there are 200 million guns in this country, and tens of millions of well armed citizens, not to mention humanity's most power army ever which happens to vote entirely Republican, which disagrees with you. When the revolution comes, you will be among the first to die.
I don't read or respond to AC posts
Interesting comment. I'm replying so others might take the time to look at the parent.
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
This is the same techno-hysteria that brought us the STUPID idea we should spend a bunch of money for face recognition in airports. Which DOESN'T WORK! They've finally admitted that. Too many false positives, and missing the ones it should recognize. Same thing with fingerprints. Know how easy it is to fool that? In many cases a flashlight or a little spray will make it think the last set of prints on the reader are being read again. How long will it take for people to realize this biometrics stuff is a load of CRAP! A key is about the only method of recognition that works somewhat reliably.
Why on earth do you Americans want your guns so badly? Don't very many people get killed each year in gun accidents? I find some of the arguments here very strange, such as the ones equating guns with a kettle of all things? Guns are designed to KILL, not to boil water. I don't understand it at all. 99,9% of gun owners will never have the chance to defend anything with their home arsenals, but a much higher percentage of them will kill or seriously wound their spouses/neighbours/children/friends in gun accidents.
I don't follow American gun laws closely, but the things I do see are usually very strange arguments on both sides of the fence. Arguments such as "people kill people, not guns" or "gun ownership makes one more likely to run off and kill your school class" are both ludicrous IMO. Killing someone without a gun is a lot harder than it is with one, and there is really no statistical proof that gun ownership makes one more prone to violence.
Obviously, though, I would think that the pure numbers of people who are killed with a gun by a family member or aquaintance are much higher than the numbers of people whose lives are saved by being able to defend themselves with a gun.
I think this issue will only ever get resolved by the ability to take a decision on what is the lesser of two evils, not by feelings of security and strength given by a gun or by feelings of fear by not owning one. The only way one would be really able to defend oneself efficiently with a gun is if one practically lived with it, because unless you carry a gun all the time, how will you be able to defend yourself when you're coming out of a bar or a restaurant?
1) Guns need to be reliable. Semi-Automatic weapons already have a problem jamming without the use of crappy biometrics. Not only could this gun be hacked on the black market and resold on the street but the original owner might not be able to shoot it because he screwed up his biometric print somehow.
2) This won't stop children from dying. Children fall down stairs, drink draino and get run over by cars in their own driveway. The best measure you can take to protect your child is to watch them. Not put a lock on everything that is lethal.
I'm sure every one of you has something lethal in your home easily obtained by a child. Why arn't they dead? Probably because you are either watching them, they arn't interested in it or you told them not to touch it in such a manner that they beleive it will truely harm them to do so.
3) Will this prevent from someone using your gun against you? Yes. But if someone has come in range to steal your gun they can just as easily stab you to death.
It's not suprising to see such stupidity coming from the state where pumping your own gas is illegal.
While we are at it Jersey, Let's start banning stairs and replacing them with "safer" elevators. How bout Foam padding on the corner of every building? Better yet - An embargo on all forms of boned meat.
Let the police forces test this technology first. They have the largest problem of having guns taken from them and being shot with their own weapons. If the technology is really ready for the average user, then let the police use them first.
My prediction: that'll never happen.
This law isn't about safety, it's about making guns harder to get for Joe Average.
In Massachusetts, new guns have to pass a drop test and a bunch of other "safety" rules before they can be purchased. Guess what? The police are using the "unsafe" Glocks and other guns that ordinary peepul aren't allowed to buy.
This is just bullshit, particularly in the home of the American Revolution.
One giant leap for anti-gun supporters. One tiny step for intelligence. So when someone wants to steal your handgun they'll just chop your hand off along with it? It comes as no surprise that useless laws such as this one are getting passed. Instead of addressing the REAL problems of handgun violence, its easier to point the blame on inanimate objects and waste taxpayer dollars on stupidity such as this. And this "smart gun law" isn't going to have the slightest effect on gun-related crimes. It appears to me that a few too many legislatiors watch too much Sci-Fi movies. Beam me up, Scotty.
I don't see any mention of if the police will be first adopters/experimenters on this.
If it reaches the level of confidence where all POLICE firearms are mandated to have it, then it might be of interest. Otherwise, it will obviously just be another load of crap foisted on the public by the NJ elitist overlords. If the police don't want it on their guns because they don't trust it, then neither do I.
Why not have similiar legislation for every possible item that has a history of being dangerous or causing problems? (knives, hammers, bathtubs, stairs, snow shovels, free speech, the right to assemble).
Why not mandate this technology for law enforcement and military personal? Hey! Saddam's guys aren't using smart weapons! What's the deal?
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
I seem to remember that in some of the early discussions about "smart guns", police organizations were dead set against having to use them (do you really want to have another reason why your gun might fail during a confrontation with a violent criminal?)
Anyone know if there's an excemption for law enforcement?
More laws that apply to you and me but not them. Anyone who thinks this law has any real merit is an idiot. This is designed to prevent gun ownership. The technology will drive the price of a gun out of reach of the average citizen. If you disagree with it, you come off as someone who wants a gun that CAN be fired by anyone. Well, what's wrong with that? As someone who saw his mother kidnapped when he was 13, I am totally against this. People who commit crimes at gun point deserve to be shot. Period. You rape, attempt to murder, hold hostages, you deserve to be shot....through the head. Frankly, those who support such legislation as this should have to sit and talk with victims of crimes or even those who's lives have been saved by guns. >
Ok some guy buys a gun when he is allowed, he flips out and goes on a killing spree. You get the gun from him, but he has no fear of you with his gun because you can not shot it. He attacks you and gets the gun back and you are dead.
Microsoft GE (Gun Edition)
"Who do you want to shoot today?"
"It wasn't me officer, it was a Code Red virus my gun got from Outlook!"
"Blue screen of DEATH!"
"No technology is foolproof--anyone who has a computer knows how many times it crashes..."
I never had a crashing coffee maker, washing machine or vcr. More complex the system is, the less foolproof it is, and I don't think those smart guns are going to run Windows, but some very simplified finger print recognition system.
I think this law is good. As long as we are human, we will kill us each other. Man will always find his way to hurt others. But it should be made difficult as possible. The harder it is for criminals to get guns, the better it is for you and your family.
--k
According to the CDC, "Thirty-six children drown in five gallon buckets every year." In 1998, according to the CDC, which you suggested it would be easy to look up (and thanks, I was actually believing your tripe!) "529 children 5 to 14 years old were killed with guns" And that's just 5-14 year-olds. Which is less than 59% of the child ages in question. Do the math, and I'd say about 20 times as many children are killed with guns (either suicide, murder or accident) as are with 5-gallon-buckets.
Any sufficiently well-organized Government is indistinguishable from bullshit.
So does this mean that in the future if I can develop a portable shortrange EMP device that noone can shoot me.
If guns were outlawed, wouldn't your society be less violent?
:)
Not likely. Just look at Britain for example. They outlaw guns and crime goes up. In the US, you can see the reverse happen. When a city or state allows concealed carry, crime goes down. Seems easy enough. But those are just the surface and there are so many other factors to consider when you compare one country to another that the violence numbers are meaningless on their own. If you can come up with a good way to compare one country to another while managing to take into consideration and properly weigh all the contributing factors, then I'm sure a LOT of organizations would like to hire you
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Sorry for not contributing to the discussion at all, but I just wanted to let you know that I think that post you just made kicked ass. Bravo!
This only will cause them to be un-reliable and not be assured they will be useable in the time of need.
" please don't beat my head in Mr. criminal, let me find my magic decoder ring "
Or is this the plan? Make people so concerned that they aren't effective that they will stop buying.
There are plenty of time proven mechanical means to do this. We don't have to add electronics to 'identify the user' to muck up this.
Besides, do you think a criminal will really care? They will get around it, and leave the law abiding citizens paying the price, AGAIN.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
That might sound tasteless -- but look what happened to the NYC Subway Shooter. The thug that jumped him was shot in the spine -- he later sued for millions.
Moral of the story is -- shoot 'em in the head, or do so afterwards.
I think you might be on to something here.
It's unforunate that our society feels we must somehow protect the stupid from themselves.
If they are going to require using a technology that doesn't exist and probably won't work why not require bullets be "smart"? How about this law - "By the year 2050 all bullets sold in New Jersey must be 'Smart Bullets'" - hey why not?
Accidental gun deaths in US per year: 1000
As percentage of all accidental deaths 1%
Accidental gun deaths have been falling in the US over time. Many accidental deaths are due to hunting, and I also suspect that many "accidental" gun deaths of adults are really hushed-up suicides for insurance reasons.
Gun suicides per year: ~15,000
Gun homicides per year: ~15,000
Guns owned by Americans: 200 million
Gun owners in US: 65 million
Gun hunters in US: 14 million
Most gun deaths are due to people using their own weapons with the clear intent to kill.
Of course, New Jersey won't even let you pump your own gas, so I suppose a "safe gun" law is unsuprising.
Besides, "safe gun" laws work hand-in-hand with "Saturday Night Special" laws to raise gun prices to keep cheap guns out of the hands of poor people (read: racial code word), which the voters fear.
I am glad I don't live in facist New Jersey, the Peoples Republic of California is bad enough.
Obviously this is a troll, what human on earth could be this stupid and inane?
If not? Go shove your head up your own squeaky clean asshole
Excuse me, how can a gun coded to the owners token prevent the owner from using it on him/herself. That would imply that the gun doesn't work at all. Very well thought out
Just another example of a half-assed, knee-jerk reaction to a political hot button a politician will use to win votes.
In other news, NJ has enacted a law to mandate that all cars be equipped with water-powered engines as soon as this proves practical. The Gov. says that testing will soon be underway on police cars and once it has proved out there it will be mandatory on all vehicles within 3 years.
F'ing morons!
Take your guns and SHOVE THEM UP YOUR ASS. Your stats about gun control = crime is COMPLETELY bogus. Right wing (christian?) zealots like you give this country a bad name. Oh, and thanx for voting BUSH, we are getting the same mentality at the top. If you can't control the world covertly, just bomb the shit out of them.
I am sick and tired of the nra "we have a right to bare arms" bullshit. You have a "right" to lose your gun, have a child pick it up and shoot them selves. Guns are for killing, NOT protection. That's why we should clamp down on every manufacturer and sue the hell out of them for every child/innocent that is shot. And close down the fucking gun shows-complete bullshit.
Guns are great! now shove one up your ass.
Second, we have the right to rebel if our government gets out of hand and starts shooting at us. You might ask the Brits about that. If we aren't permitted to have guns, we surrender all means of self-defense against a rogue dictator who starts using the military to kill our families. It's happened countless times throughout history....
Third, not all of us live in urban areas, and even those of us who do can't count on police protection -- especially if we live in the "wrong" neighborhood. I'm six feet tall and weigh only 140 lbs... what are my chances of protecting myself against a crowbar-wielding assailant? Should I fight fairly, using only the weapons he chooses, and "may the better man win?" I don't think so. I think I'd rather use my Glock .45 to spray his intestines against my fireplace mantle.
The moment these new gun hit the market, there will be people who "chip" them.
They will use arguement like "I paid for it, so it's mine" - "Information wants to be free" - "There's nothing in the EULA preventing me from doing this" - "Fair use, baby!"
When chips that by-pass the security of a gun become common, we may finally get a real test for the DMCA. And if it plays out like this, be prepaired to be disappointed.
Lathes are for wimps ! :)
:>
In most of the middle-east, India, and the 'Stans, wiry old smiths with a fireplace and miniature anvil, a file or two, a dinky hammer, etc., will fix or make from scratch anything from personal jewellry, a nose-clipper, or gun-fountain pen, gun-canes and walking sticks, to an assault rifle. I wouldn't put finely crafted and artistically engraved mortar shells past their skills, either.
They usually get around with a rucksack, a juvenile apprentice and, sometimes, an underfed arthritic old donkey. I'm surprised US B52's haven't yet started carpet-bombing these guys at every sighting!
Forbid guns in the USA, and murderes in the US will use their next most valued sexual icons : cars. Oh ! But those are already licensed ! It'll be allright, then
Old yankee ingenuity will not let the mere absence of hanguns hamper their ability to efficiently kill others from any distance at a disadvantage to the prey.
As a matter of fact. Most of my zone defences at home do not depend on gunpowder, cordite or guncotton. In any mechanism whatever. They are messy and relatively inefficient at "neat" levels.
A valiant member of the state police died today when his smart gun failed to discharge in a gun battle with a local street gang. Witnesses stated the officer had the jump on the villains but when his firearm failed to operate, the Evil Doers, using illegally modified firearms, opened fire and killed the officer.
---
No officer worth his weight will be caught "dead" using one of these things.
Russian Russian Russian RussianDollSig DollSig DollSig DollSig
I live in Texas.
(Score: -1, Stupid)
I've been following this legislation for months now. I believe that this legislation specifically EXCLUDES police from having to carry smart guns, even after all non-smart gun's are banned in the state for purchase by private citizens. From what I understand the justification is that the smart guns may not be "reliable" enough for police use, even by the time the ban officially goes into effect.
On an aside, it's already just shy of impossible to get a conceal carry permit in NJ anyway. The practical implication of the existing NJ laws is that that the only people that actually carry guns in public are police and criminals anyway. Realistically this law will only make it more difficult for private citizens to 1)enjoy recreational shooting and 2) protect themselves in there homes.
While there are interesting statistics on guns and crime and so forth, I don't see a lot of discussion on what I consider to be the number 1 reason to own a gun - to revolt against your government when it no longer represents your interests.
Imagine for a moment, George Washington and his fellow revolutionaries armed with Smart Guns(tm) approaved by the English government. Want odds on how effective they might be against English soldiers that have the guns without this "feature enhancement"? Might also there be a remote technology to cause the guns to fail or interfere with the authentication?
When you talk about guns, think about the George Washington's to come. And if you think the notion is far-fetched, try looking back and seeing how long civilizations last and other attempts to keep the populace unarmed.
It seems that England has been the source of a large percentage of the big brother news in the past couple years. Whether it be closed caption monitoring of its citizens or removing their means of self-protection. Granted, the England of today is not the England of King George and yet people continue to hold up some of their crazier notions and say, "well now, isn't this an enlightened society!"
Here's to you summing up how I feel about this whole "But England has gun control, blah blah blah" issue in 10 words.
Thanks!
- RLJ
Legislators are cleary behind the time, again.
All that has to be done is implant legal gun-owner's hands with verichips, that only their guns can decode. Voilá !
1. Criminals will want "gun-owner chip" scanners that can identify at a distance any gun-owner. Probably get a signal overload in Texas and other areas, but...
2. Authorized agencies will want sniffers that denounce people with 'powder scent on them but that don't have gun-owner chip signals.
3. There will be a boom in plastic hand-surgery. Mostly right hands.
4. Chip foundries will issue adamant denials that their production lines are subject to occasional "midnight-runs".
etc.
If you asked someone to conjure up the image of a "Southern Baptist Soccer Mom" and then asked that person to describe that person, you would get a lot of details.... Maybe you can already see the MiniVan and the "My Kid is an Honor Roll Student at Edison Elementary." But what you DON'T conjure up is the thought of someone who is slowly eating away at your freedom, and the founding principles of the USA.
Now, ask someone to think of a "Muslim Single 25 year old Man in New York born in the Middle East" and ask them to describe that person. If you honestly think "terrorist" or "anti-American" doesn't at least cross their mind, your kidding yourself. However, it's probably more likely that this person would support the principles of freedom that the USA was founded on. It's likely that man CAME to the USA because of these freedoms.
Bringing up the stereo-types is EXACTLY what I intended to do. Because it's important to realize that when it comes down to "democracy" vs. "individual liberty" you can't be so sure your right on what OTHER people are thinking, and you can't use stereo-types. I'm pointing that out, the person that appears "non-threatening" politically may actually be very threatening to freedom. Individual Liberty was the founding principle, and democracy was chosen as the best means of the time to insure it. However, democracy may also be one of the fundamental means by which Individual Liberty is taken away. Democracy does not insure freedom.
If you want to only be surrounded by people who buy into your idea of freedom then I suggest you buy an island somewhere and start your own country.
For what possible reason should I abandon my native country and accept that the principles of the founding fathers are doomed to be forgotten and changed? Am I now to believe I shouldn't even SPEAK of these principles in the USA? Hmm, are we now talking about First Amendment, not the Second Amendment?
there goes a very useful device in movies, where the hero loses his gun an has one passed to him by a supporting character. tons of liability here. scene 1. robber breaks in, atacks owner of gun. spouse cant use gun to defend family beacause of law. massive lawsuit for damages. hope you brought your checkbook nj govt. useless technology. about the only good that will come of this is preventing kids fom playing w their parents guns, but kids are very good at getting around this sort of thing so it wont do much good. new jersey is a festering cesspool. this is a desperate attempt to reduce crime there,it wont work. and since when do criminals using guns bother to register them? people will stockpile guns, buy illegal weaps etc. b4 this has any impact, we will be using lasers and disintegrators. another poster said ppl will start making guns. you have no idea how easy this is. all you need is a machine shop. that is how many ppl get silencers when the cant buy them. plans are easy enuff to get too. this will only create a bigger black market for old guns. within weeks (probably more like hours) someone will figure out how to disable the system and start sellin mod chips. right to bear arms is bogus these days. the us govt and military is so advanced that no amount of handguns will protect the citizen. it should be amended to right to bear nukes if you want any protection. like any other govt in the world the us will not hesitate one second to kill any of its citizens to protect its own interest. USA is very close to being a dictatorship. i agree with the poster who said this, in fact closer than many think. california is leading the way in fascist policies. their 3 strikes law sets criminal justice back thousands of years, and predates the code of hamurabi. it is a law to protect the rich from the poor. just read les miserables and you will get the idea. california routinely violates freedom of speech by attaching an electrocution device to defendants in their court system. if the defendant says something the judge doesnt like he presses a button and electorcutes the defendant. personally i feel the makers of this legislation should be in prison themselves. but the worst thing about the usa is the death penalty. not only does this supposedly free counrty routinely execute ppl, but it is only one of 3 countries in the free world that routinely executes children. info on this can be found on the amnesty international website. so the next time someone decides to spout crap about america the free and good, open your eyes, and tighten the leash on your politicians. guns dont scare me; i would rather die in a free country than live in a police state.
A name you can trust.
Guns don't kill people, natural selection kills people.
This is screwing with Darwin. If the guns will only fire for their owners, then all those children who find their parents unlocked and loaded weapons won't be able to accidentally shoot themselves or their siblings/friends. Natural selection will be thwarted!
Just kidding. Well, not completely.
Instead of the gun displaying the blue screen of death, it fires the gun
AND I'm a bad man. Now you have the freedom... suck my dick.
"Crime goes up"? I've seen the numbers for that increase, and it's not very much. It is in percentages, but not in actual numbers. There's no reason to assume it's the outlaw of guns versus the other multitude of factors that contribute to crime.
you know there was a post regarding gun saftey training and retention.. let me first say this that in 29 of my 38 years ive handled many guns.. and shot well over 200,000 rounds of ammunition through various weapons mostly shotguns and pistols. with that said.. even i sometimes handle a weapon in an unsafe manner..
why or how could this happen.. well just like driving a car.. which most of us do and do fairly well.. it starts to become second nature and thats when things go to shit.. the minute your not thinking about muzzle control or having the weapon on safe or unloaded when not on the firing line or station is when all trouble starts. the same goes for anything driving a car and taking a cell call. all of the sudden your focus has switched from driving to talking.. you could go on with the examples.
now as for the response as to this will save officer lives. you know we will see. i know several officers that 1) dont use there sidearm except for the once a year range check. 2) dont practice marksmanship, their weapons draw, shooting weak hand and a list of other thing that should be practiced that might save there lives. the fact is alot of officers will go through there entire enforcement career not drawing there weapon and not pulling the trigger.
every year in this country 100's of millions rounds of ammunition are fired at gun clubs and ranges around the U.S. with out problems. but yet we never hear how safe shooting sports really are.
It would be far cheaper and easier to make your own untracable gun powder than it would to buy bullets at $100 a pop. All the ingredients for ist are available anywhere. Organized crime will still have the upper hand. They can simply have people hired to make bullets. It will only be another law passed by someone that thinks they know what's best, but are dead wrong. Very much like the rest of our govt. By passing laws like this, they are tring to disarm America state by state. Passing laws that take away our civil liberties is the real MO of our govt. Because of the constitution, our govt has to take 'baby steps' into bringing the US into tyranny. Every terrorist event that goes on fuels the fire for Congress to pass laws that seemingly protect them better and give them more power. Look how quickly the Patriot Act came out. The WTC fires weren't even out before this was proposed. Then the anthrax scare happened to Congress. The person that was caught was an American. Is it possible that an unnamed branch of our govt is causing these atrocities for it's own purpose? I am afraid we will never know or get a straight answer from anyone. There are theories that sport tons of evidence against our state for the 9/11 event. 9/11 was very good for our government. Much of our govt is run by Jews. They have enough money and power to buy any of our elected officials. The Arabs are sworn enemies of the Jews for thousands of years. It's not a far stretch that they would solicit propoganda against the Arabs to get enough people to support a full blown war against them. At the same time removing our rights as private citizens one by one by laws that would make all our founding fathers roll over twice in their graves.
Supporters say the law will help prevent accidental gun deaths and suicides.
Um, and a gun tuned to my handprint, will stop me from shooting myself..how?
----- LoboSoft specializes in Digital Language Lab
I think that's what I was saying. There are many factors, and simply banning or allowing guns is not the be-all-end-all solution that either side makes it out to be. Comparisons between different countries and cultures are very difficult to make. I prefer to deal only with the US since that is where I live. Studies done here, along with simple common sense lead me to believe that banning guns is a bad idea for this country. I can't say that applies to every country though.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Advantages of a dog over a gun:
Dog will protect your home even if you are not there
Criminal can't steal dog from you and use it against you, as they can with a gun
Dogs cannot be used to commit suicide
A dog cannot be (easily) used to attack a loved one in a fit of irrational rage
In the dark, a dog can tell an intruder from a member of the household more easily than you can - hence fewer accidental shootings
In the act of defending against an intruder, you don't have to reload a dog
Dogs can be fun to have around even if you don't need protection - no gun ever will greet you when you come home and lick your face
If your children ever found out how lame you are, they'd murder you in your sleep
This is "common sense legislation" in the days and places where nonsense passes for common sense.
"There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge." - Bertrand Russell.
On what legitimate basis can you argue that the reverse would be true then? Like when President Clinton claimed the Crime Bill of 1994 banning Assult Weapons was a success by stating crime rates were down (even though the downturn started BEFORE the law was inacted, and LONG before the law had any effect on actual gun sales, that is IF you even believe it had an effect).
I think if you look closely at the statistics of violent crime as it relates to cities and states that inacted conceled carry laws, you WILL find significant downturns in crime. Try to form your own opinion, based on the numbers, or any other actual facts you can find.
Can you say that accidental deaths by handguns is up because we haven't passed enough handgun control laws? Or could it be that the NRA and ROTC classes from the 1950's and earlier have been removed from most high-schools, and a much smaller percentage of people actually know how to deal with guns when the find them?
If your looking into cause and effect relationships when it comes to gun control, I think you will have a lot of information to go over.
But, if you don't want to actually look at the facts and numbers, you can just look at the logic. If people acknoledge the fact that guns do exist in society in the USA, and have for a long long time, you will see removing them from society will be difficult. More difficult than most things, because it was written into the Constitution.
However, also logically, if you educate people on gun safety, you stand a REAL chance at saving lifes. A much better chance than trying to save lifes by passing yet another law, a law that attempts to side-step the Second Ammendment of the Constitution, and goes against the political beliefs of countless people. A law that will be broken, ignored, and hated by otherwise law abiding people.
Circumvention devices will undoubtably be strictly banned but available to organized crime, so for legitimate purposes the whole design is just a weaker alternative to a gun safe.
With this proposed design, private citizens won't be able to buy, sell, or lend guns to each other except with the state's approval, and the state's confiscation list will always be up to date. If safety were the issue, programming the grip would be under the control of the owner.
You can rationalize all you want, but statistics show you are wrong. 5 gallon buckets do indeed kill more kids than guns. Same for all the rest of that stuff. Until you and whomever pays attention to facts, you run no risk of being right.
Furthermore, you also ignore the fact that guns in hands other than the criminal *save* lives.
Perhaps you should read some good information on the subject rather than speculating. Leave that for the stock market and those who have lots of cash to lose.
Try this instead: Gunfacts v3.2
The Miller case was decided on the basis that there was no one there to defend Miller. Only the prosecution was there. That's why they say "not within judicial notice" in the decision:
/ getcase.pl? court=us&vol=307&invol=174)
p ub/99/99-103 31-cr0.htms e2amend.html
"Certainly it is not within judicial notice that this weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment or that its use could contribute to the common defense."
(http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts
They all knew that sawed-off shotguns were useful in WWI trenches, but judges cannot introduce evidence.
Notice what they said later! --
"These show plainly enough that the Militia comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense. 'A body of citizens enrolled for military discipline.' And further, that ordinarily when called for service these men were expected to appear bearing arms supplied by themselves and of the kind in common use at the time."
That can be used to support that I have a right to an M-16. But the High Nine have not taken a direct look at the Second Amendment since then. They most certainly have *NOT* "consistently ruled that the Second Amendment does not extend the right to keep and bear arms to individuals." Far from it--they haven't ruled at all since Miller!
Under the Fourteenth Amendment, the rights to free speech, fredom of religion, etc. have all been applied to limit state's authorities. Some day, I hope to see the Second Amendment so protected.
For a more full analysis, read the Emerson decisions:
http://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/
and
http://www.saf.org/1999Emersonca
It's NOT a "settled issue," like the anti-rights people like to claim. Under the 5th Circuit ruling, which applies to *me*--here and now in Texas--the Second Amendment DOES protect an individual right. The Supremes declined to overturn that. So: It's MY RIGHT.
Now, if you were to try to deny me the right to vote, the right to free speech, the right to worship freely, or the right to be free from slavery's chains, then few would say I need to be polite in my response. I'm only polite now because I'm a Christian.
Merry CHRISTmas!
READ the US Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the other amendments! http://lcweb2.loc.gov/const/const.html
Since there is no way to make it retroactive, and since there is sure to be a hack for it to circumvent any sensor system, and since you will probably be able to get around it somehow, and since you will be able to buy guns from somewhere that dont have the technology,it is just a means of making it harder to get guns like this in the state, and so that parents who have firearms in the house can feel safer knowing that their child might not find the hiding spot and accidentally kill themselves or someone else.
This is not my sig
. . . check out the old 1856 Dred Scott decision
t case.pl?n avby=case&court=us&vol=60&page=393
"It would give to persons of the negro race, who were recognised as citizens in any one State of the Union, the right to enter every other State whenever they pleased, singly or in companies, without pass or passport, and without obstruction, to sojourn there as long as they pleased, to go where they pleased at every hour of the day or night without molestation, unless they committed some violation of law for which a white man would be punished; and it would give them the full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went. And all of this would be done in the face of the subject race of the same color, both free and slaves, and inevitably producing discontent and insubordination among them, and endangering the peace and safety of the State."
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/ge
So -- I have fewer rights than some suggested ex-slaves should have? I should have to get a license to exercise my rights now? That my gun must have some feature that doesn't yet exist?
Well, SCREW THAT!
READ the US Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the other amendments! http://lcweb2.loc.gov/const/const.html
So, the cops are busting down your door. You warm up the EMP gizmo that Neal Stephenson described in Cryptonomicon, and aim it at their guns. Inspector Friendly won't be hurt, but all the electronics inside the his gun will be reduced to smoking silicon.
With the police disarmed, the rest is up to you.
We need smart judges sitting on the benches, smart kids (read: better public education), smart laws to discourage crime, smart citizens active in community involvement, smart juries, smart police forces on the street, smart investigators (most are all thumbs at new technology), smart journalists who don't sensationalize the stories, and a short leash on overzealous manipulating lawyers bent on going to long stretches of reasoning *cough* chewbacca defense *cough* to get their scum client off the hook.
A smart gun won't even help the sympton, let alone cure the disease.
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
If you kill someone, you KILLED THEM, and you should get life in prison, or death.
Accidental, premeditated, heat of the moment?
The sentence should fit the severity of the crime and not all murders are an identical event.
The death penalty is never acceptable - at the very least you'd have to guarantee the police did their job properly, then there's the prosecutors, the unreliable witnesses, racial prejudice, judicial stupidity etc. Let me put it this way - if someone is wrongfully put to death then all those who contributed to this occurrence should be held just as liable as any other murderer.
If the RIAA sees the gun manufcturers exercising control over where and how we shoot our guns, they may get the idea to try and exercise control over where and how we listen to music... Wait.... Never mind...
The fact of the matter is NO ONE should have the RIGHT to bear arms, it should be a privelage. Just the same as you'd have to be a pretty damn privelaged person to carry a bomb around legally. But the US fucked themselves over long ago with that constitutional right and now illegal guns are everywhere and nothing can be done about through simple means. Gun manufacturers should be forced to start selling only to law enforcement and military. Its not like civillians especially in the US need more NEW guns, they all do the same damn thing more or less. And all illegal firearms (that turn up) should be destroyed. Strict laws should be laid down about the storage of firearms, if one doesn't store firearms in a very secure manner (a high quality safe rather than under the damn pillow or in a drawer) then they lose their PRIVELAGE to own the firearms. They aren't being responsible with something that can be used for highly destructive purposes, so they shouldn't bloody well own one.
I'm not trying to generalize here but there ARE alot of gun supporters that need to take their heads out of their asses and start working TOGETHER to solve the damn problem. Stop being so stubborn and come up with a fucking solution. Democracy gives you a voice for a reason....So you can be heard. But if all you have to say is, "Duh, I like guns, I'm allowed to own them, and thats all I have to say about that." then you're obviously a stubborn fool with no regard for intelligence, by that you should not be privelaged enough to own a firearm.
btw EVERYONE in the US should watch Bowling for Columbine and pay attention to the facts! Try and watch it through neutral eyes and then decide what you think about guns, gun laws and all the stupidity that frollicks along with it
If folks would just get the facts first, properly researched and with attributes, there might be a lot less time wasted on all this discussion. And there would certainly be no dumb laws passed.
Alas, they don't. But find it here: Gunfacts 3.2
Gun ownership is and always has been a right since the Republic was founded.
Hey remember another right that people had (through the states), and was especially practiced in the South? Hey thats right, it's our good friend slavery! That was an issue since the Republic was founded until 1863, that was decided by the states, as almost any issue in the Union should be handled.
2) It doesn't matter what you believe the law is. The reality is there are 200 million guns in this country, and tens of millions of well armed citizens, not to mention humanity's most power army ever which happens to vote entirely Republican, which disagrees with you. When the revolution comes, you will be among the first to die.
See above, and a little war called the Civil War.
I wish when people talked about the Constitution, they talked about the whole thing. By this I mean the part where it says the Constitution CAN BE CHANGED. Every slavery (circa 1860) and pro-gun (present) person loves the status quo argument, the 200 years old argument. Guess what, THEY WERE WRONG in the Constitution. If you like some of the 200 year old crap that's in there, how about NOT VOTING FOR YOUR SENATORS. Let's go back to that too!
Once people accept that the framers knew from the start that Constitution was a flawed document (in fact, the framers expected the Constitution to be reworked every ~20 years!), and that they had the sense to put in a correction mechanism (amendments), we can continue to remove some of the portions of the Constitution which are no longer historically relevant.
Note: I make no stance, implied or otherwise, on the 2nd amendment. My post is merely meant to deconstruct and show the folly of a "that's the way it's always been, over my dead body" argument. The resistance to change in this country is what will allow Europe to become the world's superpower in the 21st century as we sit idly by with our polluting industries and cars, a horribly useless war on drugs, the freedom impinging war on terrorism, and uncontrolled land use policies which will turn the whole country into sprawl with total reliance on private automobiles. But that's the way it's always been, I'm sure you'll love it.
This stinks. I think this technology would be good for cops but maybe not such a good idea for civilians
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Is this safe? If I pick up a gun in my house to 'defend' myself will it shoot? Start with the police. Let the police in that state use these guns. This will do two things. Show that this works and instill public confidence, and protect the officer from his gun being stolen and used against him/her.
Occurs to me that maybe you've hit on something more fundamental: perhaps once all the really *necessary* behaviour-control laws are passed, most subsequent behaviour-control laws are essentially feel-good bandaids to placate whiners.
By "behaviour-control" I mean basic laws like "don't kill your neighbour". The feel-good rider would be "don't kill your neighbour because he's a [blank]".
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Actually, I was waiting for someone to say that. Yes, motive should be somewhat of a factor. But, how much? Has it not gone too far already?
I'll give you the "accidental" as a lighter crime than "intentional." But I think that's where I would have to part ways with you. If you intentionally kill someone, I don't think it should matter if it was racially motivated, in the act of a robbery, if it was done with a baseball bat, a knife or a gun.
I see very little gray area here. Say, the most arguable case would be self defense. Then, it would be intentional, yet I'm not even willing to stretch this very far. If someone is shooting at you, or has a knife to your throat, that's self defense. If you have been abused for years, and one day you suddenly decide to come home and shoot your husband, that's total bullshit, because you were NOT required to defend yourself, you should have just LEFT. (Now, if you leave, and he hunts you down, and THEN has a knife to your throat, we would be back to self defense).
The sentence should fit the severity of the crime and not all murders are an identical event.
I think the real danger is the opposite. Not every crime should get a completely different punishment, because we WANT to see them as different. Why should the punishment be different in a case where a guy shoots a store clerk to death in a robbery compared to some redneck hanging a someone he disagrees with in the woods? Totally different motivations, yet, they are both intentional murders. They both should get life in prison (or death).
The death penalty is never acceptable
I'm not even going to go there... You've made up your mind already, and aren't willing to accept a different point of view on this issue, no matter HOW wrong you are.
What are they supposed to do about those convenient shorty .38 Specials? Is everyone going to have to switch to bulky semiautomatics with "tamper-proof" firing mechanisms and huge batteries?
In the great CONS chain of life, you can either be the CAR or be in the CDR.
Of course on the funny side
If people won't/can't give up guns make EVERYONE have to own thermonuclear warheads, and nonites able to erase that persons geneome, and while were at it only people tested to be "smart" can do that to and reproduce
If you want to get around this law, move out of New Jersey.
In most cases, we in the state of Pennsylvania will welcome you with open arms. If you really want to _use_ your handgun, I personally suggest you move into war-torn Philadelphia.
Ed R.Zahurak
You know, oblivion keeps looking better every day.
"Anyone have to reboot their car lately? Didn't think so."
No, because often when a computer device malfunctions, the car simply won't start...or if running "die", requiring the person to stop for service - doesn't happen often, but happens.
More often, if an on-board computer malfunctions, the emissions and fuel efficiently will substantially degrade, but the car will continue to operate.
Computer crash could soon really earn its name, if drive-by-wire ever gains wide acceptance...people often put more trust in computers than they should...they're only as good as the engineers, programmers, etc who make and program them.
Have you guys watched Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine movie? (the movie is not so much about guns as about fear IMO, but it's still an interesting watch)
The US is the country with the most death by firearms and the most firearms per inhabitant.
Doesn't seem like firearms make for a safer country.
As for protecting your freedom, how does it protect you against DMCA and all the freedom restrictions of the homeland security laws/bills/acts?
Doesn't seem like firearms make for a country with more freedom either.
I feel safer when travelling/living in Canada or in Europe than when travelling/living in the US.
FYI, this idea is not new. A E Van Vogt "invented" it in his novel "The weapon makers" in 1943.
I'm walking down the street when I see a
police officer pull up to a store which is
being robbed. As I watch he is shot by the
criminal inside. I run to his aid, and in
an effort to defend him I pick up his gun
and aim it in the general direction of the
store. Just then, the criminal walks out
and aims his gun at me. I pull the trigger
and BEEP, "you are not authorized to use
this firearm" is the last thing I hear
before I'm shot dead, followed shortly by
the shot that finishes the policeman. Yes,
smart guns are a REAL good idea, if you
sell coffins for a living.
Think it couldn't happen? Okay, how about
homeowner and visiting relative versus an
armed burgler... and I've got others.
This is, simply put, a VERY bad idea.
I believe that "the point" here is to prevent children from getting their hands on guns, which I would consider a noble cause.
All those prohibitions justified as being "for the good of the children" are pretty damn annoying to the millions that don't have children by choice and yet find their freedoms as adults restricted by inappropriately broad legislation.
If you have children, you have entered into a position where additional responsibilities apply to you. One of those might well be additional constraints on firearms, at least in terms of their accessibility. But please don't try to transfer your responsibilities onto others and thereby limit their freedoms as well.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
Don't Kill, it's a crime.
Don't Steal, it's a crime.
But, without expanding those into 800 volumes of text, lawyers and politicians wouldn't have much else to do.
Ok, so the gun is stolen, and it happens that the gun is modified so that it can be used by someone else. The gun is used in a crime. Is the owner still held responsible?
Another step, the gun manages to go off in the hands of someone other than the printed operator(s). Who do you sue? Do you try to sue the manufacturer, or do you sue the state. The state was the one who approved and mandated faulty equipement. The gun manufacturers are going to do their best, they have to. They don't want to be sued for faulty products. But if the states rush, them, who's to say what will happen.
Therefore, make your own. There are no laws against average Joe from making a firearm. Granted it can't be a full auto, and he can't make it if he's a felon.
Granted you need to know a bit about guns before making one. But that can be learned.
Has NJ banned gun shows? Buy a used gun if not.
This will be interesting to see play out. If they do manage to get this to work, prices on used guns in that state will go up. Gun running in the US to New Jersey!!!
So the police are the only ones who can approve who uses the gun. Doesn't this amount to federal tracking, which the ATF isn't supposed to do?
Interesting, a state that has so much of its history involving the people's militia would forget that it played key events in the American Revolution, including Washington crossing the Delaware, Battles of Trenton and Princeton, and the Battle of Monmouth.
How soon we forget our history...
When you call 911, they dispatch a man with a gun to come to your aid.
They take 5-15 minutes to get there.
Sort of like feature creep - removing guns one little piece at a time.
Please, go and do some research about gun fabrication before you sound off. With the exception of "octagonal" barrels, most are machined from stock on a device that pretty much can be classified as a lathe. The cheapest route to a functioning rifled bore is to drill a hole down the center of the newly formed cylinder (yes, that's very difficult to do accurately without the right equipment) and then drag a "button" through the bore while slowly rotating it. Many cheap airguns and 22 rimfire rifles use button-rifled barrels.
No, you can reasonably expect lethal accuracy (on a human-sized target) up to 100m with a smoothbore gun, and depending on the characteristics of the projectile, perhaps more. I learned to shoot on a smoothbore air-rifle, which was surprisingly accurate out to ~70m, and I regularly shoot things beyond 10m with my shotguns, (hint: they're made of clay.)
I'm not aware of injection molding being used outside of the plastics industry.
Expensive ones, please!
It's something else for me to steal when I rob your dumb asses.
You are correct sir. The most crucial component to the operation of a "silenced" weapon is a sub-sonic round. The silencer slows the speed of the escaping gas which is following the bullet.
People who love guns need psychoanalysis. Badly.
Only the prosecution was there. That's why they say "not within judicial notice" in the decision:
LOL! That's not what "judicial notice" means. If something is given "judicial notice", it means that the courts accept it as factual. For instance, radar speed measuring guns have received "judicial notice" in most states. This means that the courts simply accept as fact the speed shown -- unless the defendant can show that the gun was not calibrated, that it was improperly used, etc. The prosecution does not have to explain radar theory to the judge every time a speeding trial is held.
It's NOT a "settled issue," like the anti-rights people like to claim.
Let's cut the name calling ("anti-rights"). I own a rifle, shotgun, and two handguns, so don't try to paint me as some kind of anti-gun nut. That I disagree with your preferred interpretation of the Second Amendment does not mean that I am "anti-rights." In fact, I am horrified at the curtailment of rights since 9/11 and the way that Bush and the Justice Department are using 9/11 as a way to take away our rights against unreasonable search and siezure. I am appalled at the way that they are incarcerating people without charging them with crimes and without giving them access to legal counsel. So please don't tell me that I am "anti-rights."
If the issue is not settled, why do these laws get passed and the NRA just whines? You would think that they would fight these laws in the Supreme Court if the laws were unconstitutional, yet they typically do not.
People watch Bowling for Columbine and do some research on your own, then we can have an intelligent conversation about gun/people control.
I understand many will be upset because the 'law' and feature of owner detection will be going into place.
I understand many will be grateful because it offers one extra level of security.
Now my question is this: why are you against one extra level of security? Are you upset because it will raise the price of the guns? Are you upset because it invades the rights of others who do not use the guns? Or are you upset because there is an extra step towards precaution?
I personally would put a firewall on my computer even if I had IP chains set up, why? One extra level of security just in case.
Now for my second question:
Why are you so _for_ the technology on guns? The price increase could dissallow purchase for the people who do use them to defend themselves and their homes, leaving us now with people in fear. Are you so on a crusade that you hope to pass it through each state eventually? Remember, even though an idea may be a good one, it is a horrible idea if it ever invades the rights of another.
Well, that being said, merry christmas everyone
"Oh shit. That wasn't supposed to happen." - OpenBSD telnet exploration turned into accidental server crash
This technology does not exist yet! It would also be a pain in the ass for gun manufactures to implement. New Jersey has bassically banned the sale of handguns with this law. This is the first state to do so and they did it in a way I would call sneaky, at best. Each gun law is a building block until the ownership of guns is completely banned, like the UK. With this said I have a story to share. Gun control was originated in the post-civil war south as jim crow laws. Ironically, and check it out for yourself, www.bradycampaign.org, the brady campaign for gun control, which was a big player in this New Jersey law, gives its highest marks for gun control, to the states that also have very high crime. I checked it out using crime stats from fbi.gov *i think* though i have forgetten exctactly where i got them. The crime rates for the rates that recieved "A" were twice as high the rates for the states recieved "F" when you took the average. The state of Vermont, where it is legal to carry a concealed handgun WITHOUT a license has a gun death rate of one every two or three years. Compare this to the crime rate of New Jersey, which for the most part has made it illegal to buy a handgun, much less carry one, and i think you will see that as well meaning as these laws may sound, they are ineffective as criminals don't obey laws anyway. - yes, i'm a gun nut, i will admit that, but with things going on right now like our "war on terror" , the USA "Patriot" act, and DMCA, can you blame me?
Really? Does that explain why Oregon (the only other state I know of which has full-serve only laws) is currently leading the nation in unemployment? The vaunted New Jersey is also in the top half.
I've heard the claim, "Requiring full-service gas stations keeps unemployment rates down," many times, but I've never heard any supporting evidence and I just don't believe it.
Hmmm... maybe all that's needed is a third law:
;)
Don't lie, it's a crime.
That should get rid of all the lawyers and politicians
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
You are only more likely to hurt yourself or someone you know if you are suicidal, engage in domestic violence or are living a criminal lifestyle. The original bogus statistic included all those categories.
The reality is that nationwide, every year, year after year, accidental handgun fatalities are less than drowning, poisoning and other accident fatalities. In fact, it is the lowest fatality rate among the "non-transport accidental fatalities" tracked by the CDC.
See for yourself on page 37: Centers for Disease Control Mortality Report
Among children, falling, poisoning, fire/smoke and drowning are all VASTLY more fatal than accidental handgun discharges. The idea that handgun safety is a public health issue is simply propaganda and is unsupported by facts.
Also, of course, the law won't eliminate New Jersey's share of the ~100 million guns in the US - it will just make it a bit harder for people to legally get new ones, mainly because it will make things much more difficult for gun stores to operate profitably selling the one or two brands of state-approved guns, but that will just push more business to the black market. If the law does try to address ownership of existing guns, it's also a "taking" under the Seventh Amendment, which therefore requires compensation.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
1. Will it create an entry barrier for competition? If Yes, lawsuit.
2. Will it prevent purchases? If yes, lawsuit for socio-economic discrimination.
IOW, someone will sue the state!!!
This bill sets a dangerous precedent where laws are being passed for technology that doesn't even exist yet. Proponents of the bill say that this will saves the lives of children who are killed in gun accidents involving their parent's guns. Well, what if I don't have any children in my house? And what if I keep my guns in a safe? Why should I be punished for the acts of a miniscule number of irresponsible parents? In the years 1998, and 1999, (the two most recent years that data is available for) there were ZERO childern killed accidentally by their parents handguns.
I am not against gun safety, but this law will not help anyone. This technology has so far proven to be very ineffective. If there is a 1 in a million chance that my gun will not fire when I need it to - that's 1 time too many. And, what if I am not home when an intruder enters my home? My wife will be left with an unusable gun since the gun can only be fired by my hand. This law will not prevent criminals from using guns as they don't buy their guns legally in the first place.
It's funny how police officers will be exempt from this law. Why? Do they not have childern in their homes? Or is it that the technology is so flawed that it is not reliable enough for law-enforcement to use? So, why should it be reliable enough for me to protect myself and my family in my own home?
And what about gun stores? Gun store owners will be devestated by the fact that they will only be allowed to sell one or two models of handguns in the first couple of years that this law is in effect.
This is the same state that recently passed a law limiting G forces on roller coasters even though the medical community does not agree that G force is a cause of brain injuries.
My advice to anyone thinking about moving to the state of New Jersey... DON'T DO IT! Besides being overcrowded, this state has more laws on the books than you can think of, more toll roads than most states, more pollution, and the highest auto insurance rates in the nation.
I encourage all residents of the state of NJ to contact Governor McGreevey and voice your opinions.
Governor Jim McGreevey
125 W State St PO Box 001
Trenton, NJ 08625
Phone: (609) 292-6000
Fax: (609) 292-3454
http://www.state.nj.us/governor/govmail.html
People who say "money does not buy happiness" are just people without money trying to make themselves feel better.
I myself have worked at the Smart Gun Project at the university I attend. Me and friend worked there in spring 2000 and it seemed very much like the project was going nowhere. The department in charge of the project however did enjoy the 1 million dollars of New Jersey State tax money for buying new computers and fancy IKEA furniture. The project was getting some pressure from the parties funding it so about a year later the hired some programmers from Russia and tried to do some experiments with some flimsy sensors that broke easily and data glove which was primarily useful in the publicity pics for the department. In the end they produced a long report detailing how smart gun can't be efficiently made, atleast not anytime in the remote future. I could have done that for a lot less than a million dollars.
How long after all guns have chips in them will it be that the chips have receivers in them, and the police have transmitters to deactivate them, or make them start beeping so they can be found?
I'm making no speculation as to why the police might want to do such things...
This is not my sandwich.
But that's the way it's always been, I'm sure you'll love it
Yeah, I can't wait until the next civil war. I tire of arguing with fuckwads like you all the time, I would much rather shoot them.
Move to europe. they need immigrants to support their ponzi scheme of a government. Why do you think all those arabs are over there. You can join them.
Aren't you the guy whose Mac laptop was stolen via Ebay? Something to do with a forged certified check, if I recall correctly...
I'm curious... What's the latest update on that?
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
No sir. The point of this law is simply to give the weapon manufacturers another lease on their commercial lives creating yet another 200 million devices with which the US citizenry can kill each other. Just pure madness!
Why do people care so much about their guns? I've never understood how people can place so much importance on them, while more deserving issues go neglected. A gun is just a weapon, like a knife or something. It's not like having one will make the government act responsibly. You're not going to overthrow the government with it if it becomes evil. The government has many things that make your gun look like a pea shooter.
The Communist scare was very real. There were communists in the US in the 1950's who were planning a revolution, and they had some of the supplies they needed to pull it off. I've met some of the former participants.
I don't know anyone planning such a revolution today, but considering the population of the country I belive there are several groups planning a revolution. They are all crack pots, and will not gather enough support to pull it off, but that doesn't change the fact that they exist. While the National Gaurd will stop them quickly once we realise what is going on if/when they attack, if you are (by accident or design) one of the first targets that doesn't change a thing for you.
If you seek to deny me what I cleary see as my right, I feel no pain at calling you "anti-rights."
To show how much we have lost, again I quote from the 1956 Dred Scott decision:
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.p
Sounds pretty clear and settled then, huh?
That was back when they were still arguing FOR slavery. But, the Fourteenth Amendment that made the several states respect the people's rights protected under the rest of the Bill of Rights (and which solved slavery once and for all) still hasn't been used to secure the Second? Sheesh!
As for the putzes in the NRA, two points: First, I am not a member because they are TOO willing to see my rights infringed. Senator Frist got a lot of money from them, yet he's no protector of my right to keep and bear arms. Second, they DO file friend of the court briefs, upon ocassion. See http://www.saf.org/pub/rkba/Legal/EmersonNRAbrief
Yes, the NRA mostly whines and plays-along to get-along politics. But there are some much more adamant about this. Take the folks at Keep and Bear Arms (http://www.keepandbeararms.com), the Second Amendmenment Foundation (http://www.saf.org/), etc.
I know some who are damned near ready to start shooting. (Not me--I have both a child to raise and hope yet for a legal solution!) Image a dozen "Beltway Snipers," all across the country, each going after those they perceive as too liberal. NOT a pretty picture.
Still, what was the Battle of Lexington & Concord fought over? Guns. (Cannon, actually.) What was the first battle for Texas's independence fought over? A small brass cannon.
Let's not go that route again--just respect my rights!
READ the US Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the other amendments! http://lcweb2.loc.gov/const/const.html
Those gawdawful high taxes go to pay for services the citizens of the country actually use. You know, things like healthcare.
NOT things like a Missile Defense System that has been proven not to work, and even Secretary of War Rumsfeld admits that it won't be workable any time in the near future.
Kinda like the NJ law regarding "Safe Guns."
The main difference being that the Federal Government is spending BILLIONS of YOUR tax dollars on the unworkable Missile Defense.
I just LOVE hypocrisy.
Slipgun: Since the UK 'got rid of' handguns in 1996/7, violent crime rate has gone up by about 40%, and handgun crime has doubled.
UK handgun legislation was designed to tackle ad-hoc killing sprees.
Total number of killing sprees involving guns in the UK since handgun law passed: ZERO
The legislation you're talking about was NEVER designed to, nor did it claim to, deal with day-to-day gun usage such as organised crime (drugs gangs, bank robberies etc). It was designed to counteract the problem of mentally unstable people suddenly getting hold of guns and going on a killing spree. This used to be a problem in schools and shopping centres.
Since the handgun legislation, there have been several attempted killing sprees using machettes and swords. In each case the perp did not manage to kill more than one person and in each case the perp was quickly and easily brought down by the UK's existing heavily armed response units. UK police don't carry handguns; when armed, they usually carry assault rifles and SMGs. The UK police's weapon of choice is traditionally the P90 and the MP5. No point in pissing about with toy .45s like their US amateur counterparts. Few parts of UK are more than a few minutes from an armed response unit and in high crime areas and ports, firearms are routinely secured in police cars. In sensitive areas such as airports you will see British police walking around with P90 submachine guns strapped to their waists.
I speak as a fan of target pistol shooting, I've owned and used air pistols all my life, I have a perfectly legal high velocity air pistol in my house and a target range in my back garden. I support the anti-spree handgun legislation.
Andrew Oakley - www.aoakley.com
The Gun doesn't recognize you! I do.
Wassamaddarwidyou?!?!?!
It wasn't so long ago that there was an article posted here that showed that violent crime is going up because we have better ambulance service now.
ERT's and Doctors are saving so many people that murders are going down, and those people who would have been murderers are now just charged with "violent" crimes (shooting someone and not killing them)
"One critic says 'No technology is foolproof--anyone who has a computer knows how many times it crashes.'"
Encryption is not fool proof. Username/Password concepts are not fool proof. We should just have no passwords and no security implemented at all, because any security expert here worth a grain of salt will tell you that if someone wants it bad enough, they're going to get it.
Security is only there to dissuade them from going after it.
Security through Obscurity is great, WHEN COMBINED WITH EVERY OTHER POSSIBLE SECURITY TECHNOLOGY ALSO.
Sorry, rant mode on, damn holidays. =)
This idea is no different from palladium or DRM. Both have the potential to negatively affect your ability to exercise a right. In the case of palladium/DRM, the right is the first amendment, and smart guns infringe upon the second.
The only way this parallel fails is that no state legislature is considering forcing you to use palladium.
Microsoft announced today they will be developing a new embedded operating system tentatively named, "Windows AK". This operating system, embedded in microchips will allow handgun users to identify themselves by logging into the handgun's grip. The account names and password will be built on existing WIN2k/NT technology. A gun owner would be able to create different accounts for his family members. Other features include a built in web browser and instant messaging.
Laptop stolen via eBay -- nope, did buy this one there, though.
... Vice Lords and (Black) Gangster Disciples are biggies ... the crack cases the feds decided to sweep up. The drugs are just a business, the violence pretty routinely stupid. In fact half the point seemed to be drug distribution, esp. crack of course. As you would know, a lot of the violence has to do with people trying to rob or edge out each other.
:)
Stupid cop -- no, I wouldn't call the cop stupid even if he or she did blow it -- they're a victim of murder.
Yeah, I agree re gangs. I got tired of white middle-class types attributing all of the world's ills to gangs and, ahem, thought maybe you were one of those. Amusing is the number of these people who drive downtown to score their coke there. Also, for many of these critics a gang is three black kids standing together on the sidewalk; "gang" is both a probleam and a proxy for racism. So sorry if I reacted too strong.
I worked in Chicago for a couple of years, where some suburban parents wouldn't let their kids go on field trips to the downtown Shedd Aquarium a few blocks from my office because they might get shot in a drive-by (true story!). For an appeals court, I reviewed drug cases ad nauseum
One upbeat thing is that it appears easier to break up gangs than the Mafia.
In Boston, by contrast, the gang threat was more imagined, the affiliations are much looser. The word "gangs" totally inflames some people, though, out of proportion to what's going on. And of course god forbid we talk about what causes crime, just lock them all up. It gets depressing, the federal penalties are pretty intense and, if it hasn't changed, are 100x severe for crack v. equivalent weight of cocaine. A paperclip's weight of crack, with intent to distribute (a "dealer"), could draw 5 years.
Fortunately everyone will come out of prison good citizens. (Yes, that was sarcasm.)
This is about bankrupting gun manufacturers.
"Smart Guns" are more expensive to manufacture and less desired by the target market.
Less margin per firearm, and less of them sold will financially cripple gun makers. This is about an end run around the second amendment. Both the left and the right are afraid to put a serious challenge to the second amendment before the supreme court. Both sides have too much to lose by risking that.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
If we are relying on "Guns" to be smart, how well does that speak about people?
>> There's no reason to assume it's the outlaw of
>> guns versus the other multitude of factors that
>> contribute to crime.
> On what legitimate basis can you argue that the
> reverse would be true then?
He isn't saying the reverse is true. He is saying that they are orthogonal issues. He is speaking a fundamental truth which fails to land upon the brains of most people... "correlation does not equal causation".
The presence of guns has nothing to do with the crime rate. Nothing. Crime is crime. Lack of guns will not decrease crime. More guns will not increase crime. They are completely orthogonal.
A gun may be USED in a crime. But that is not to say that a gun CAUSES a crime. A crime has a motive. And a motive has nothing to do with the weapon used to commit the crime. And 'motive' itself does not cause crime.
Ultimately, PEOPLE commit crimes. And 'commit' is the key word. The tools used, the methods used, the motives... all of these things have nothing to do with crime.
It takes a person to commit a crime. And as long as there are people... there will be crimes. And if guns are gone... crime will still exist. And if guns are prevalent (as in America)... crime will still exist.
Based upon the statistics... showing a cyclical crime rate in all nations... it is quite apparent that lack of guns, or proliferation of guns, has nothing to do with the crime rate itself.
New Jersey, or perhaps it was New York (can't remember, too lazy to Google) passed a law that everyone with semiautomatic rifles with certain cosmetic charactaristics (erroneously called 'assault weapons' by the press and anti-gun lawmakers) must register them. Don't worry, we just want them registered, to keep track in case of theft and whatnot. You silly knee-jerk reactionary gun-nuts, no one is coming for your guns!
Then, a few years later, they passed a law banning those same firearms. And they had a niiiiice list of who owned what, and their addresses for the knock on the door.
Laws like this are to purposefully make it more inconvenient for law abiding folk like me to legally purchase or own constitutionally guaranteed items.
Here's a nice quote:
The NRA...was right all along in fearing the waiting period was a camel's nose under the tent. Brady has now passed and it is time to reveal the rest of the camel!
--- Handgun Control Inc., (HCI) President Richard Aborn (Dec. 8, 1993), Cleveland Plain Dealer.
Here's another one that's even more telling of their whole agenda:
"Our task of creating a Socialist America can only succeed when those who would resist us have been totally disarmed."
Sarah Brady, Chairman, Handgun Control Inc.Source: The National Educator, January 1994, Pg.3
Cheers
The Democratic Party: We've been pussies since 1968!
First you make the gun fire only in the hands of those it trusts.
Then you control who the guns trust.
Then you control the people.
When they make my gun only fire if I'm allow to fire my gun, I will not be able to fire a gun.
End of story.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
I don't agree. When it can be shown that one even did not effect the outcome of the other it does not prove that all events do not effect the outcome of others. (That blue car was fast, blue cars must be fast!)
In some cases, it is pretty clear that crime rates take a significant dip, and stay down, in relation to some legislation.
Specifically, in this case I'd say that while the Crime Bill of 1994 can't be conclusively shown to have any impact (crime was turning down before it went into effect, and the bans were not clear). However, there are cases where "concealed carry" laws passed in cities and states, and crime has taken a significant downturn, and stayed down. (this makes sense, the bad guys don't know which of the good guys have guns, so the bad guys have less control and less power).
So I don't agree with your fundamental conclusion to rule out legislations impact on crime rates. I remember once seeing a 100 year "per capita" graph of violent gun crimes, and there did appear to be a correlation between the dates that significant legislation passed and crime rates (I really wish I knew where it was now!). But, I would only consider "per capita" when comparing historic data because of the population growth factors, and this specific graph showed a sharp UPTURN in violent gun related crimes when the US Government attempted to limit legal access to guns in some way. Given the number of points this occurred, it would have been statistically extremely unlikely that there was not a correlation. (this makes sense, the good guys turn in their guns, the bad guys keep theirs, the bad guys now have more power).
Anyone have some unbiased statistics on on shooting deaths from various countries?
Switzerland and Norway have very high firearms ownership rates, and very low firearm murder rates.
Another bogus argument. Nobody can say what the murder rate in the US would be if there were no firearms. However, if you compare the US homicide rate excluding gunshot deaths, it is still higher than the total murder rate in most other western nations.Take the guns away, and Americans would still murder one another at a higher rate than other "civilized" countries.
More fallacies. The culture and the ethnic makeup of the USA all differ significantly from the monochromatic culture of Canada and Europe.Funny thing, the violent crime rate in affluent ethnically monolithic (white) US suburbs is strikingly similar to the rates in similarly affluent European towns.
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
The first time someone dies when their gun refuses to fire.
False, they are not nearly as effective as you might hope, or all law enforcement officers would trade in their sidearms for "Less than lethal" tasers.
All of the concealed carry permit holders I know also carry a pocketknife, MACE (pepper spray), and a cell phone.
The taser fires a barbed projectile with wires attached. All of the same trajectory/windspeed issues, plus worries about a dead battery. The only issue avoided is the problem of "overpenetration" and innocent bystanders. The problem is, they are called "less than lethal" devices for a reason.Any chemical/electrical/restraint/incapacitation device that will work reliably against an enraged knife-wielding 240-lb weightlifiting meth-head is going to have a high probality of killing a child or the elderly. Any device that "doesn't have a chance in heck" of killing a child, is going to be less than fully effective against the aformentioned enraged meth addict who is singlemindly trying his best to gut you while you attempt to subdue him with your little toy taser.
Who says we are not? However, firearms are simple mechanical devices based on centuries old technology. That level of reliability and effectiveness is difficult to beat when you are being charged by a big heavy adult male criminal wielding a big sharp knife (even older technology).I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
I could. It's not like it's particularly difficult to make reliable, effective propellant. The primers are the tricky part.
Blackpowder is trivial -- consider when it was discovered. Smokeless powder takes more chemicals to produce (common industrial acids), and is a bit more involved, but is not beyond the reach of anybody who has passed freshman chemistry.
The other "problem" is that modern sealed centerfire ammunition has, when stored correctly, pretty much indefinite shelf life. A target shooter might go through thousands of rounds each year, but a criminal with a revolver only really needs six bullets for his entire career.
What do you plan to do when the unknown person entering your house is up on drugs, coming to steal your stuff, but not fully in control of themselves? Are you going to just hope they take the TV, and trust them to leave you and your GF/wife/family with your lives? You must be a very trusting person.
Personally, I don't trust my life or the lives of those I love to anyone I don't know, and lot of the people I do know.
I'm not going to draw on every person who rings my doorbell or steps onto my lawn, and if someone breaks in and is trying to escape with the VCR they'll probably get to go their way. If, however, that person makes a threatening move towards me, I'll introduce him to my friends Smith and Wesson.
Thank you for correcting me. You learn something better each day.
Human nature is the same everywhere; the modes only are different. -- Earl of Chesterfield
The article linked to says that the information commonly presented to signal the increase in crime rate after Australia's buyback is insufficient. Snopes then proceeds to give a much more meaningful set of data, which show not just 1997-1998 changes, but also changes of the preceeding and following years.
Hardly flamebait.
To all those who think the reliability concerns are absurd:
1) How many watches, microwave electronic boards, and car computers sit within a few inches of an assembly that contains repeated, violent chemical explosions and metal-fatiguing heat-cycles from room-temperature or below to hundreds of degrees in seconds? Not to mention the acceleration.
If the car computers of today were mounted between the cylinders and exhaust manifold, they would fail a lot more often.
2) If your watch battery fails, you don't generally die.
Even the best sidearms are not perfectly reliable now. Good engineering and simplicity enhances reliability. Added complexity will not help.
To all the people who don't understand why "we" think we need these tools - I pray you never have to worry about it. For myself, I have not come to this decision easily, but I have come to it.
It is hard for me to imagine people these days believing that submission is safer than fighting. Some people take different lessons from events than others, I suppose.
If you seek to deny me what I cleary see as my right, I feel no pain at calling you "anti-rights."
Just because you believe something to be your "right" does not make it so. Consider the possiblity that you might simply be wrong.
Image a dozen "Beltway Snipers," all across the country, each going after those they perceive as too liberal. NOT a pretty picture.
But it would really illustrate the need for gun control legislation.
If someone broke into my home, had my family at gunpoint, instead of arming myself and risking the death of members of my family, I'd just give up and let the burglers have what they wanted and help them out the door as quickly as possible. Let the life-risking go to those brave men and women who sign up to take care of us, the police. Let them try to do their job and catch them and incarcerate them. Foolish are those who'd rely upon the fear of a weapon to deter a criminal who already has one: they obvioulsy don't fear it enough if they are threatening the lives of others with it. Let the fear of being caught end the encounter, guaranteed they'll be out the door far quicker and with far less casualties.
if owning a gun is so essential to safety, why is canada's homicide rate so much lower than the US's? certainly, the criminals still have guns.
i ask you the following questions: are you really safer having a gun fight than handing over your wallet? does it put your mind at rest to know that anyone on the street may have a gun, including the normally good-tempered person whose car you just accidentally collided with? do gun-wielding criminals more frequently deliberately murder unarmed people or armed people who try to shoot the gun-wielding criminal? are most gun slayings really about an evil person with an innocent gun, or about someone who lost their temper (caught their wife having an affair perhaps)?
there are actually numbers on the last one. i can't be bothered to find them now... but suffice to say a lot more fatal shootings are "crimes of passion" as opposed to pre-planned shootings. there are also a HUGE number of cases of aggravated assault with a firearm in the US each year.
-- just throwing some fuel on the fire
Frankly, I'd *like* to agree with you. I really would. My stuff isn't worth a life. Even the life of someone who breaks into my home to steal it while I sleep.
But I live in Florida. Florida has this nifty law they call 10-20-Life. Commit a crime with a gun, you get a mandatory sentence of 10 years. Doesn't matter what the crime is. Draw that weapon for any reason during the commission of a crime, and you get a mandatory sentence of 20 years. Fire that weapon (doesn't matter if you hit anything or hurt anyone with it or not) and you get a mandatory life sentence.
Someone that breaks into my house with a gun... I'm not willing to take the chance that they will say "okay, 10 years I can handle, but not 20, and not a life sentence" when they realize they're going to leave the crime scene with a witness there.
Quite frankly, people that break into an occupied dwelling are not nice people. And they don't think like nice people think.
If I discover someone in my living room stealing my dvd player, if they simply run for the door with it, they'll get away clean. I'll reach for a phone to call the police when I see them running, not for a weapon. But if they drop the dvd player and reach for their pants, I'm going to assume they are going for a weapon. And there's only one sane response there.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is... Oops. Frank, I've got your sig again! Where's mine?
As for all of those purchases, a good number of them have been resold to other people when they didn't meet my needs. Once again, if this is attached to one person, some kind of means is going to have to be available to easily recode these devices, or else the 2nd amendment is being further infringed by limiting what I can do with my property after I've legally purchased it.
Memes don't exist. Tell your friends.
It's amazing what one has to believe
.30-06s and .375 H&Hs.
.50 caliber rifles are both "very rare" and "selling like hotcakes."
.50 caliber rifles are very rare justifies banning them, just as the rarity of Lamborghinis and other high-performance cars justifies banning them.
.22 caliber pocket pistol, and claiming the preferred weapon of a drug dealer is a $2000 machinegun in the same piece of propaganda.
.44 Magnum will get angry over your retaliation and kill you.
.50 caliber weapons must be banned in case Americans use them to shoot holes in the armored cars that the government doesn't own and isn't going to send against them.
to believe in gun control
by Michael Z. Williamson
KeepAndBearArms.com -- It's amazing what one has to believe to believe in gun control:
That guns are the real cause of crime, but we will blame and jail the owner of said gun for the crime, even if the owner wasn't the person involved.
That a mugger will kill you in the half-second it takes to draw from the holster, but won't harm you while you dial 911 on your cell phone, talk to the dispatcher and wait half an hour for the cops to arrive.
That gun control works, which is why there are no illegal weapons in Northern Ireland or Beirut.
That the Second Amendment only applies to flintlocks, just as the First Amendment only applies to quills and lead type.
That the proper response to an attack is to call the police, but only unarmed police, because "Violence never settles anything."
That it's wrong to make snide, sexist comments about women, unless the comments are about women who own guns.
That a gun with an 11 round magazine is dangerous, but a gun with fifteen 10 round magazines is much safer.
That a hijacker could easily take a gun away from a pilot, but the hundreds of passengers aboard would then be unable to take the gun away from the hijacker.
That if there'd been a gun aboard American Airlines Flight 11, someone could have been hurt.
That rapists prefer to attack armed women so they can take the guns and use them against the victims.
That 1 firearm owner in 10,000 will commit an act of violence in his or her lifetime, and this is far more frightening than the 25% of drivers who will cause a serious or fatal accident.
That you should rely on police in lieu of your gun, just as you should rely on a dentist in lieu of your toothbrush.
That car keys, umbrellas and hairspray are good tools for self-defense, despite the fact that police continue to carry guns.
That Washington DC's low murder rate of 80.6 per 100,000 is due to strict gun control, but Arlington, Virginia's high murder rate of 1.6 per 100,000 is attributable to the lack of gun control.
That the depressed and emotionally disturbed should not be allowed to own guns that shoot bullets with 250 ft-lbs of energy, but should be allowed to own 4000 lb cars with 1,136,000 ft-lbs of energy (at 65 mph).
That "assault weapons" are "very powerful" but big game hunters oddly prefer
That we should outlaw bullet proof vests so criminals can't use them, and private citizens should be then proud to be killed in the crossfire, knowing they are doing their part for society.
That among the hundreds of documented cases against anti-gun freaks we note that: the press secretary of Handgun Control was arrested in DC for discharging an illegal handgun, a ranking regional officer of the Million Moron March was convicted of felony assault, and other Million Morons in Colorado have been arrested for attacking firearm dealers and activists, but "gun nuts" are "obsessed with violence."
That the laws against specifically named weapons have been found unconstitutional, that the laws against "types" of weapons have been considered vague, that the laws against cosmetic features are easy to comply with and still produce the identical mechanism, and that laws against particular mechanisms are unconstitutional is an indication of the "obsessiveness" of firearms enthusiasts to do what they enjoy doing, against the wishes of the narrow minded prudes who wish to stop them, and not an indication of the obsessiveness of the ignorant paranoids who fear them.
That NASA, the military, physiologists, anatomists and trainers all agree and Olympic scores confirm that men on average have tremendously more upper body strength than women, but women should try to defend themselves with martial arts and not a gun.
That it's terrible when police officers plant weapons on a suspect to enable them to make an arrest, but we should have tougher laws against weapons and trust the police not to abuse them in this way.
That police arriving at 80mph are a better way to stop criminals than bullets arriving at 800mph.
That people buy guns as "substitute penises," because they know that only people with small penises ever get attacked by criminals.
That Hitler and Stalin didn't disarm citizens, only Jews, Gypsies, gays, unionists and other "undesirables." (Yes, a liberal member of the MMM actually said this in the Washington Post.)
That to properly understand Nazi gun control, one must consider the "legitimate fears" they had of the Jewish population. (This was another self-proclaimed liberal. I'm beginning to wonder.)
That families with children should not be allowed to own guns for safety reasons, just as they aren't allowed to own dogs, power tools, or toxic chemicals.
That it's wrong to destroy someone's life over an administrative crime by jailing them and impoverishing their family, unless that crime is to own a gun.
That a law that allows someone to keep doing "X" that has been legal for years, in the face of another, badly written law that says they can't do "Y", is a "loophole."
That it's wrong to politicize that the World Trade Center attackers didn't need guns to hijack a plane, but okay to politicize that the Columbine killers bought guns...illegally.
That when someone dies because they couldn't get a drug the government won't approve, it's tragic, but when someone dies because they couldn't defend themselves with a gun the government won't approve, that's just life.
That a criminal is somehow more of a threat to a cop than to a regular person, so police need guns and regular citizens don't.
That the "Reasonable" uses for guns are hunting and target shooting, but not self-defense. In other words, it's acceptable to use them as toys but not as lifesaving devices.
That
That the fact that
That one has the moral obligation to make a citizen's arrest when one sees a felony in progress, and that it should be accomplished by yelling at the perpetrator, "Stop! Or I'll yell 'stop' again!" rather than by drawing a weapon.
That intelligent people should support gun control because they realize they are too stupid to be trusted with guns.
That a gun is merely an inadequate substitute for a penis, so when attacked by a mugger one should pull out a...
That a gun is a symbolic penis...what this has to do with defending one's life I have no idea. It simply serves to prove that anti-defense psychiatrists clearly have Freudian issues that THEY need to address.
That reasonable licensing fees will stop casual ownership of guns, but anyone who would jump through hoops to own a gun is obsessive.
That outlawing the carrying of guns will stop people from doing so, just as lowering the speed limit stops reckless driving.
That we should deal with the problem of criminals using illegal weapons by taking lawful weapons away from honest people.
That we should ban guns-if it saves even one life, it's worth it, just as we should ban assemblies where people might be trampled to death-if it saves just one life, it's worth it, and we should ban speech by groups who offend public order-if it saves just one life, it's worth it, and we should ban unhealthy foods-if it saves just one life, it's worth it, and...
That a punk wakes up one morning, and thinks, "Gee, instead of robbing, raping, sodomizing and killing a young woman, why don't I turn my $400 gun in for $20 and a pizza and go work at McDonald's?"
That the more helpless you are, the safer you are from criminals.
That you should give a mugger your wallet, because he doesn't really want to shoot you and he'll let you go, but that you should give him your wallet, because he'll shoot you if you don't.
That despite all the outrage about Corporate America's cavalier treatment of employees, Domino's Pizza's demand that employees be unarmed is an altruistic effort to stop them from hurting themselves, and not a calculated financial bid to avoid having a lawsuit filed by a dead robber's family.
That one can sue a store for having a slick floor, falling ceilings, and sharp corners, but if they refuse to let you bring a gun in and you get shot by a criminal, they aren't liable for enforcing that rule with others.
That there is no right of self defense, and the police are not legally obligated to respond to my cries for help when disarmed, but you can sue them if they take too long to get to a traffic accident.
That assault rifles are far too powerful to hunt deer and elk, and too dangerous for private citizens to own, but are too impotent for modern warfare, too weak to reliably kill soldiers, and have no place in the concept of a citizen reserve.
That there's no incongruity in claiming the preferred weapon of a drug dealer is a $25
That any cheap weapon is a "Saturday night special," and any expensive weapon is an "assault weapon."
That "Cops" and other shows are edited to show the boring encounters with traffic stops and the occasional drunken fool with a revolver in his pocket, and never show the millions of cases where the cops are gunned down in droves by machinegun toting drug dealers.
That "NYPD Blue" and "Miami Vice" are documentaries.
That an intruder will be incapacitated by tear gas or oven spray, but if shot with a
That firearms in the hands of private citizens are the gravest threat to world peace, and China, Pakistan and Korea can be trusted with nuclear weapons.
That Charlton Heston as president of the NRA is a shill who should be ignored, but Michael Douglas as a representative of Handgun Control, Inc. is an ambassador for peace who is entitled to an audience at the UN arms control summit.
That ordinary people, in the presence of guns, turn into slaughtering butchers, and revert to normal when the weapon is removed.
That someone who fails to clear his weapon, fails to point it in a safe direction, pulls the trigger without checking the chamber, and blows his foot off is an example of how even a "trained professional" can be a "victim" of a diabolical gun, but people in the military who clean weapons millions of times a year without getting hurt are "dumb grunts."
That the New England Journal of Medicine is filled with expert advice about guns, just as Guns and Ammo has some excellent treatises on heart surgery.
That one should consult an automotive engineer for safer seatbelts, a civil engineer for a better bridge, a neurosurgeon for spinal paralysis, a computer programmer for Y2K problems, and Sarah Brady for firearms expertise.
That the best thing our kids can do to bullies and drug dealers is "just say no," and fight back, and the best thing we can do to bullies and drug dealers is to give them $50 and wait for them to go away.
That it's outrageous that the Milwaukee police took 45 minutes to respond to reports of Jeffrey Dahmer's last victim running around naked in the cold, then returned him to his attacker without checking ID, but the best thing a citizen can do in an emergency is dial 911.
That the "right of the people peaceably to assemble," the "right of the people to be secure in their homes," "the enumeration herein of certain rights shall not be construed to disparage others retained by the people," "The powers not delegated herein are reserved to the states respectively, and to the people," refer to individuals, but "the right of the people to keep and bear arms" refers to the states.
That the 2nd Amendment, ratified in 1791, allows the states to have a National Guard, created by act of Congress in 1916.
That the National Guard, paid by the federal government, occupying property leased to the federal government, using weapons owned by the federal government, punishing trespassers under federal law, is a state agency.
That private citizens can't have handguns, because they serve no militia purpose, even though the military has hundreds of thousands of them, and private citizens can't have assault rifles, because they are military weapons.
That it is reasonable for California to have a minimum 2 year sentence for possessing but not using an assault rifle, and reasonable for California to have a 6 month minimum sentence for raping a female police officer.
That it is reasonable to jail people for carrying but not using guns, but outrageous to jail people for possessing marijuana.
That minimum sentences violate civil rights, unless it's for possessing a gun.
That door-to-door searches for drugs are a gross violation of civil rights and a sign of Fascism, but door-to-door searches for guns are a reasonable solution to the "gun problem."
That the first amendment absolutely allows child pornography and threats to kill cops, but doesn't apply to manuals on gun repair.
That a woman in a microskirt, perfume and a Wonderbra, without underwear, is a helpless victim, but someone getting paid $6 an hour to deliver the cash from a fast food place to the bank at the same time every night is, "asking for it." And you won't allow either of them to carry a gun.
That Illinois' law that allows almost any government official from Governor to dogcatcher to carry a gun is reasonable, and the law that prohibits any private citizen, even one with 50 death threats on file and a million dollar jewelry business from carrying a gun is reasonable. And it isn't a sign of police stateism.
That the 80 religious kooks in Waco were a threat to American security, but snipers killing them as they left the building, machinegunning children, hiding the video evidence, possibly torching the building on purpose, and having no case to present in federal court is good law enforcement. And it isn't a sign of police stateism.
That free speech entitles one to own newspapers, transmitters, computers, and typewriters, but self defense only justifies bare hands.
That with the above, a 90 LB woman attacked by a 300 LB rapist and his 300 LB buddy, has the "right" to kill them in self defense, provided she uses her bare hands.
That there's nothing in the Constitution that specifically prohibits banning certain guns, but there is something in the Constitution that specifically prohibits banning certain sex acts.
That gun safety courses in school only encourage kids to commit violence, but sex education in school doesn't encourage kids to have sex.
That a criminal will take a gun away from you and use it against you, so conversely, the best thing to do when threatened is to take the criminal's gun away from him and us it against him.
That the ready availability of guns today, with only a few government forms, waiting periods, checks, infringements, ID, and fingerprinting, is responsible for all the school shootings, compared to the lack of school shootings in the 1950's and 1960's, which was caused by the awkward availability of guns at any hardware store, gas station, and by mail order.
That we must get rid of guns because a deranged lunatic may go on a shooting spree at any time, but anyone who owns a gun out of fear of such a lunatic is paranoid.
That there is too much explicit violence featuring guns on TV, but that cities can sue gun manufacturers because people aren't aware of the dangers involved with guns.
That the gun lobby's attempt to run a "don't touch" campaign about kids handling guns is propaganda, and the anti-gun lobby's attempt to run a "don't touch" campaign is responsible social activity.
That the crime rate in America is decreasing because of gun control, but the increase in crime requires more gun control.
That 100 years after its founding, the NRA got into the politics of guns from purely selfish motives, and 100 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, the black civil rights movement was founded from purely noble motives.
That statistics showing high murder rates justify gun control, and statistics that show increasing murder rates after gun control is legislated are "just statistics."
That we don't need guns against an oppressive government, because the Constitution has internal safeguards, so we should ban and seize all guns, therefore violating the 2nd, 4th, 5th and 9th Amendments of that Constitution, and won't thereby become an oppressive government.
That guns are an ineffective means of self defense for rational adults, but in the hands of an ignorant criminal become a threat to the fabric of society.
That guns are so complex to use that special training is necessary to use them properly, but so simple to use that they make murder easy.
That guns contribute to high death rates and should be banned, but tobacco and alcohol are okay.
That guns cause crime, which is why there has never been a mass slaying at a gun show.
That guns cause crime, just like matches cause arson.
That guns cause crime, just like women cause prostitution.
That guns cause crime, just like men cause rape.
That guns aren't necessary to national defense, which is why the US Army only has 3 million of them.
That banning guns works, which is why New York, DC, and Chicago cops need guns against armed criminals.
That women are just as intelligent and capable as men, but a woman with a gun is "an accident waiting to happen."
That women are just as intelligent and capable as men, but gunmaker's advertisements aimed at women are "preying on their fears."
That a handgun, with up to 4 switches and controls, is far too complex for the typical adult to learn to use, as opposed to an automobile which only has 20.
That handguns are useful only for murder, which is why the police and military define them as defensive weapons.
That neighbors who carry guns against the occasional lunatic are paranoid, because of the perfectly justifiable fear that every single one of them is waiting to turn into a lunatic.
That a majority of the population supports gun control, just like a majority of the population used to support owning slaves.
That one should ignore as idiots politicians who confuse Wicca with Satanism and exaggerate the gay community as a threat to society, but listen sagely to politicians who can refer to a self-loading small arm as a "weapon of mass destruction" and an "assault weapon."
That there is no absolute right to a weapon, documented historically because the British government used to prohibit Catholics from owning guns. And that wasn't a sign of religious bigotry. (Note: the British Constitution actually RESTORED to Protestants the right to own arms, which Catholic James II denied them)
That rifles with pistol grips are assault weapons, just like vehicles with racing stripes are sports cars.
That you don't need a gun against invaders, because the government will know in plenty of time to issue you whatever weapons you need.
That Massachusetts is safer with bans on guns, which is why Teddy Kennedy has machinegun-toting guards.
That most people can't be trusted, so we should have laws against guns, which most people will abide by, because they can be trusted.
That a woman raped and strangled with her panties is morally superior to a woman with a smoking gun and a dead rapist at her feet.
That the "Right to keep and bear arms" refers to armorial badges and coats of arms, not to weapons. (Potomac-inc.org)
That guns should be banned because of the danger involved, and live reporting from the battlefield, which can keep the enemy informed of troop deployments, getting thousands of troops killed and perhaps losing a war, is a protected act that CANNOT be compromised on.
That the right of explicit teenage pornographic websites to exist cannot be questioned because it is a constitutionally protected extension of the Bill of Rights, but the claim that handguns are for self-defense is merely an excuse, and not really protected by the Bill of Rights.
That the ACLU is good because it uncompromisingly defends certain parts of the Constitution, but the NRA is bad because it defends other parts of the Constitution.
That a house with a gun is three times as likely to have a murder, just like a house with insulin is three times as likely to have a diabetic.
That police operate in groups with backup, which is why they need larger capacity magazines than civilians, who must face criminals alone, and therefore need less ammunition.
That people who own guns out of a fear of crime are paranoid, but people who don't want other people to own guns in case it causes them to commit crimes are rational.
That guns cause the high suicide rate in the US, even though Japan's rate is almost three times higher.
That we should ban gun stores near schools, because of all the 10 year olds who are buying guns without parents' permission.
That there is a statue called "Armed Freedom" in the Capitol, but that that is irrelevant to the intent of our ancestors.
That we should ban "Saturday Night Specials" and other inexpensive guns because it's not fair that poor people have access to guns too.
That guns have no legitimate use, but alcohol does, which is why we issue cops guns instead of beer.
That police and soldiers are the dregs of society who were unfit to get any real job, which perfectly qualifies them with the high moral standards and keen intellects to handle these complicated tools and be our guardians.
That it's acceptable to arm a courier at $6 an hour to shoot criminals for stealing bank deposits, but unacceptable for a college-educated business owner to do it himself.
That a registration plan will reduce crime, because criminals will register their guns despite the Supreme Court decision Haynes v. U.S. (309 U.S. 85, 1968) that registration violates self-incrimination.
That it's reasonable to require proof of a criminal act before an order of protection can be issued, but reasonable to assume anyone with a gun will commit a criminal act, so they should be subject to prior restraint.
That teaching abstinence exclusively rather than use of condoms is doomed to fail, but encouraging absolute bans on guns rather than education in safe use is the only acceptable method of reducing crime.
That it is outrageous that civilians have rifles that were designed for the military for their own self defense, but perfectly okay to have polluting, potentially unstable, heavy vehicles that were designed for the military simply as status symbols.
That guns are the gravest threat to society because 83,000,000 gun owners didn't commit a crime yesterday.
That it is essential to incorporate locks and sensors into guns to make them safer and that only a criminal would not support this, but cops and federal agents would be exempt for safety reasons because locks are unreliable and hinder access.
That a bank guard can protect money with a gun, but you cannot protect your children with one.
That all gun dealers sell illegal weapons, just like all black people sell drugs.
That crime is higher in urban areas with less guns, and we must continue to disarm the minorities in these areas because of the risk of crime, and that isn't bigotry.
That an underpaid, overworked bodyguard should be glad to throw himself in front of a bullet for you.
That your safety is someone else's responsibility, but they have no right to tell you how to live your life.
That guns are useless against tyranny, because an armed populace of 160 million cannot defeat an army of 2 million mixed in among it.
That if the above is true, we should not be terrified of the concept of that government holding control of our lives and freedom at its whim.
That the piecemeal destruction of the right to keep and bear arms makes the right useless, and therefore justifies destroying it further.
That one should be more afraid of one's spouse blowing a gasket and shooting the children, than of those children being run over by a hormone-driven teenager in a car.
"It can't happen here."
That people are too stupid to handle guns, but are intelligent enough to vote.
That guns are not an effective means of self-defense, which is why police carry them.
That one can "study" the "gun issue," but not know the difference between an assault rifle and a battle rifle.
That the NRA, with over 4 million members, is "out of touch" with America, and HCI, with 50 thousand members, is a "mandate from the people."
That a baseball bat is good protection against a burglar, provided his gun fires baseballs.
That to judge a group by secondhand news and hearsay is bigotry, unless that group is the NRA.
That the National Defense Act of 1916 doesn't exist.
That pricing products out of the reach of poor people through excessive regulation is discriminatory practice, unless that product is a gun.
That manufacturers are not responsible for damages caused by their products, unless that product is a gun.
That trigger locks and other devices make guns safer, which is why the police and military refuse to use them.
That registration of guns will help law enforcement, because that way they won't need probable cause and a warrant to conduct a search.
That registration of guns, which makes their existence a matter of public knowledge under the FOIA, isn't dangerous to owners.
That registration of guns, in violation of the McClure-Volkmer Act, and as declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, is somehow still legal.
That private citizens making private sales of private property is a "loophole."
That the existence of weapons not banned by previous laws is a "loophole."
That making it harder to get a license to sell firearms legally will reduce the number of people selling illegally.
That it's safer to do nothing than resist with a gun, which is why the military wins so many wars by not fighting.
That we must close shooting ranges because of the noise, but ban silencers because they are quiet.
That owning a gun for self-defense indicates an intent to kill, just like owning a first aid kit indicates an intent to impersonate a physician.
That guns are an "epidemic" even though we can't treat them with penicillin.
That there's no right to own military weapons, which is why the Civilian Marksmanship Program at http://www.odcmp.com exists to sell military weapons to civilians under Congressional authority.
That suggesting teachers be armed is an outrageous suggestion for a "civilized" society, which is why the Swiss and Israelis do it.
That making it harder and harder for even cops to have guns on school property will somehow make it harder for lunatics to kill the utterly helpless students.
That accidents with a product justify banning the product, even though MADD has never called for a ban on alcohol, people actively push to legalize drugs, and no one wants to ban swimming pools, so basically it's only practical items like guns we should ban and not the luxury items that are essential to human survival.
That the 14th Amendment requires states to accept each other's drivers licenses, even with age or vision requirement differences, marriage licenses even with age or relationship differences or if it's a gay marriage, but somehow doesn't apply to licenses to carry weapons.
That the same people who build illegal high-tech drug labs for less than $30,000 won't build illegal low-tech gun shops for less than $10,000.
That people with large gun collections are dangerous, especially if they have more than two hands to shoot with.
That autoloaders are "easily converted" to fully automatic fire, yet the person telling you this has no idea how it's accomplished.
That banning rifles with bayonet lugs will cut down on all the drive-by bayonetings.
That shooting at an intruder who smashes your door and enters with knife in hand will somehow "escalate the violence."
That it's safer with less guns, which is why lunatics shoot up schools instead of gun shows or police stations.
That guns cause crime, which is why there was no rape or murder in the Dark Ages.
That stopping the people who don't commit murder from having guns will lessen the number of those who do commit murder.
That since banning a few guns hasn't helped, we should ban more.
That just like the anti-nuclear weapons movement used to believe, if the potential victims disarm, the oppressors will take pity on them and give up their weapons in remorse.
That oppressing gun owners until they violate the law justifies oppressing them further.
That "crime guns" and old police guns should be destroyed at government expense, because the cost of exorcising the evil spirits from them before selling them to lawful owners is exorbitant.
That raising the legal age to possess firearms from 18 to 21 will REALLY show those 16 year olds.
That inner-city blacks in public housing should be disarmed to prevent crimes, but not rich white suburbanites. And it isn't a sign of racism.
That creating firearms crime by having a Byzantine code of firearm laws proves there's a problem, and justifies more laws to create more crime.
That liberal parents who give guns to problem children to "teach them responsibility" are not responsible for the deaths they cause, but everyone else's guns are.
That gun owners are a threat by existing that must be destroyed by any means possible and their rights are unimportant, but the thugs who attack us on the street whom the gun owners wish to be armed against are simply a problem we have to put up with.
That one should judge all gun owners by the acts of a few criminals, just like one should judge all blacks by the acts of a few inner-city crack dealers.
That making it harder to get firearms legally will reduce their illegal use, just like making it harder to get a prescription will cut down on the illicit drug trade.
That it's tragic when a child dies in a firearms accident, and we must pass restrictive laws to prevent it, but children poisoned by household chemicals are simply unavoidable accidents.
That you don't need a gun, therefore no one needs one, and you have the right to impose that belief and will on others.
That stupidity can be cured by legislation.
That societies with less guns have less killings by guns, just like societies with less cars have less vehicular homicide. This is deemed to be relevant.
That criminals who rob to support their drug habit can afford $65 a minute in ammunition for their automatic "Weapon of choice."
That with nationwide gun control, the entire nation can be as safe as NYC, LA and Chicago.
That since a gun isn't 100% effective for self defense, you should get rid of it, along with your first aid kit and fire extinguisher, since they aren't 100% effective, either.
That if Chicago were to legalize firearms, it would have shootouts in the streets, which never happens now.
That it's wrong to use tax dollars to finance private political agendas, unless that agenda is to ban guns.
That a "safe gun" will help stop criminal misuse of firearms just like "safe sex" works so well to stop rape.
That a cop with felonies on his record is safe with fully automatic weapons but a churchgoing mother with a parking ticket as her worst crime is unfit to use a pistol to protect her child.
That a suicide who used a gun would still be alive if he or she had used a knife or hanged himself or herself.
That someone else's suicide is a problem for the rest of us that would be prevented if we gave up our guns.
That alcohol is acceptable in private, as long as the user doesn't use it while driving, but mere possession of a gun is a threat to others.
That gun owners are unwilling to compromise, which is why there are only 20,000 gun laws in the US.
That criminals are better shots than civilians because of all the time they spend on the practice range.
That since criminals are better shots by the logic above, one is safer by not shooting back, but just waiting for them to run out of ammo.
That it's reasonable to assume an accident would have been lethal if the victim wasn't wearing a seatbelt, and reasonable to assume that an armed defender would have been safe even if they didn't have a gun.
That one accidental death is too many, but thousands of people dying because the means of self-defense were not available is unavoidable and not worthy of worry.
That we should ban guns because people have a "right to feel safe," but the right to feel safe by owning firearms for defense is not valid.
That it's outrageous to count 18 and 19 year-old parents as "children" for statistical purposes, but perfectly acceptable to count them as children for purposes of exaggerating gun deaths among "children."
That a zero-tolerance policy is bad regarding drugs, but a zero-tolerance policy is good regarding guns.
That martial arts are a better form of self-defense, and can defeat an armed opponent, but we still need to ban guns because of the danger they present to those few people who don't know karate.
That government officials can be trusted with automatic weapons, but private citizens cannot, because of the number of people private citizens kill while kicking in doors without search warrants.
That an 18 year old can handle a machinegun and die defending another nation's oil reserves, thereby being a hero, but an 18 year old who tries to defend his or her child with a gun belongs in jail.
That the few people who can't use martial arts or other non-lethal means of self-defense--the young, the old, the infirm, the disabled, the weak, the small, and the pregnant--are simply the necessary sacrifice we must make to criminals to avoid the risks of letting people be armed.
That the dangers of guns outweigh their recreational uses, unlike alcohol and motorcycles.
That getting rid of guns reduces violence, so the military should be armed with bouquets of flowers.
That we should hang out at funeral homes to tell the families of the deceased how lucky they are their loved one was killed by a drunk and not a man with a gun.
That a conservative with a dozen guns is an "extremist," and a liberal with a dozen guns is a "museum."
That a team of cops shooting an unarmed citizen 19 times and not getting charged with murder is "law enforcement" but an old lady shooting a knife-wielding attacker is "vigilanteism," and we should leave defense to the professionals.
That we should require trigger locks and safe storage facilities for all guns in order to prevent accidents, just like we require all household chemicals to be kept in a locked cabinet.
That a woman shooting a rapist is a felon.
That NORML is good for supporting legalization of a politically unpopular product, but the NRA is bad for supporting legalization of a politically unpopular product.
That poor people who live in high crime areas and can't afford alarms shouldn't be allowed to have guns either.
That telling a murderer he'll go to jail for carrying a gun will make him think twice.
That the only way to end gun violence is to ban guns, just like the only way to end medical malpractice is to ban doctors.
That killing a triple murderer so you don't become the fourth victim is "escalating the violence."
That we should get rid of "junk guns" so that criminals are forced to use reliable high-quality guns.
That repealing laws that discriminate against gun-owners "endorses" guns, just like repealing laws that discriminate against gays "endorses" homosexuality.
That guns are designed only to kill, just like women are designed only to give birth.
That only people over 21 are allowed to defend themselves.
That we should ban guns because their primary purpose is to kill people, but we shouldn't ban alcohol, which has its primary purpose getting intoxicated and losing control of the higher faculties, thereby increasing violence and accidental death.
That the lack of mention of firearms in Colonial literature proves their scarcity, much like the lack of mention of outhouses proves their scarcity.
That somehow the above is more relevant to the 2nd Amendment than the lack of letters to public officials and newspapers is relevant to the 1st Amendment.
That a person who would commit violence with a gun would never do so with a knife.
That most people are seething cauldrons of potential violence who cannot be trusted with a gun, but most people are so decent that there is no need to carry a weapon for defense.
That a person foolish enough to leave a gun loaded and lying in reach of a child will somehow be responsible enough to attach a trigger lock.
That 83 million gun owners are "extremists," and the 50,000 members of the Million Moron March are "the majority."
That allowing concealed carry does not reduce crime through deterrence since some people do so even though it's illegal, but allowing concealed carry increases crime, because more people carry guns and use them irresponsibly.
That a woman buying a gun to defend herself against a violent ex needs five days to "cool off."
That a woman being raped should refuse help from an armed stranger, and instead wait for the police.
That if an a group of anti-gun protesters feels threatened, they should ask police with guns to protect them while they tell everyone how worthless guns are for protection.
That a trauma surgeon's experience in treating gunshot wounds makes him an expert on gun control legislation, just like an automobile body repair technician's experience repairing cars makes him an expert on traffic laws.
That the typical town only needs one law enforcement officer per 1000 population, because most people are law abiding, but that it's dangerous to let citizens carry weapons because most people are criminal.
That the risk of arrest for carrying a weapon on school grounds will stop a person bent on suicide from starting a shootout.
That felons should be denied the right to ever own a weapon, just like rapists should be castrated before being released from jail.
That the 1939 US vs Miller case, is "established law" that endorses gun control and the matter is closed, just like Plessy vs Ferguson endorsed "separate but equal" schools and the matter is closed.
That game wardens have the most dangerous job in the world, because everyone they deal with is armed.
That there's no risk of the US becoming a police state, Japanese-Americans were not interned in the 40's, blacks were not oppressed and jailed in the 50's, and no students were killed at Kent State.
That when the government promises that they won't confiscate our weapons after we register them, we can believe them, just like the Commanche, the Sioux, the Apache, the Kaw, the Cree, the Blackfoot, the Italians in NYC, the Jews in Germany, the Zulu in South Africa...and the Americans at Lexington and Concord.
That the government can control guns as well as it controls drugs.
That the high crime rate in cities with oppressive gun control proves the need for gun control in cities without gun control and with low crime.
That Charlton Heston, as president of the NRA, must be a racist, despite his marches with Dr. King in the 1960s. After all, all gun owners are racist, and that theory isn't bigoted.
That we don't need guns because America is safe, and only criminals or people wishing to start trouble would be out late at night in bad neighborhoods.
That there is no left-wing conspiracy to send police and troops to imprison American gun owners, but there is a vast, right-wing conspiracy of gun owners who must be disarmed for attempting to stop it.
That
That ships using Australian waters mustn't carry handguns against the mythical threat of piracy or mutiny, because some aspiring captain might sell them for a few bucks.
That gang punks shot by other gang punks are innocent victims, and babies shot by government agents deserve to die because of the unpopular beliefs of their parents.
That allowing the poor and minorities to defend themselves is Fascist.
That small arms can't win wars, as all the Viet Cong bombing, air superiority, and naval missions prove.
That John Wayne, rejected by the Marines for bad knees, who portrayed firearms as used by soldiers and law enforcement is a draft-dodging agent of evil, but antigun draft dodger Sylvester Stallone, making movies about Vietnam veterans and using weapons gratuitously, is an American hero to be slobbered over.
That violence is bad, but any defensive use of a firearm that doesn't involve the death of the perpetrator is invalid.
That the NRA is bad for running political activities, but the Million Moron March, stealing money from AIDS research, illegally maintaining tax-exempt status as a 501c(3) organization and fraudulently using a hospital rent-free as its headquarters is good for running political activities.
That Charlton Heston is evil for working for the NRA for free, but Sarah Brady charging $10,000 a speech is a paragon of altruism.
That a ranch rifle made after 1994 is somehow a military rifle.
That all firearms retailers are illegal gun dealers, just like all pharmacists are illegal drug dealers.
That hate is not a family value, but all gun owners are tobacco-chawin', beer-swillin', racist, redneck bubbas.
That a gun which sits silently in a drawer and costs pennies per round to shoot is a bad idea for self defense, but a dog that requires walks, veterinary care, and licenses, may not be allowed in certain neighborhoods and may annoy the neighbors at all hours is a good idea for self defense.
That the worst thing one can do if there's an intruder in the house is get a gun and apprehend them, and the best thing on can do is pretend to be asleep and wait for them to go away, especially if they are raping your children.
That gun control will "keep guns out of the wrong hands," meaning law-abiding Americans' hands.
That trigger locks do not interfere with the ability to use a gun for defensive purposes, which is why it makes sense that police officers are exempt from using them on their duty weapons.
That the government attempting to stop the Microsoft "monopoly" is good, and the Federal government pressuring cities to buy guns only from Smith & Wesson is also good, and not monopolistic.
That "assault weapons" have no purpose other than to kill large numbers of people, which is why the police need them.
That "assault weapons" are only designed for killing offensively, and the police need them but you do not.
That citizens don't need to carry a gun for personal protection but desk-bound police administrators who work in a building filled with cops do, as do tax auditors, vegetable inspectors, mail inspectors, and meat inspectors.
That beer-gutted police have special mental, emotional and physical capabilities that enable them to deal with the incredible complexity of a firearm, and private citizens can never hope to achieve such competence.
That the Brady Act and the "Assault Weapons" Ban which both went into effect in 1994 are responsible for the decrease in violent crime rates since 1991.
That 25% of the dealers at gun shows are unlicensed, and we must license these purveyors of books, tools, knives, clothing, artwork, candy and historical artifacts.
That because of New York's "tough laws" against guns, there exist black market dealers who spend thousands of dollars in gas and other expenses to drive to Arizona, which has "weak laws" in order to buy Ruger pistols at $500 each retail and drive back to New York and sell them to criminals at an "average" of $50 each, thereby making a profit.
That there's no contradiction in the same liberals who said in the 60s that 18 year olds who could fight should be able to vote, now saying that 18 year olds can vote but shouldn't own guns.
Copyright 1999, 2001 by Michael Z. Williamson. Permission is granted to copy in whole or part for non-profit purposes, provided due credit is given. Please inform the author directly at daggers@iquest.net or through http://www.KeepAndBearArms.com when you do.
I agree with you 100%.
I also have to wonder what happens if you need to shoot with your other hand (the one without the ring)?
Along the same vein, if the gun is based solely on grip, what happens if you need to shoot with your other hand? Your grip with your right hand is most likely to be significantly different from your grip with your left hand.
With either device, what if your spouse or significant other needs to use it? Or one of your children needs to use it for defense of your home (that scenario has happened more than once in the US - not all kids are hooligans who shoot innocent people, some of them actually have used firearms to defend their lives and/or homes).
The US has also had times when civilians have come to the aid of fallen police officers under fire and have had to use the officer's gun to ward off the bad guy...So, if the cops are forced to use "smart guns" I guess they'll just get shot by the bad guy 'cause the good samaritan who wants to help save the cops' life can't anymore.
I seriously doubt there is any foolproof "technological" way to prevent mis-use of firearms anymore than there is any foolproof way to prevent the mis-use of anything else...
The best, most fool-proof way to prevent any mis-use of anything, including guns, is education. Yes, there will still be people who just won't learn, but education is still and always will be the best bet.
-- Some people live life in the fast lane. I live life in oncoming traffic.
This whole thing will read pretty poorly. Sorry about that, it's just hard to contain my thoughts after reading so many posts!
Here's my two cents:
I read through a lot of +3-5 posts, and I saw a bunch of stuff pointing to rising rates of Bad Things in countries (AUS, UK) that have tried to limit firearms in some way. It makes sense that evidence of this kind is often quoted, the only problem is that it is used by different sides for different reasons - it makes it hard to trust. Personally, I don't think that gun ownership rates play the most significant part in gun related deaths - which seems to me to be the real issue at hand when NJ, or any other gov. tried to regulate guns.
Michael Moore's "Bowling for Columbine" had a pretty interesting idea: that gun related deaths are high in the U.S. because we have a society that primarily sees guns as a means of *defense* against other people (namely, the defense of upper middle class and rich - generally white - people from others who are disenfranchised/poor/ and prolly black).
As I mentioned before, there is a lot of article quoting about rising or falling Bad Things due to gun legislation on both sides of this issue. I think that arguments of this type rely too heavily on the idea that each nation represents a sort of "natural experiment". Perhaps this is not the best way to analyze the problem.
I am always reminded of knives when the gun debate arises. Knives are also used for killing (albeit anachronistically nowadays). They are in great abundance. There is most definitely a history of people impaling each other on Sharp Things, that could easily extend to knives in the present day. They do constitute a physical threat. Why not arm your home with knives if you're so afraid of being invaded? Or build a barricade. Pallisades. Gates, turrets, nests,fox holes. The idea that one lives in a large, civilized, modern, nation-state yet one must still own and religiously maintain a means of personal self defenseseems to me to be the height of hypocrisy, or simply a state of affairs that cannot exist. What kind of nation do you want to live in? One where you live in constant fear of home invasion (with guns or without)? Personally, I say get rid of the fear of being assainated by the bogey man, and THEN you can start talking about whether or not it is okay to own guns/force people to own crippled guns.
UK police don't carry handguns;
Actually, they do. ARV's usually don't but armed units like SO19 do. But they carry them in addition to the MP5s. Indeed, I was sitting in casualty just the other day and two armed (armed with hand guns only) officers walked in.
Few parts of UK are more than a few minutes from an armed response unit
True. Infact all police vans (not the ones they use to haul crims - the ones they use to transport police) have a gun locker. But the only place that ever admitted to this was Liverpool.
As one of the posts above notes, this response is 'pretty late in the day.' The moderators have almost certainly gone home by now, but the topic's importance makes it deserving of attention.
The thing that makes the original article interesting is not that it concerns itself with an application of current-day technology. It doesn't: biometrics that are in any way practical on a handgun that don't impair its function, and to some, its beauty, are a long, long way off. One question that this sudden concern with the magic bullet of biometrics is 'what is it all worth? What exactly can it be expected to do?'
In any mechanical system there are bound to be places for glitches to live and be exploited and, in a handgun, neither side of the shopworn, 'for-and-against' argument is going to be satisfied. Batteries will wear down and the gun will either fire for no one, or for anyone, or worse, it will fire for a child who comes across it who knows that daddy's handgun, unlocked and improperly stored, is perfectly safe to handle. Mechanically, mandating biometric devices only adds a layer of complexity to an already complex system and there are bound to be unforeseen consequences.
Along other lines, the technical side of, 'the street,' is not just something that William Gibson invented. People have known for a long time that the technical underbelly of society can be rich in its technical understanding and use. The sociology of street-level crime takes technology in new and unexpected directions.
Drug-dealers and thieves have long since adapted beeper and cellular phone technology to criminal transactions, and New York City's Metropolitan Transit Authority has had to contend with quasi-literates who have learned that bending transit fare cards in just the right way can get free train rides and they have had to modify all the turnstiles in a seven-hundred-million dollar system as a result.
If there is any way to hack bought or stolen 'smart guns' criminals will know find out about it and spread that knowledge among themselves. We are all human. We all absorb and use information and the assumption that this basic human quality is not shared by everyone is a matter of pure hubris on the part of politicians--an unpleasant discovery what should have been obvious waiting to happen. If you don't believe this yet, imagine how many things you, that is, you personally, can learn to assemble, change or break given a screwdriver, a hammer and all the time you need.
All in all, the legislation in New Jersey is a purely political act; the result of the same type of thinking that often leads to ill-thought-out laws pertaining to computers. Guns are a problem. What we think of them is a problem and how we handle them is a problem and it is our job as a society to find realistic solutions.
The advent of biometrics and laws mandating their use is not helpful lawmaking, but an exercise in smoke and mirrors which distracts us from our impotence when it comes to finding and implementing real solutions to one of the greatest problems in our history and everything that calls attention away from our needing to make hard choices regarding firearms only holds back the day that we will sit down and actually make them.
Mandating biometrics in handguns has no purpose except to allow politicians to say to their constituents, 'look at this beautiful thing that I have done for you' while leaving the real and vital subtexts hidden behind a curtain of self-congratulation. And important things are left unsaid; Things like, 'please don't notice that only the most strictly law-abiding buyers of new handguns are effected, and please, please, please don't anyone mention that New Jersey is one state in a country composed of fifty linked together by a transportation-system that is the envy of the world.'
To mail me, remove the 'mailno' from my email addy.
"Yeah. It smells, too..."
An interesting assertion.
If we predicate that not ALL guns are used in murders--that is, if we grant the same assumption about guns that we make about cars--then we can simply call guns 'consumer products,' in a consumer culture.
With that taken care of, when I replace the 'guns' in your assertion with 'cars,' 'clothes,' 'Cannondale bicyles,' 'Apple computers,' 'Dell computers,' or any other product which I can fetishize as a consumer, I am either as twisted and in need of psychoanalysis as the gun-lover is, or, interestingly enough, if the other consumers are not in need of psychoanalysis at all, then neither am I.
Oddly enough, I choose to follow the latter assumption.
To mail me, remove the 'mailno' from my email addy.
"Yeah. It smells, too..."
I'm sorry if I came across as being judgmental. I don't understand the hype of both sides in this issue. I come from a country originally- South Africa- that had gun laws similar to those in the states and for most of my life there I can remember perhaps one incident of someone saving life and property with a gun, but I do remember at least two incidents of family members killing one another with guns, numerous gun related accidents and few burglaries where a gun was ever used. It just seemed that guns were more of a pain that anything else. YMMV.
The Swiss are fairly liberal about their gun laws. Indeed IIRC everone is REQUIRED to have a gun in the house. Gun deaths there are comparable to those in the rest of Europe.
Yes, but they are given military weapons with sealed tins of ammunition - NOT something which you can take out and show off/play with, not something children can open easily, not some to use for sport or hunting.
It's hard to draw a valid comparison to the US for gun deaths because of that.
-- Jim
LITTLE GIRL: But which cookie will you eat FIRST? C. MONSTER: Me think you have misconception of cookie-eating process.
I grew up in the UK, and have lived in several other countries in Europe. every time this topic comes up, there are people, who otherwise to me sound like pretty ordinary folks, who profess to carry guns every day. Because they feel required to, to feel safe. Because friends of theirs have actually used one to fend off somebody. Because of other stuff like that.
I feel really sorry for you people. I cannot even begin to imagine living in a society where I would feel the need to own a gun. As far as I know, guns kill people. People with guns shoot people. They die. People with guns get shot. They die. If you point your gun at someone, you'd better want them dead. Are you really prepared to pull that trigger, to kill someone, to protect your family and/or property?
Don't you think that's a little over the top? Maybe you're better off improving your security. How about one of those big automatic lights out front and out back? That's probably enough to scare off 90% of burglars on its own. Fit better locks. Arrange your garden so it gives no cover to people coming up to the house. Get a big dog. Whatever. Just learning a little about basic security measures can pay off much more than arming yourself. Burglars want an easy time of it, if your house is even slightly more inaccessable they'll pass on to the next.
Back to my first point though, I really don't know how to put it into words so that you folks in the USA can really understand. I simply cannot conceive of what it would be like to live like that, with a gun in my pocket. I don't think I'll be moving to the USA any time soon.
I wish you luck.
Robin.
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"Only a very tiny fraction of them are misused."
:-)
If so, why do you need so many?
"And in the vast majority of those cases, the gun isn't even fired."
So what you are saying is that a real gun isn't a requirement, and a realistic looking metal water pistol would have been as effective. Or use a knife or club. Buy some throwing knives and have fun
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Cowards? Being afraid does not make you a coward. If you are not afraid in a gunfight, then you are dumber than I thought. Courage is not the absence of fear... it's doing your duty DESPITE that fear.
In the heat of battle, things happen in split seconds. You clearly have never been there, and probably never will be, so I will repeat my sincere advice to STFU. 49 rounds seems excessive; but recall that there were 4 officers. Most officer-involved shooting incidents result in multiple rounds fired. The vast majority of officers interviewed after an incident CANNOT accurately tell you how many rounds they fired... they are often way off. Some reload and never remember doing so... many don't remember hearing the shots. Do some reading before you shoot your mouth off; I would recommend something in the field of Post-Critical Incident Stress Debriefing.
"The cops shot an unarmed man."
Yes... they did, and it was a terrible tragedy. However, they did NOT KNOW he was unarmed. What about a person with a toy gun? He's also "unarmed." You don't have to actually be armed, you just have to give a REASONABLE person the impression that you might be. Reference the supreme court case Terry Vs Ohio, reasonable suspicion is all you need to stop and frisk. There may have been a language barrier (not the police officers' fault), but he ran from them when challenged, ignored orders to stop, and finally holed up in a doorway, going for an object in his pocket.
What would you have done? Your adrenaline is pumping from a foot chase, the person you suspect may be armed suddenely turns on you, going for his pocket... Would you stop, fumble for a flashlight in your pocket, trying to find the switch, while faced with a person you think is going for a gun?
You are clearly uneducated, and inclined to believe that four officers got together to murder an innnocent, unarmed man. Fine... believe what you will. You, however, are an armchair QB, talking completely out of your ass. Go pick up a weapon and defend other people, get yourself into a shooting situation, and then get second-guessed by a bunch of ignorant loudmouths like yourself. Somehow, I doubt you would have empathy even then...
You speak with the moral condemnation and certainty that only total ignorance can provide; must be bliss...
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
It was designed to counteract the problem of mentally unstable people suddenly getting hold of guns and going on a killing spree.
And we all know that "mentally unstable people" never steal things (like, say, guns) from others.
If so, why do you need so many?
:-)
Simple. Because you never know who the victim of the misuse will be, and there's a whole lot of Americans.
So what you are saying is that a real gun isn't a requirement, and a realistic looking metal water pistol would have been as effective. Or use a knife or club. Buy some throwing knives and have fun
Not at all. The gun isn't there for threat alone. That is usually enough, but sometimes a warning shot is necessary, and if even that isn't enough of a deterrant, then you may have to shoot your attacker. Knives and clubs are nearly as effective as a gun. They aren't a consideration.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
That should say, "Knives and clubs aren't nearly as effective as a gun."
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
And how do you quantify this statement?
Since it was long considered an individual right, and only recently supressed under mis-application of a what was a bad ruling to begin with, I will not consider such an impossibility.
It's a right; it started as a right and it remains a right; the Fifth Circuit Court, under which I fall, has ruled it a right; the Supremes did NOT say it wasn't in Miller, but certainly DID note it as a right in Dred Scott.
You seek to deny me my right as an individual and duty as a member of the militia (see http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/ts_search.p
Sorry -- you are wrong.
Aside: Why do your postings, giving few specific quotes & citations, get modded up as "informative?"
READ the US Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the other amendments! http://lcweb2.loc.gov/const/const.html
So, what you're saying is that I should just be quiet, and pay extraordinarily high taxes to support everyone else??? Screw Socialism.
Vague claim with no attribution.
and only recently supressed under mis-application of a what was a bad ruling to begin with
In what legal sense was it a "bad ruling"? Perhaps you just meant it was a ruling with which you disagreed.
the Fifth Circuit Court, under which I fall, has ruled it a right
I'll play your game: That was a "bad ruling."
but certainly DID note it as a right in Dred Scott.
Let's alert the readers to this decision, which you hold in such reverence. The Dred Scott case was one in which the court decided, much to the relief of slaveowners everywhere, that "negroes" were not U.S. citizens. In the decision, Chief Justice Taney wrote:
What Chief Justice Taney was attempting to visit upon the reader was the horrors of granting blacks citizenship. But note that he said "persons of the negro race", not "all persons of the negro race." So even if one were to consider this reference to be a valid one, it still does not show that the Supreme Court felt that each and every individual citizen had a right to keep and bear arms.
Fortunately, Dred Scott was overruled by constitutional amendment after the war. Yet even if it were still good law, it was not a Second Amendment case; moreover, the reference was obiter dictum (an opinion voiced by a judge that has only incidental bearing on the case in question and is therefore not binding), not law. It is an irrelevancy.
Why do you feel that this decision denying "negroes" U.S. citizenship is not an example of a "bad ruling"?
Aside: Why do your postings, giving few specific quotes & citations, get modded up as "informative?"
Sounds like a problem with your reading comprehension, not my postings.
To drive this comment back on topic, I would reiterate the observation that law-enforcement users have been exempted from this regulation; as usual, they look out for their own -- and to hell with the poor schlump who's just trying to protect his family from a burglar.
Liberty in our Lifetime
Paraflyer,
So, what you're saying is that I should just be quiet, and pay extraordinarily high taxes to support everyone else???
No, what I'm saying is that if I have to pay taxes, I'd much rather it go towards something proven to be beneficial -- healthcare -- rather than have it go towards some pie-in-the-sky "defense" system that's so far proven not to work.
A missile-defense system benefits only the defense contractors who get paid to "implement" it. I don't consider a false sense of security to be beneficial to the average America.
Let's see what the vaunted missile defense system does when a terrorist parks a Ryder truck full of, oh, fertilizer in front of a Federal Building and detonates it.
Or when a terrorist puts loads of exposives on a few of those train-car containers that are shipped by the thousands from overseas ports. The terrorists can either set off the bombs when the containers are in one of our major ports, thus fucking shipping for years to come, or as the ship goes through the Panama Canal, or one of the other major shipping lanes. Or, they could be clever and simply wait until the containers are on trains, heading towards your hometown, before setting them off.
as I am confused how your point itself can be expected to be taken seriously. How can quotes such as be counted as bad as far as empirical data to back up a point goes? If they are false then that is another matter, but since you did not say that I can only assume you have suffered head trauma, partaken of much mind altering substance or have not had much sleep of late.
Either way, I believe that it is actually the do-nothing "feel good" measures of the government that put people into a lethargic, apathetic mood in order that when things inevitably prove the rhetoric wrong (baddies do their thing) then instead of being able to adapt and defend themselves they just die like the victims they are.
I had already given a specific link to the Dred Scott decision. (http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl
In what legal sense was it a "bad ruling"? Perhaps you just meant it was a ruling with which you disagreed.
A court proceeding where only one side presents arguments is a bit too kangaroo-ish to bring about a sound ruling. (And I already gave a link to that, too.) Recall, I noted parts of it that support my position. I do not disagree with the Miller decision at all! Miller ruled there was no evidence to show that a sawed-off shotgun was a soldier's weapon. Read it again, folks:
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.p
So--since it's not ordinary military equipment it doesn't fall under the class of the objects posession of which could contribute to the common defense. The ruling does not imply "Miller has no right," it implies "we haven't been shown that this gun is one that Miller's right includes possession of."
Playing my game with the Fifth Circuit Court's Emerson decision, are you? That was a better ruling than Miller because it was fairly argued. Everybody got to make a say. Even though I dislike more of what they said (which I do!)
http://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/99
Back to Dred Scott. I use it because I am *not* advocating the anti-black position; far from that, it shows the horrors of what blacks went through! They couldn't move about freely; they couldn't assemble freely; they had no free speech; they couldn't even carry guns anywhere they went!
Modern jerks want to continue to deny them their freedoms. They couldn't carry guns then and they can't now. But by the grace of having white skin I could then. It was a commonly and clearly recognized right of white men back then. Just like the freedoms of speech and assembly.
You ask Why do you feel that this decision denying "negroes" U.S. citizenship is not an example of a "bad ruling"? Sadly, because it was constitutionally correct at that time! It was an evil thing to hold people as slaves, but we needed the Fourteenth Amendment to fix that. And Thank God we got it.
I already noted the Fourteenth Amendment in
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=48857&thr
Under the Fourteenth Amendment, the rights to free speech, fredom of religion, etc. have all been applied to limit state's authorities
and in http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=48857&thresho
That was back when they were still arguing FOR slavery. But, the Fourteenth Amendment that made the several states respect the people's rights protected under the rest of the Bill of Rights (and which solved slavery once and for all)....
And the Fourteenth is a good thing! Most of the Bill of Rights applies to the states now. Blacks can speak freely and assemble peacefully. But, some folks still don't want to trust them with guns.
You seem to insinuate that I am one of those BASTARDS who want to keep blacks down by asking Why do you feel that this decision denying "negroes" U.S. citizenship is not an example of a "bad ruling"? Now, at that I take some insult. I have been an EOT (Equal Opportunity and Treatment) rep in the military. I wasn't assigned to the position, I volunteered for the additional duty.
I use Dred Scott because it shows the freedom we have lost. It's a terrible trend. And I fear it continues. (Got free speech at an airport? Where next will you lose it?)
The aside on moderation values was not a dig at you, it was a dig at the moderators. I believe their opinions on this heated issue color their judgement. Please, take no insult from this; 'tis not directed at you. If I want to insult you, I'll do so directly....
For hours of intersting reading, may I recommend
http://www.claytoncramer.com/primary.h
Some more recent Supreme Court cases have mentioned some of the terms used, and are interesting:
There's the ruling in UNITED STATES v. VERDUGO-URQUIDEZ, 494 U.S. 259 (1990)
as well as the dicta therin:
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.p
There is interesting stuff and a footnote or two of interest in Justice Thomas's concurring opinion in Printz v. United States, 521 U.S. 898:
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.p
and in the footnotes at
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase
All in all, the subject can consume a great deal of time and generate a great deal of passion, no?
READ the US Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the other amendments! http://lcweb2.loc.gov/const/const.html
In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a 'shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length' at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument. Certainly it is not within judicial notice that this weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment or that its use could contribute to the common defense.
Again, this does not state that the right to bear arms is an individual right. It simply puts forth the argument that the Second Amendment has no bearing on the Miller case because there is no purpose for such a weapon as part of a well-regulated militia.
Back to Dred Scott. I use it because I am *not* advocating the anti-black position; far from that, it shows the horrors of what blacks went through!
But the reference to the "right to bear arms" was an obiter dictum one which, be definition, has no bearing on the law. It was probably not as carefully thought out and debated among the Justices because it was simply a passing remark in the decision, not one deciding the scope of the Second Amendment. And, as I pointed out, even were one to disect the ruling, they court said "persons of the negro race", not "all persons of the negro race." This still does not show that the Supreme Court felt that each and every individual citizen had a right to keep and bear arms. Regardless, this obiter dictum is irrelevent and does not have the force of law.
You seem to insinuate that I am one of those BASTARDS who want to keep blacks down by asking Why do you feel that this decision denying "negroes" U.S. citizenship is not an example of a "bad ruling"? Now, at that I take some insult.
Sorry that you take insult, but many consider the Dred Scott ruling to be a low point in the history of our Supreme Court. It was one in which the Justices attempted to support their ruling by scaring white people about the threat that free blacks would pose to them. Dredging up dicta from that passage to support any position is in questionable taste at the very least.
Got free speech at an airport? Where next will you lose it?
That's a subject that I am very concerned about. And look at the unwarranted searches that one goes through now in modern life. Bags are searched at airports, students pass through metal detectors and their backpacks are searched, police randomly stop people with no probable cause just to see if they are drunk. It's frankly terrifying.
You cite UNITED STATES v. VERDUGO-URQUIDEZ, 494 U.S. 259 (1990) in which the Court wrote:
You will note that the highlighted section refers to "a class of persons", rather than "all persons." I think that is an important distinction. Additional words were used to express the thought more precisely.
And if one were to interpret the Second Amendment as an individual right, then laws which deny guns to convicted felons would be unconstitutional. There are many able-bodied men with felony records that are perfectly capable of serving in a militia. But we have decided, as a society, that such persons pose an undue risk to society.
All in all, the subject can consume a great deal of time and generate a great deal of passion, no?
Yes it can and I hope that you can forgive me for not answering each of your points in depth.
As an aside, although I strongly disagree with you, I have not marked you as a "foe". That's something I reserve for those who are abusive, stupid, and illogical.
As an aside, although I strongly disagree with you, I have not marked you as a "foe". That's something I reserve for those who are abusive, stupid, and illogical.
My marking criteria are, I guess, a bit looser. You have not been abusive, stupid, or illogical--except that you are my foe on what I consider a core issue of freedom. All who seek to deny that I have the right are by my definition, a foe. One can still respect other aspects of a foe, however!
With that, I guess I'll close. Neither of us is going
to convince the other.
READ the US Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the other amendments! http://lcweb2.loc.gov/const/const.html
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:) (Typso are everywhere!)
...)
"Garand"
The others you name (M1A1, M14) as well as the Ruger Mini-14 and related weapons are all based on the Garand action, and are therefore sometimes referred to as Garands as well.
The Springfield M1A1 is a very nice-looking rifle, if you have the money for it. (I have never fired any of these, but for the money I am very tempted by the Ranch Rifle or Mini-14
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5