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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"
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.
Constitution does not say you can own a gun.
Neither does the Constitution itself bless the right to own a firearm. You commit a common fallacy in believing the Constitution must specifically grant an individual a right before said individual can exercise that right. Nothing can be further from the truth. Check out Cruikshank v. US (1876).
The Second Amendment does not guarantee an individual's right to gun ownership.
I alwasy find it interesting when the anti-freedom people spew their half-assed, poorly-researched drivel as if they were actually knowledgeable on the subject. The fact that this parent was modded up to a 5 show the general ignorance in this country when it comes to constitutional rights.
In your haste to make yourself look like an ignoramus, you failed to mention US v. Verdugo-Urquidez (1990), in which the Supreme Court clearly indicated that the Second Amendment protects the right of the people, not some imagined "militia" under the guise of government.
Lower courts have been divided on the Second Amendment, but the Supreme Court has consistently recognized the right to arms as an individual right in every Second Amendment case they've heard.
Finally, don't you think it kind of strange that every amendment in the Bill of Rights refers to an individual right? The courts rightly recognize that the Bill of Rights, in its entirety, addresses the rights of individuals, not the rights of governments (or their militias).
If you are going to spew propaganda, the least you can do is check your facts first.
If the common man were to no longer be able to defend himself with a firearm, the number of innocent victims of violent crimes each year would far exceed the current sum of children either injured or killed by them. It's not worth it, hard as that may be to swallow. Just look at Australia and how their crime stats responded when their guns were taken. Here's a few choice quotes from an Associated Press article about it:
Robbery with a firearm increased nearly 60 per cent over the previous financial year.
South Australian Police Annual Report - tabled in State Parliament 27/10/98
Murders by firearms have actually increased (in Victoria) since the buyback scheme which removed 225,000 registered and un-registered firearms from circuation. There were 18 shooting murders in 1996-97 after the buyback scheme had been introduced compared with only six in 1995-96 before the scheme started.
"Killing rise in gun hunt" - Herald Sun - Melbourne 23/12/98
According to ABS figures, the number of people robbed at gunpoint in NSW rose from 827 in 1996 to 1252 in 1997.
Sunday Telegraph - Sydney - 14/3/98 302
The number of Victorians murdered with firearms has almost trebled since the introduction of tighter gun laws.
Geelong Advertiser - Victoria 11/9/97 506
"Gold still represents the ultimate form of payment in the world." - Alan Greenspan, 1999
So either we get rid of people, or we get rid of guns.
Since the UK 'got rid of' handguns in 1996/7, violent crime rate has gone up by about 40%, and handgun crime has doubled.
Legally owned guns are part of the solution to violent crime.
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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.