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Smart Gun with Minicam and Biometric Access
StrawberryFrog writes "Ya well no fine, those crazy South Africans are at it again, this time with a "intelligent firearm". You may have heard of guns with fingerprint recognition before, but this also uses a laser to ignite the propellant, has multiple barrels and incorporates a minicam to record as evidence what you are shooting at. It's a very different gun design, and one that depends on electronics to make it work."
It's also a gun easily disabled by an electro-magnetic pulse, which is especially relevant since the military now has EMP bombs.
You're only as smart as your brain.
a video record of what you're shooting at... hmmm maybe this will be the advance in technology that can bring the gun rights people and the gun control people together. i think accountability is the most important thing; if you are responsible you can have a gun if you want. now only if bullets had these minicams in them so that you can see who shot the bullet when the shooter cant be found
The problem with all of these type of technologic "advancements" in firearms is that they miss the whole point of a self-defense firearm. If one is to use a firearm for self-defense, it will be used at the last possible moment - a moment that does not allow for software glitches, hardware bugs, run-down batteries, etc...
This 'technologizing' of firearms is only viable for certain military applications - useage scenarios far removed from those of civilian owners; yet there are enough dumbass lobbyists and politicians who don't understand that one can NOT ask an attacker to 'wait while I reboot my gun'.
For a street-legal weapon that complies with civilian laws, it would have a 10-round magazine and fire single shots only, requiring the trigger to be pressed each time.
So....A "street-legal" gun is one that can only shoot 10 people in about 15 seconds or less? What street would this be? Then again this is being developed in south africa. I guess even warlords have to keep their goons under a tight leash.
... but, this would in essence be pointless. There are guns over 100 years old that still work today, and there are millions of guns without this implemented floating around. What kind of stupid-ass criminal would buy one of these when he could steal a gun without this?
I don't understand some of the logic behind some of the guns features, for example, the built-in camera. If I'm going to do something illegal, I can put a piece of tape over the lens. And if its recording data on all shots, and taking pictures, how much memory does it have? If I go to the shooting range, and I go thru a couple of boxes of ammo, will I run out of memory? If I run out of memory, does the gun lock up? Regarding the the biometric data locked into the gun. Knowing how fast most other things are cracked, how long till mod chips are available? Somehow this doesn't seem to be the answer to gun crime.
This would be ideal for cops. Now, the next time the police shoot, we'll have photographic evidence that could prove whether it was justified or not.
It's, oh, say... 50 years from now. You're a soldier, say a blue-helmet, supposed to be keeping the peace in some crappy country that's chock-full of gang lords and private armies. You're on patrol with your partner.
Suddenly, a crack and your buddy is down, choking on his own blood. You take cover behind whatever is available, try to figure out where the fire is coming from.
Another shot, and your Intelligent Rifle is hit, damaged beyond repair. Shit.
Luckily, the rifle dropped by your buddy is close. You grab it, jam your thumb into the stock's biometric window. No response. Damn! Covered with dust again, frickin' dirt... Still cowering, hoping you're covered, you wipe the window and try again.
"BZZZZZ... User's Smart Card does not match profile. Please ensure that you are using the proper weapon."
You jab the control button to force the gun to authorize a new user, but it's too late. You just got killed by a rifle made in your great-grandfather's day.
I think some militaries might have reservations about a few of the "features" on these guns. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
"All animals are created equal, but some animals are more equal than others." - George Orwell
Wasn't there an article on slashdot approximatley 3 months ago about a Japanese scientist who could fool 95% of ALL fingerprint sensors (even those that require heat/heartbeat)? According to him all one would have to do is lift a fingerprint, make a PCB mould out of it, pour Jell-o(?) and glue it to his finger, and voila, the owner could get framed for anything. I see no way one could make fool-proof guns these days, as retinal scan or DNA sampling would take too long to authenticate, and in case of emergency, chances are the user would be loong dead/injured/unconcous/kidnapped/tied up... to get any use out of it. I say it is a noble idea, but other than for the army (set a 12 hr timeout so that the gun will work for while soldier is doing his 10 hour patrol or whatnot...) i can see no useful uses.
Live for the present, learn from the past, and dream of the future!
That's an insightful comment for about two seconds. Who's going to convince people that these are the only guns you can use? It's like passing escrow laws and assuming those wacky terrorists will update all their commercial software to the latest versions. Good luck getting the NRA to even think about supporting something like this.
"If he thinks he can hide and run from the United States and our allies, he's sorely mistaken." Bush on bin Laden
Nope. We catch almost all the people who kill other people with guns, but they're still dead.
Stopping the killing is the key to bilateral acceptance.
Produce a gun that won't fire unless the target deserves it.
Neither the antigunners or the progunners will ever be for smart guns and i'll tell you why.
Why are the antigunners against this? Obviously because at the heart of this movement they want to ban all guns and if your gun is "smart" and there fore safe then they have no leverage to push the govt. to take it away from you. These core anti's don't want anyone to own guns except the military and possibly the police.
The progunners don't want smartguns because the are afraid once they exist that all "dumb" guns will be banned and they will be left with these technological pieces of junk that may or may not work when you need them. Most of these people would also not be very keen on the idea of tossing their great grandads shotgun into the shredder either.
I can't wait until the same thing happens with this as did with uncopyable CDs.
"Ha", say the manfacturers, "our in built camera will be an admissible piece of evidence in a homicide case".
"Ha", says user, "Just let me find a piece of duct tape".
Goblin
It's all fun and games until a 200' robot dinosaur shows up and trashes Neo-Tokyo... Again
I would guess these will be like police radios now, use lead acid batteries that can take the huge number of recharge cycles. That way you just put the gun and the radio in a charger stand at the end of your shift and pick them up the next day. Because they are biometrically signed you might not even have to lock them up (anymore than they already are by virtue of being in a police station). Here in the states though I doubt they will catch on. Police officers lives depend on their sidearms every time they go out, jamming a bunch of unproven electronics into a violent container doesn't sound like my idea of high reliability. Unless these are field proven by something like the isrealie police I don't think many departments here would buy in.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Here we have someone spieling a conspiracy theory about how foreign manufacturers own the NRA, and are flooding the US with cheap guns?
Excuse me?
Apart from your total ignorance of the NRA's substantial individual membership, I don't think you've recently been to a gun store or gun show. If you had, you'd have seen the prices. Most of your cheaper firearms (lorcin, davis, raven, bryco, jennings, et al) are american-made. Most of your large foreign manufacturers make some pretty expensive guns (go price a Sig-Sauer, HK, Beretta, or Glock). Taurus is the only exception, and their firearms are still muliple hundreds of dollars. As far as I'm concerned, that point alone invalidates your credibility.
Exactly how "preliminary" was this "research" you did?
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
How many points of failure do you need? This gun is ridiculous.
Isn't this what most geeks hate about Microsoft... too busy building in every gee-whiz feature, so that they neglect the basics, like stability and reliability? Situation seems pretty analogous to me...
No chance anyone who trusts their life to a firearm would ever carry one of these.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
Just blast a small EMP grenade nearby and disable everyone using these guns...
Imagine bank robbers going in and firing an EMP blast to disable the guard's guns.... and then going in with traditional weaponry and shooting up the unknowing guards.
Ever need an online dictionary?
Right now 100% of the weapons out there don't have anything like this.
Imagine 100% of new civilian weapons do.
Eventually old style weapons become less and less accessable.
After 100 years the world our children live in will be much safer.
Look at MMX. When it was introduced it wasn't useful because only a couple people had it. Now after a long enough period of time everybody has it simply because you have to buy a slightly bigger/more expensive CPU with it built in. Even though servers, etc are hurt by this as they has a slightly bigger CPU with features they don't need overall the average civilian benefits from having an integer SIMD standard companies can use.
Eventually these guns would become "standard" and everybody would benefit. Just because sometime doesn't have an immediate benefit doesn't mean its not good.
There are too many variables that make this gun totally un-attractive to potential buyers. To name a few, if your strong side (firing hand) is wounded or un-usable, is there a thumb scanner on both sides? Will it work with your hands covered in grease, milk, sweat, soda, or any number of other things that you could fumble with while you're scared shitless grabbing for your gun (yes, the cops are typically scared shitless when they draw on someone). What happens if you drop it in the dirt? the mud? what about water? What happens when you've been carrying it around so much that you've worn through the thumb sensor (yes, just carrying a gun will wear down just about any surface over time).
And reloading...oh boy. Ammunition costs could make this a real problem to practice with regularly, making it dangerous for the owner to carry as he doesn't have the experience he ought to.
Anyway, enough of my little rant, I just don't think these are going to be very successful.