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Smart Guns are Coming
wikinerd writes "Eurekalert reports that smart gun technology actually works. According to the press release, smart guns demonstrated by the NJIT, can recognise authorised users utilising "sixteen electronic computerized sensors embedded in the gun's grip" and "Under New Jersey law, passed in Dec. 2002, only smart guns can be purchased in the state three years after personalized handguns become commercially available. Lautenberg said New Jersey's legislative effort to introduce smart gun technology should be a national model for the country"."
...is smart users :)
To get first post or to read the fucking article. Decisions, decisions...
It will really prevent cases when the victim is killed by his own gun. Imagine the gun blowing up the perp's arm when the fingerprint readers come up with a mismatch.
Now, that's smart.
Online backup with Mozy, sounds like Ozzie, but more!
One EMP pulse and you're disarmed. Thanks, but we're not interested.
Advice: on VPS providers
Technology can sometimes come back and bite you on the Stallone
As Charlton Heston, president of the National Rifle Association says.
Come to think of it, is he still alive?
"It's not your information. It's information about you" - John Ford, Vice President, Equifax
A smart gun isn't going to save me if the guy that owns it is a dumb ass!
Is the same technology available for implementation in humans?
--
Are you a Chipotle Fan?
I for one welcome our sentient weapon overlords
I wonder how this affects your right to keep and bear arms, especially in letting a friend borrow a gun to go to the shooting range with you.
Hypothetical situation...
3. I detonate a small EMP for a 5-10 mile radius (possible for short-term? ala Oceans11??)
2. take my "oldskool" gun and rob a number of places
1. Profit?
wtf gives making the new gun the only legal one you can own. this is utter foolishness.
I mean, all you have to do is wave the gun around, and everybody gives you what you want right away...
... a cop's partner or even a private citizen needs to use the cop's gun to defend themselves and the wounded cop? Will the "smart" gun recognize someone trying to help the owner or will it not function?
Tongue: A variety of meat, rarely served because it crosses the line between a cut of beef and a piece of dead cow.
Wow I couldn't think of a stupider idea, luckily, you can! Because finger print readers always work every time..
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
"Sixteen electronic computerized sensors embedded in the gun's grip distinguished known from unknown users. "We've only just begun and we're pleased to say that we're getting 90 percent reliability when scanning users," said Sebastian." So either 1 in 10 times or 1 in 10 users can forget it. Sorry, but when you need a firearm in an emergency situation, the odds are going to have to be much, much better than that.
...or you will not be able to use the weapon. Smart guns are not dependable, at least not as dependable as an old-school revolver. These weaponse will not deter crime, but will make the smart gun owners more vunerable to it.
good grief that's offtopic
it does not yet look at my DNA? what is this...?
national model for the country
Sixteen electronic computerized sensors embedded in the gun's grip distinguished known from unknown users. "We've only just begun and we're pleased to say that we're getting 90 percent reliability when scanning users," said Sebastian.
:P
Glad to know that a mugger will have a 1/10 chance when facing me down, now.
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
Can we trust this technology? If we rely on the 'smartness' to convict murderers are we giving those who would hack this technology the power to frame the innocent?
And the NRA will claim this is an infringement on the 2nd amendment because a State Law is superceding the Constitution on this key part " the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed"
Good idea, but you can just see the challenge coming.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Is the first lawsuit going to be about a smart gun firing when it should not, or a smart gun not firing when it should?
It should require that the smart gun technology is good enough that manufacturers are willing to at least accept civil liability in case that an authorized user gets locked out, and a crime cannot be prevented due to the malfunction.
So I have to keep the gun in a charger if I want to ever use it? No thanks.
I'm not really that interested in something that requires energy on an item I could potentially use for self-defense and sensors that operate on how the holder uses the gun would be highly suspectible to stress related malfunction.
Won't it be wonderful when the first officer can't return fire to the suspect because the stress of holding the gun on a suspect changes his holding "pattern" and disables the gun?
Smart guns don't kill people, Smart PEOPLE kill people.
Electrons are free; it is moving them that becomes expensive.
This is a patently bad idea with regards to general usage. While this idea is great in theory, there is one major drawback:
More components mean more points of potential failure.
The problem in this is, should you need the firearm, at any time it may be unreliable no matter what you're using (even Kalashnikov recognized this in his design): when in a life-or-death situation, Murphy's law usually decides to rear its ugly head, and at that point you're playing the odds: I have x components, y components stand a chance of failing. If any one of y components fails, the firearm fails to function, and you may quickly wind up dead.
Now: that said, if we had a society where firearms weren't necessary for home protection or policing (I rarely ever see the latter in action where I live, so I require the former), then this would be great. On sport firearms, this would be great, because you don't need the reliability you would in a protection scenario. However, in any situation to where you have a life-or-death scenario, as many firearms are manufactured for in the first place, you do not EVER want extra complexity that may cause failure in function of your sidearm.
Read the "biometrics" that the article mentions. The way you squeeze the trigger and hold the weapon is used to drive the id mechanism. I'm pretty damn sure that I won't be holding a pistol the same way under life-or-death stress as I would under target shooting.
The sensors add orders of magnitude more complexity (pistols themselves don't have to be very complicated) bringing more cost and points of failure.
I certainly wouldn't stake my own life on one of these pieces of crap working. Why would anyone willingly buy one of these toy guns?
So, if the gun is trained on the firing range (or even in "hogan's alley"), will the cop use it in exactly the same way while someone is shooting at him?
Smart guns would be great in a setting were kids are around, but I could see this actually being a hiderance in certain situation, like if someone is breaking into your house. Imagine trying to get your gun to recognize you are you when seconds count would defintely be a hinderance. Bad Idea
Contradiction in terms...no matter how you look at it.
Ownership of firearms is a right that has a grave responsibility. People like Corzine and Lautenburg prefer that only the police have guns.
In my thinking, that's what makes a police state.
In the Warsaw ghetto uprising, technology like this would have prevented those brave souls from fighting back against the Nazis.
Hmm, that must be what the Democratic senators from NJ have in mind...
Take a look at http://www.a-human-right.com/
What if the sensors got dirty or damaged? What if there was a software glitch? What if the batteries die?! In the off chance I need the gun for self-defense, I would just as soon have a knife. A glock, however, that had been buried, beaten, and soaked in water for the next umpteen years, would probably still fire just fine.
Ahha ... well i agree that guns should be regulated and yaddayadda .... but i would not trust a gun like that ...
....
... and bouncy .... when you drop a 9mm probably there is no harm ... try it with a mid calss few-hundred bucks paintball gun ... ... ....
... ...
a gun takes lotsa abuse, and if the accuracy of the scans is only 90% than it might just furtther degrade especially in situations where you really need a gun
thos situations can be muddy, rainy, dirty, hell even bloody
see what happens to the electronic loader, see how electronic grips jam up in rain
and so on
dunno i am really c omputerized person, but when i have to draw a gun i don't want to have the slightest chance that it does not scan me right
it is a little more mission critical than my pda not booting or needing a reboot
From TFA: "we're pleased to say that we're getting 90 percent reliability when scanning users"
And Later: Recce sees his invention someday also being used in other applications--perhaps the yoke of a plane or a car's steering wheel
What is 90% reliable? Does that mean that an unauthorized user has a 10% chance of being able to fire the gun, or that the authorized user is not recognized 10% of the time- meaning that he cannot shoot when necessary in a life or death situation?
Does it scare anyone besides me that they are thinking this would be good to put on flight yokes or car steering wheels? What if the authorized person has a heart attack and someone else needs to take control, and they are not authorized? Firey crash? Or is there an override? And if there is an override, why bother having recognition if it can be easily turned off?
NJ's law will NOT be the national model. Most states (and even the nation) are so evenly divided that no one is going to risk pissing off potential voters.
Very few people will withdraw support for a candidate because they don't support such legislation, millions of people WILL actively work against any politician who tries to enact something like this.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Depends on your definition of "works". From the article:
Sixteen electronic computerized sensors embedded in the gun's grip distinguished known from unknown users. "We've only just begun and we're pleased to say that we're getting 90 percent reliability when scanning users," said Sebastian.
There's no sane cop in this world that would carry a weapon for self-defense that worked reliably 9 out of 10 times.
People will think that since "only they can fire it", that they can treat the gun with less respect than an average one. And will there be restrictions so that a parent can't add a child to the gun's permission list, unless the child is certified to operate it?
After all, most gun deaths with children happen in the home, or are brought on by either themselves or a family member. It really would defeat the purpose of this safety mechanism in a large way if people can be added to the firing list willy nilly.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Yeah right.
Oh, and btw, there is a small matter of this being a "taking" under the constitution since it does not address the fact that the folks who currently own them would be prohibited from selling them. But shucks, when did that stuff ever get in the way of a press headine or three.
It would also stop a crackhead from grabbing a cops peace and killing him during a routine traffic stop. (And this is a more common scenario than the cop using the bad guys gun) At any rate, if the cop has the bad guys gun, at least the bad guy doesn't have it. Cops have their own guns.
It cuts both ways, you see.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Don't Forget to ask what it's for...
If you are really somone who is trying to use the firearm because a life is in danger, this is the last thing in the world you want.
A gun you can't trust by design?
Brilliant.
What about how people react in a firing range compared to on the street in a real situation? I would sure as hell grip the gun a little harder, shake a little bit, etc. I'd love to see this technology work, but I'm just not convinced.
"There are no such things as mutual fantasies. Yours bore us and ours offend you."
- Bill Maher
Remember the arms sale demo scene in 5th Element?
"Includes the new 'rrrrrrecall' feature. Fire one shot (bwam!), and all subsequent shots go to the same target, regardless of where you point the muzzle! bapbapbapbapbapbapbapbapbapbapbapbap!!!"
will New Jersey mandate a wireless link into this smart weapon that allows an officer to remotely disable it?
And the worms ate into his brain.
This technology has very little merit. Since there are over 100 million weapons in North America, there will never be a problem for a criminal to find a gun that does not contain this "smart" technology. People that legitimately acquire weapons are not the ones that mis-use them.
.22 calibre hunting rifle. It is very likely the continued importation of illegal automatic assault weapons will be used for crimes though.
In Canada, there has been National debate over their new control registry that has legislated that all gun owners must now register their weapons. It's not very likely that legitimate gun owners are going to commit a crime with their
The only place this technology has any applicability is in the hands of police if they feel they may lose their firearm to a suspect and have it used against them. And you don't hear about that happening to often because police have training. Develop smart people, not smart weapons.
...and beyond that, unfortuately, it doesn't matter if it's a smart gun or a smart can of pop...bad guys (or honest Joes and Janes) are gonna get their hands on them...accidents will happen, and history will repeat itself.
...and I hope that they can get that number up to at least 95 percent or better...then I'll feel safer...maybe...
However, I have to give em props for their discovery...
"We've only just begun and we're pleased to say that we're getting 90 percent reliability when scanning users," said Sebastian.
Oh wait, that's the same as a safety and it won't prevent a criminal from taking the gun away, turning our theoretical switch off and using it against the cop.
I'm so impressed.
Still works flawlessly. I carry it everywhere. I wear a $2000 ceramic vest. I hope I never, ever have to draw this gun in anger. But god help anyone who forces me to do so.
/praying for the day when my fellow liberals understand that all civil rights are important.
In other news, let me be the first to say "fuck new jersey".
From TFA:
The project has the enthusiastic backing of Sens. Frank R. Lautenberg and Jon S. Corzine. In addition to proudly witnessing the technology, the pair announced last week that, once again, they had secured $1 million in federal funding for the project. Last year, they secured a similar amount.
And later:
Under New Jersey law, passed in Dec. 2002, only smart guns can be purchased in the state three years after personalized handguns become commercially available.
Let us speculate on whether the technology will be patented, and who is likely to get all the royalties. Hmm... That's a tough one. While the slashdot crowd is discussing EMP, fascinating as it is, Sens. Frank R. Lautenberg and Jon S. Corzine pass another bill to give an unfair advantage to a private business.
If anyone is tempted by this topic to go out and read Logan's Run and then its two sequels...
Don't do it!The original book Logan's Run is pretty good. The sequels (Logan's World and Logan's Search) are terrible. My personal opinion is the author took a lot of drugs, messed up his mind and then needed to make some money fast.
Also interesting is that the original novel was written by two people (William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson) while the sequels were written just by William Nolan.The author William Nolan has a Logan's Run website here: http://www.williamfnolan.com/
Note: I have no idea if drugs were involved, but it would explain why the sequels were so lousy compared to the first novel.
And the move is being done to genuinly protect people, and not as a further attempt to limit guns, why don't the Police volunteer to be the first to use the Smart Gun technology? After all, if this is as cheap and reliable and safe as they claim, they should be happy to embrace the technology.
One should be suspect of the technology if the Police aren't willing to use it themselves!
I worked at a cool company in NJ in the 90's where everyone but me, it seemed, had PhD's and from places like MIT and Princeton. Two of the guys used to joke they invented a "Stupid Gun" that would identify and shoot stupid people. Trouble was, they could never get it to not light up and fire at people. I guess it's all a matter of perspective, huh?
My user name was a mistake. Input wasn't restricted, my bad.
Require the first owner of the gun to be regestered.
After that, whoever's name is on the registration is held legally responsible if the gun is involved in a crime. If you wish to give the gun as a present and leave your name on it, well, it is now your problem if the gun is involved in a crime.
This is simply making any gun owner be responsible for their weapon. It seems like we are now a nation of none-responsibility. National Leaders who f**k up and then blame everybody but themselves (so many excellent examples, these days). Criminals who blame manufactuers. Business Leaders who steal billions and at worse have to give back a small portion of what they stole (no jail time, though), while pushing all the blame on underlings who do hard time.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
why is it good for guns?
Maybe I'm cynical, but if every gun sold has to have electronic/computer receivers, might governments have keys to disable guns with those receivers? In some cases, that would negate the rights that gun ownership is supposed to secure, by removing checks on the ability of governments to take those rights. If government became despotic (as it often did when the words you quoted were written), the only mitigating factor was the ability of citizens to arm themselves against it. Negate that, and governments could do whatever they want, a state of affairs that the Constitution was designed to prevent.
The technology has good and safe uses, but it puts a lot of powers in the hands of people who can't be trusted with that much power - which is to say, anyone.
The weapon shop guns are one step closer. The next step is for them to recognize their target.
(I'd say "Now how was that supposed to work?" but I know that van Vogt never specified.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Another form of biometric--the dynamic biometric--depends on both physical markers and behavior. "This is about who you are and how you do something." said Sebastian. This biometric is the foundation of Dynamic Grip Recognition. The technology measures not only the size, strength and structure of a person's hand, but also the reflexive way in which the person acts. For smart gun, the observed actions are how the person squeezes something to produce a unique and measurable pattern. Embedded sensors in the experimental gun then can read and record the size and force of the users' hand during the first second when the trigger is squeezed.
Holy crap. I can't even make my hand-written signature look the same every time; I sure as hell wouldn't feel comfortable trusting my life to a method of self-defense that depends on me having to apply the same amount of force, speed-of-movement, etc. every time.
Yeah yeah, I know--it's supposed to be all reflexive, something I'm not consciously controlling. But, let's say I buy a gun for self-defense, and, as unlikely as it may be, I end up having to use it. Somehow, I suspect that with my heart racing as I'm trying to defend myself from a mugger/car-jacker/whatever, I won't be pulling the trigger quite the same way as I would be in, say, target practice.
Now, the cases when an innocent citizen actually needs to pull a trigger in self-defense are exceedingly rare, but still--if I were to get a gun for that purpose, I certainly wouldn't be comfortable with a supposed "smart" gun.
They've been around for a few years now. Companies like Metal Storm have their own smart handgun as well as their more well known technology.
Cool! Soon, we can start blasting some aliens and face huggers with these smart guns. [grin]
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
How long until the first "Smart Gun Jammers" become available?
Somehow I think there will be a number of RISKS articles generated from these guns.
"Trademarks are the heraldry of the new feudalism."
The article claims they have 90% reliability? MY gun shoots every single time I pull the trigger. So now we have:
* A gun I cannot loan to a friend on the range
* A gun which is going to be more expensive, due to all those fancy features, yet will be harder to SELL, even to another law-abiding citizen, because of the added difficulty in "transfering" the gun to the person so they can use it.
* A gun that is far less reliable
* A gun that is mandated by law (in New Jersey)as the only sort of gun I'm allowed to have
* A gun with complex electronic parts that will be much less durable, and will probably require some sort of energy source (such as batteries).
* A gun that will weigh more
* A gun that criminals WILL NOT USE. They will bypass the security of stolen guns, or just trade in "non-secure" guns. So, only law-abiding people will be stuck with these crappy things.
Why is it these lawmakers trust technology more than the people they represent?
--This sig is in beta. Please let us know abut any errors you find.
Does EMP stand for Electro-Magnetic Pulse? If that's the case, "EMP pulse" does not need the extra "pulse" on the end. :)
Uh If im going to use a gun that means Im ready to kill you, do you think Im going to have problem with the laws against hacking the gun so I can use it? This will just produce a new revenue stream and profession. We will create underground gun hackers that will 'fix' guns so that any one can use them. Whoo HOO lets dig holes and have others fill them in, I guess it keeps the econmy going, now if we could only find a way to tax this illegal profit taking so that everyone gets their due.
http://www.angelfire.com/comics/pinton/gun.html
"We've only just begun and we're pleased to say that we're getting 90 percent reliability when scanning users," said Sebastian.
90% is piss poor. 90% isn't good enough for those who depend on their guns. If one round out of every 10 in a magazine jammed, one would label that gun a piece of junk and go out and buy something of better quality.
Additionally, NJ's law would seem to violate the 2nd amendment. Before the anti-gun loonies state that NJ is in the right, and that you can buy another gun if you like it:
1.) No you can't. Read their screwed up law.
2.) If you think the second amendment doesn't guarantee individual gun rights, think again.
"We're not taking away your free speech. You're free to say anything you want, as long as it's not something we don't want you to say."
Lautenberg said New Jersey's legislative effort to introduce smart gun technology should be a national model for the country"."
It's not the government's right to screw with our constitutional rights.
oh i c, because you can only buy these new guns that solves all our problems. what about the "classic" weapons out there. i'm sure all the crazies and crims are going to burn their old weapons and rush out to buy these new ones.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
OK ignoring all the other legitimate criticisms of this idea (who wants a gun whose battery might run flat)...
How does the smart gun actually prevent unauthorized use? E.g. is there some metal thing somewhere that prevents the hammer from striking the detonator on the cartridge? Or preventing me from pulling the trigger? What if I file this off? This is something even a six year old would think of.
Are the bullets smart? Can I buy bullets for the smart gun and use them in a Saturday Night Special?
are the copys to pansy to put a chip in their finger? it seems much simpler.
people...oh, wait a second.
My other first post is car post.
So just steal their hand too..........
"When your firearm fails at an inopportune time--say, I dunno, when a knife- or dumb gun-wielding intruder breaks into your bedroom maybe?--you are dead."
is this just more paranoid ranting by the same people who always proclaim the sky to be falling? Is it a cultural thing? I would never ever think that someone would break into my house and kill me in the night.
You gotta be pretty fucking paranoid to think that man. how often does that happen in your city? more than never?
Is this really something that people are concerned about? moreover, do you really think you could prevent this from happening in any way?
If this technology worked perfectly, I would absolutely agree that it should be mandated, and I'm sure most everyone would agree with me. The fact, though, is that it won't. Previous technologies, relying on palmprints and the like, would likely fail if, for example, your hand was covered in blood. Whoops. This one, which claims to be "dynamic" and take into account things like grip pressure, succumb to a different problem; if I have trained my firearm to recognize my normal target-practice grip (already with a small, some would say unacceptable, false negative rate), it is likely that the rate of false negatives will rise precipitously if I am nervous/fearful for my life, because the character of my grip will completely change.
Does it run Linux?
Ok, Jokes asside, there's some real questions that should be answered here:
This gun seems like a good idea- but it had better include ALL of the following:
1. Recharging holster- I wouldn't want my batteries going dead in the middle of a firefight. Also better be able to plug in the gunbelt at night, just like a cell phone.
2. Memory- can it be trained for multiple users and multiple grips? As one person said, their grip may change in stressfull situations.
3. Could use some target recognition as well- RFID perhaps- so that you can tag family members as "invalid targets".
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Ranks right up there with "Microsoft Works."
----- "All right. It was a miracle. Can we go now?"
While handguns with this feature should be an available option for officers who fear losing their gun during a struggle with a suspect, the thought of making these mandatory is absurd!
A nation wide database with authorized users of available guns linked with an mandatory index of bullet mark charachteristics from every gun sold would be very helpful to police investigations of shootings. If and only if smart guns were the only ones legal.
Even though soft bullets, shotguns and illegal weapons in general would prevent identification, it would be a gigant leap in forensic managment. No longer could ballistics only tell what gun fired the shots but also who might have held the gun when it was fired.
Also, it opens a whole new black market for unlocking guns and reauthorizing them for framing innocents.
Ceterum censeo Microsoftem esse delendam
Quoth Lautenberg: "On any given day people across the country can turn on their TV news or read in their local paper the sad story of a child taking another child's life because they got their hands on a loaded gun."
In 2001, a total of 72 children (under 15) were accidentally killed by firearms. That includes self-inflicted wounds and those where someone else discharged the firearm. And the numbers declined quite convincingly on their own -- the 20-year average is over 200, and the 5-year average over 100. For comparison, in 2001, 11 children died in skateboard accidents.
As I said to someone else on this thread, I believe that the point of the 2nd Amendment is to allow people to take arms against a government when it gets out of control. Since many of those who have died violent deaths have suffered the at the hands of their governments (and without having done anything to deserve them), it seems that inhibiting governments from acting badly and from taking too much power might be a good idea. The safety aspects (and whether US society is safer with many guns than with fewer) - you can decide. It has worked OK.
I'm liberal - I trust government more than lots of things - but I don't trust it infinitely, and when people have guns, I think that governments are more likely to behave themselves. (although, sometimes, that seems like just a theory, and a bad one....)
Modern pistols have failure rates measured in the single digits per 10,000 rounds (when using factory ammunition), and these are often easily cleared by simply racking the slide (tap-rack-bang). Pistols, especially defensive pistols ABSOUTELY POSITIVELY have to work every time. One nine is not good enough. Two nines is not acceptable. Three nines will get you killed or injured. Four nines? Weellll... Five to six nines is a lot better.
I'll trust this when the Secret Service agents guarding the President andthe FBI use it on all their firearms. Primary and secondary.
I'm a Unix Admin. I trust computers not on f!ing bit, and I especially trust systems designed by politically connected developers even less.
BTW, what part of "" causes confusion?
Signing off from the Damaged Worlds
unforunately you only get the +2 to handguns if you have the neural wetware and interface plugs. still pending on the surgery.
That's like saying computers don't spam people, people spam people.
So let's have no security whatsoever on email servers and just leave all our relays open...
After all it's the people who spam you and besides the right to send unsolicited email is guaranteed in the constitution!
For smart gun, the observed actions are how the person squeezes something to produce a unique and measurable pattern. Embedded sensors in the experimental gun then can read and record the size and force of the users' hand during the first second when the trigger is squeezed.
It is a well-known fact that you don't do things the same way when you're in a real, physical, him-or-me confrontation. I shoot on both sides of a local range, the public side, and the "police-only" side. The public side is the relaxed, methodical shooting where people take their sweet time reloading, placing their shots just-so, and all that. On the tactical side, there isn't a bench, just a bunch of dirt, and the targets. You draw from a holster, move, take aim, and make a 10x bigger pattern than on the public side because, assuming your instructor has done it right, you're under stress. There are distractions (fellow students throwing stuff at you, even!), moving targets, and adrenaline. Falling down, fumbling a weapon, having a feed malfunction ("jam") and having to reload in a split-second, I've seen it all, except somebody get accidentally shot, thankfully.
Here's another one for you - a weapon-retention struggle. Suppose he's got his hand on the grip, but you've managed to turn it around to point at him, and can get your finger into the trigger guard? I have done this with training rounds; shooting someone off a weapon is remarkably effective, and easier than it sounds. Or you have your hand on the weapon, but he has his hand on yours: you can't get your proper grip that way, either, but you have a good chance of getting him to let go when you drop to the ground and shoot him in the foot point-blank (that works, too). But Mr. "Smart" Gun won't permit this, because your grip will be a lot different, and to the "smart" gun, that means it isn't you.
I for one will not be buying any of these "smart" guns. How smart can it be when it's still a 1-in-10 failure rate? I won't trust my life to it, and neither should you. What happens when YOU are the 1 in 10, and the bad guy is in YOUR house? Even if they get it 100%, what about the batteries? I'll take an all-mechanical solution any time, thank you.
Notice that the police and military are exempt from having to use these "smart" guns? Do you think they know something you don't?
-paul
Pistol caliber is like religion: everyone has their favourite, and theirs is the only right choice.
There's nothing smart about a thing that's sole purpose is to take life.
Smart guys at NJIT are working on smart guns? In a Machiavellian sort of way I guess it's great that we're applying new technology to figuring out more efficient ways of killing each other, but really now, have we learned nothing from history?
i think the pilots head would be an easier target from the ground
They claim 90% accuracy in use. What does that mean? Does the weapon fail to fire 10% of the time or do 10% of the users fail to sucessfully train the weapon? Something else?
What happens if you need to use your off hand to fire the weapon? Most right-handed types find it very awkward to use their sinister hand. In this case is the grip signature really that repeatable?
This seems a long way from something that a sane law enforcement unit would issue and even farther from what an individual would pay extra for. Thanks, but I'll just keep my guns and ammo locked away from the kids.
The project has the enthusiastic backing of Sens. Frank R. Lautenberg and Jon S. Corzine.
Of course they are enthusiastic, both have records of wanting to disarm everybody but the police and military. Not living in Jersy I guess I'll still be able to buy more 1911s.
6F 9E A9 1E 96 9F 74 27 ED B8 81 6D 0C 4E 1E 78
My other Sig is a 229.
Not sure sure about Jersey, but in every state this has come up law enforcement gets an exception to the law.
Hollow words will burn and hollow men will burn.
As one of those scary gun people you avoid, and as an engineer...
This technology is still highly dubious. They say they've got a 90% reliability rate, which is terrible for an emergency device like a handgun. They're basing their biometrics on things that change -- you hold the gun differently when you're afraid for your life, for instance. Add the fact that the gun requires a battery and I wouldn't trust it to shoot cans.
Plus, these guns will probably be rather expensive. Call me a right-wing extremist, but I think poor people have a right to defend themselves too. New Jersey's law will disproportionately hurt the poor, who are the ones who tend to be victims, in need of a weapon for self defense.
I'm willing to sound paranoid, so I'll say the NJ law is just a step towards a ban.
funny, I was thinking there should be a little light on the gun which indicates that it's ready to fire. First I thought the light should been green for "go" but then I thought it should be red for "danger". Could cause confusion. They should probably just use a popup window.
are those who discharge in the face of their owners.
Honestly- couple rounds of 0 or 00 shot, maybe even birdshot up close. Shot expands at 1 inch per yard which, if you're opponent is at 20 feet away, means he'll take a good 90% of the pellets in less than a 1 foot area.
Which for all extents and purposes would make him rather dead.
And if he's still threatening you with a firearm, all you have to do is pull the slide back and chamber a sabot round- since he's nice and slow now- shouldn't be too hard to hit.
Pistols aren't the best weapon - nothing beats a rifle for stopping power.
What I found MOST interesting was the fact that during testing the device successfully identified the "owner" 9 out of 10 times.
Now I'm not a Law Enforcement Officer (LEO), but if I ever draw my weapon I want to be 100% sure that it will fire when the trigger is pulled.
Dumb Gun Users in a shootout. Awkward last screams of unlucky Smart Gun User: "goddamit, toss me a pair of spare batteries, my safety has failed off!"
NJIT Smart Gun Project used be a pointless waste of resources about three years or so, but I think it took up some momentum in the last year.
I knew an undergrad guy who worke in the project when the program was not getting much done (that was three or so years ago).
More recently, there was an undergrad girl who worked at the project, when it was getting something done (2004). [You'd see this girl on almost all school brochures etc, mostly because she's one of the few girls over there. :-)*]
Judging from their responses, I think they took off really well quite recently.
This is one big publicity thing for the University too.
* BTW she is not a token. She is really smart.
Since the anti-gun-fascists get shot down every time they try to introduce an out and out ban they do what the anti-abortion-fascists do, they try to ban the practice they disagree with by making the people who want to own guns (or who want to have an abortion) jump through a bunch of hoops before they can do so.
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
0) If you need a gun to save your life, you need it right away, and if this thing malfunctions it could result in someone dying. (If it fails soft, and lets anyone fire it, it won't be serving its intended purpose. If it fails hard, and lets no one fire it, the firearm won't be serving its intended purpose.)
1) If it works as designed, the bad guys simply won't use such guns. Since the bad guys bring their own guns (they decide when to attack and where) this will not keep the bad guys from attacking anyone. This might save police officers from being shot with their own guns. It will also prevent one officer from being able to borrow a gun from another officer in an emergency.
2) Anyone who tells you that these new guns will completely displace the old ones is dreaming. Guns are durable, and there are literally millions of guns out there. We can't even keep drug addicts from buying drugs once a week, so we will never keep bad guys from buying a gun and carrying it around for months. Most bad guys don't even need to buy bullets, since they usually get what they want just by pointing the gun. (And how hard could it be to simply break the mechanism on a stolen gun so the gun just works all the time?)
3) This drives up the cost of a gun, which means it drives up the cost of defending your life. This matters little to those of us who live in the expensive part of town, or to people who live where average people just aren't allowed to have guns anyway (Washington, D.C.; New York; etc.) but I still don't like it.
4) I'll tell you right now what the next step will be: "Since we have these now, there is no need to let the old guns stay legal." Just wait, people will start urging that "unsafe" older guns become illegal "for the sake of the children".
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
They can have my gun when they pry it from my cold dead fingers.
At least Ashcroft's Dept. of Justice did one thing right during it's tenure. It affirmed the right of individuals to bear arms. They get 10 points for that, but they lose 10,000 points for getting the Patriot Act passed.
Ted Kennedy's car has killed more people than my gun.
a gun that's every bit as reliable as my computer.
That said, I generally feel safer without any guns around, no matter the situation. Even for self-defense, just pulling out a weapon acts like a magnet for counter-fire directed at you. And accidents do happen. Luckily where I live, guns are rare items, the only ones I see are strapped around cops walking in the streets.
From the article: "No child could pick up a gun and pull the trigger. The gun just won't work, and that's how it should be."
No it shouldn't. The gun should work, and therefore the owner should make sure no child could get his hands on it. BTW: If you have any kids, they're probably safer without guns in your home. See above, check statistics about accidents, and no matter how many robbers there are to defend yourself from: those guys are always better prepared for the event than you are.
...New Jersey's police are not exempted from this law. IIRC, they currently are, reflecting their confidence in the functionality of these weapons.
When a gun has to work, it really has to work. This is true in the hands of private citizens or police officers. The two seconds it takes for the computer to boot up and you to find the right spot on the grip, or whatever, may be one second too long.
Most anyone who uses guns will tell you that the most important safety is the one in your head. This includes storing firearms appropriately and schooling your children in proper handling of them.
If New Jersey is so hell-bent on reducing accidental deaths, they'd be better off banning swimming pools or doctors, as they kill far many more people accidentally- or purposely, for that matter- than guns do.
We've all read how to get past biometric security- sometimes fingerprint pads wear so much they take any fingerprint, or pictures used for iris scanners, or rings can be taken from their owners.
On the other hand, Metal Storm's technology is incredibly cool. I just don't want anyone telling me I have to use it. (And in NH, I don't!)
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
9 out of 10 isn't reliable enough... hell, when you select a gun for defense most people still go with revolvers (or a pump if we're talking shotguns) over automatics even though the failure rates of either are relatively low if the gun is kept in good working order. They choose the simpler mechanis because they want something that they know is going to work... every time!
Adding this kind of complexity is just asking for trouble.
- The auditors said to secure the server... hand me that duct-tape -
When I read the summary I immediately thought, what a good idea, this will prevent a lot of accidental killings in the home.
Then I read the comments, most of which seem to say it's a bad idea because it the gun might fail when you actually need to shoot somebody.
It reminded me of the recent fatal shooting of Dimebag Darrel (Pantera guitarist) at a gig in Ohio (IIRC). My first thought was that if guns weren't so readily available, it might not have happened. Then it occurred to me that many Americans probably thought, if everyone in the audience had a gun it might not have happened.
Which is a pretty good sign that something is wrong. There should be a law that no more than 20% of officers in a state can use weapons or gear not available to everybody. The point being, not to restrict the police, but to empower everybody else.
The NJ law seems like technological overkill. If they are looking to avoid accidental shootings by children, there are simpler, more reliable technologies available. Considering that the linked article looks suspiciously like a press release, I suspect that a smart lobbyist has gotten hold of someone's ear in the state capitol.
And that guy actually said in the press release that he hopes the same technology can be used on automobile steering wheels and airplane yokes? And he thinks they're doing great to get 90 percent reliability already? Is this a joke?
Come on!, Guns are WAY simple in design. even the crack heads are going to figure out how to bypass that stuff or just build them from scratch.
(If at first you don't succeed, do it different next time!)
I am sure there are hardware interlocks (keys, buttons, whatever) to prevent this, but if it did happen, most silos are DESIGNED to withstand a nuclear blast, and they are already underground, so the chances of miles and miles of scorched earth are not that great. There is the chance of having a huge smoldering radioactive crater, but the damage should be fairly contained.
-William
God is everything science has yet to explain.
> there will never be a problem for a criminal to
> find a gun that does not contain this "smart" technology.
The point of "smart guns" is not to prevent you from killing people, but to prevent other people from taking your gun away from you and killing you. This is quite relevant for police officers, who are in most places the only ones with a gun.
The fact is, while some LEO talking heads will parrot the politically correct line that armed citizens should migrate towards "smart gun" technology, they will make no serious effort to apply the same regulations to their officers.
The officers who actually patrol the streets overwhelmingly oppose having to use this technology, simply because increasing the complexity of their weapons increases the likelihood of malfunction. And when you happen to need a gun, you really need it to work. You do not want to be fighting for your life with a piece of hardware running Windows Firearms Edition.
Note: In no way do I advocate racism. I'm just suggesting this technology for the use of those people who do.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
ED-209: "Drop your weapon. You have 15 seconds to comply."
That this will convince the fascist gun control fanatics in change in N.J. to allow citizens to rightfully carry handguns, concealed or otherwise. They'll always find an excuse.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
this will legitimize all those videogames where you can't pick up the guns of those you kill. Bastards. I know that's the only reason they're doing this!!
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
The article says: " "This is about who you are and how you do something." said Sebastian. This biometric is the foundation of Dynamic Grip Recognition. The technology measures not only the size, strength and structure of a person's hand, but also the reflexive way in which the person acts. For smart gun, the observed actions are how the person squeezes something to produce a unique and measurable pattern. Embedded sensors in the experimental gun then can read and record the size and force of the users' hand during the first second when the trigger is squeezed.
"
What they've got is the gun recognizing a particular person and not another under highly controlled circumstances. This is quite a feat, to be sure, but note the statement "This is about who you are and how you do something." How I'm handling a gun depends greatly on the situation I'm in. It's a lot different between sitting at home on the couch cleaning a gun versus firing at the range, versus going hunting...and for shotguns or handguns of course vastly different when in a life-threatening situation. Tests will have to be conducted under a large range of situations before any sane person would trust such a firearm as far as they can throw it, regardless of their views of gun control.
Personally, I will never own such a weapon. As other posters have mentioned, it will never work as well as a firearm without the biometric sensor. More parts==more chance for failure. I don't screw around with that kind of risk when I'm essentially having a regulated explosion occuring inches from my face. That's all besides the major point IMHO that this is a reprehensible encrochment on basic human rights by the state of New Jersey. I may be a liberal, but I'm a gun-totin' red-necked liberal.
I've always been of the opinion that I'll trust my life to a Smart Gun as soon as all of law enforcement starts trusting theirs to them as well.
http://www.biggerhammer.net/manuals/ manuals for many guns http://www.biggerhammer.net/patents/ patents with explicit drawings on making these guns
First of all, more points of failure makes for a less useable/reliable weapon. Second of all, it supposedly verifies you partially by the way you pull the trigger. This sounds like the worst poossible idea. Isn't that going to change appreciably when you're nervous, pursued, in an awkward situation, etc? I mean a person on the test range will fire it the same every time within measureable deltas, but in a real life-or-death situation? No thanks.
The criminals will still have non-smart guns, with the serial numbers filed off just like they do today. Citizens should be prepared to counter whatever they should expect to run into in a self defense situation.
The past forty or so years of data have shown us that an encounter with one gun is significantly more likely to result in a casualty than an encounter in which both parties are armed. Also keep in mind that most incidents that are terminated without shots fired go unreported.
Also keep in mind that when Florida changed their laws to allow concealed-carry their murder rates went down about as much a the rates in the rest of the country went up. If you're concerned with protecting children from the hazard of a gun in the house, keep in mind that many more children per year die in plastic buckets of water then due to a gunshot wound.
Can someone explain to me why this is a good idea?
Plus a firearm that fired that fast will be classified as full auto, meaning it falls under a different classification, meaning the price goes through the roof, plus licensing tax etc.
The anti 2nd Amendment states won't allow a firearm this fast. So it'll still be a single shot pistol with really cool technology involved.
The bloody thing beeps when you shoot and talks to you when you disengage the safety. The last thing I want is the bad guy knowing that I've got a gun, but now he knows where to spray bullets. Incidentally, that would ruin a lot of movies.
Puts holes in paper. What range? What does the bullet do through ballistic gelatin? Whats the penetration? BBs will put holes in paper too.
Meant to give police and special forces a powerful technological advantage? Ok, so how well does the system work when wet? With gloves? How much energy will it transfer to the target? And why do our specialists want more technology?
7 shot barrel that needs to be changed on a reload. What's bigger to carry, a 7 shot barrel, or a 7 round mag? How do you reload the barrel? Do you have to buy a new barrel, or can you put your "bullets" in it.
Metalstorm is the only one building reload barrels because they have to have it calibrated just right. This reminds me of blackpowder muskets. Insert wad, pour black powder, insert ball... etc.
Can you point out where it says if it jams, it can be cleared by the next bullet? Their reference to jams, is about fail to feed or eject jams. This is an obstructed barrel.
If one of these were to jam in this sense, I think you'd have the same problem you have when a regular pistol fails like this. You have an obstruction in the barrel. If the ignited propellent cannot clear the obstruction, there is only one direction its going to go, and that's back at the shooter. Depending on the pressure, instead of one bullet in the chamber, now I have 5 (1 jammed in the barrel, 1 having been fired to clear the barrel) bullets left.
No doubt the technology is in its infancy and has much potential. But its got a very long way to go before its mass market ready.
"It would also stop a crackhead from grabbing a cops peace and killing him during a routine traffic stop. "
Not in New Jersey - Police are exempted from being required to use the 'smart guns'
You don't need fancy electronic guns to have your armed uprising destroyed by a nuclear blast.
"Eurekalert reports that smart printing technology actually works. According to the press release, smart printers demonstrated by the NJIT, can recognise authorised users utilising "sixteen electronic computerized sensors embedded in the printer's grip" and "Under New Jersey law, passed in Dec. 2002, only smart printers can be purchased in the state three years after personalized printers become commercially available. Lautenberg said New Jersey's legislative effort to introduce smart printer technology should be a national model for the country"."
By the way - anyone can twist statistics any way they want.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
What happens when the battery dies?
If it doesn't work without the battery, then someone will be left defenseless when they get a bad battery, forget to replace it, happen to be somewhere (such as cold weather) where batteries don't work as well, etc.
If it does work without the battery, anyone who gets it just has to remove the battery to make it work for them.
A quick way to tell whether it's just another way to make it harder for the law-abiding to get guns: are the police required to use it too?
I don't reply to ACs
...but the real question is, will it be able to run Linux?
Now that was a good old fashioned flaming !
You have to be a usenet vet, to flame like that.
tell me, how many usenet articles did u log ?
This is absolutely fantastic. I mean, who in their right mind would think that the whole system couldn't be hacked by an EE? It's probably take me a weekend at most for the first, and then about an hour for every other one.
So criminals would have easy access to unrestricted guns. (And knives would be even more effective offensively.) Great. Oh yes, and when that guy breaks into your house, and X (insert gun owner's name here) is away, you're left absolutely defenceless. And even if X is home, there's a 1/10 chance the thing won't work anyway, all stressful conditions aside.
So what's this mean? Gun control is yet again taking power from the hands of the well meaning person and putting it in the hands of the criminals. (Not that I'm against _all_ of it.)
I'll now be taking bets for how long it'll be before the government invents a way to disable public guns with a push of a button.
Who, exactly, will decide how this technology is managed? It is easily as dangerous as the guns themselves.
Here's a test: would you want the police and the military to use this technology? We're talking rifles and hand-guns (yes, the military uses hand-guns...), though if you want, we can limit it entirely to hand-guns. Either way, think wisely before you answer... whole nations are built around such principles... and wiser men have spoken.
you and your someone else are home, some asshole breaks in, you grab the gun, the intruder is armed, he shoots first you are shot, your smart gun falls to the feet of your friend --- THEY COULD NOT USE IT EVEN IF THEY MUSTERED THE COURAGE THEY TOO ARE DEAD NOW
i have a gun and a kid, i keep that gun in a place my child could not reach, and keep it unloaded and locked, for the anti-gun-blind-to-human-nature amongst you
Two words that can't make sense.
Zip Gun
The Russians have dominated the suicide-roulette game for too long. The time has come for a more edgy American version. Instead of a 1/6 chance of debraining, these new game pieces offer a 9/10 chance. This is perfect for our impatient MTV generation.
I mean, what else would these things possibly be good for with 90% effectiveness - I wouldn't even go skeet shooting with one - it would be embarrassing.
Like on my favorite Gene Simmons/Tom Selleck flick ever!
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
I am the law!!
I'm all for "safe guns" but smart guns != safe guns.
I live in Alaska, and need high power hand guns when I'm out hiking in the woods. When its -40F (-40C no imperalists) will it still work, for how long? How about at -60F? Simple guns are better guns, as long as they are mechanicly safe.
The murder by gun rate in Canada is much lower than the U.S.. Of course, there's the whole "higher population" argument but per capita it's still incomparable.
Now here's the fun fact, people might think "oh, it's because canadians have less guns than americans" but that's false. In fact, something like 2 out of 3 canadians have access to at least one rifle. Heck, even I have one and i'm against the whole "owning a gun" issue. It's just that most of us wouldn't even think of reaching out for it in any situation. It's not a solution to real life problems; except of course in the unlikely event of attempted invasion where you'd suddenly see militia popping up all over the place.
In short, Canadians do have guns, they just don't wave them around or believe it's their god-given right to own one.
.....it is called a pistol lanyard....swat teams and special ops troops often use them on their sidearms....picture a bicycle cable lock for a pistol, they can be coiled strong elastic cord or coated steel cable connected to the butt of the pistol and the users belt, just long enough that the user can extend the pistol out to arms length.....if someone gets a hold of your pistol, they are going to have a very hard time turning it against you, especially if you get a hold on the lanyard and give it a good yank....
simple, proven, low-tech solution.....if I were in management in law enforcement, I would require them.
1. When the pin is pulled, Mr. Grenade is no longer your friend.
2. Do not eat iPod shuffle.
it's freezing cold and you're wearing gloves
it's pouring down rain or snow
the gun gets dropped and/or the sensors get damaged
your hand and/or the gun is soaked in blood / sweat / sand / a mixture thereof, etc.
you're firing the gun from a compromised position (i.e. with one or two fingers)
your partner's gun jams and you're incapacitated and unable to fire your own
Huh. Doesn't seem to address any of the above issues....I read through the article, and I saw zero mention of any of that stuff. They state:
Running 'Nix is like owning a Lightsaber. It's "a more elegant weapon for a more civilized time."
Everybody in the Peoples Republic of New Jersey had better buy all the guns they might ever want in the next 3 years or do with out. What's the good of a self-defence weapon that is 90% reliable?? $100 says they don't enforce that law for Police Officers. Why? Because the technology won't be reliable enough to trust with your life. Us lowly 'citizens' are going to be dog food against armed criminals once this law goes into affect.
obviously, more than "u" did.
Wrong!
When cops and others are using it in the field, under the stress of actual combat, and it NEVER FAILS (let's say out of the first thousand times it is fired in actual combat - and the first thousand times it is NOT fired when someone else grabs it), THEN it works.
A weapon that fails to identify its user in combat is a weapon that will be rejected by anyone with a brain. Mechanical failures are one thing, and can both be minimized by appropriate modifications to the weapon and by immediate action training. A weapon that simply fails to fire in combat no matter what you do is useless.
I definitely would not recommend anyone who is regularly in harm's way using "Release 1.0" of this thing.
But that does make it rather hard to test it, I suppose.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
"We've only just begun and we're pleased to say that we're getting 90 percent reliability when scanning users".
No my gun works 99.9999999999999999% of the time, 90% wont cut it 95% wont cut it neither will 99%. I rarely use my weapons anymore but worrying about my batteries going dead won't do either.
For the record when I was a child guns were kept in my room loaded and I knew how to and regularly used them. The difference is I was educated from day 1. Guns around children are not a problem if the kid is raised be respectful of them and educated in their use.
If I have to have RFID tags in the slugs, RFID tags in my hands (under the skin) so I can conceal-carry than so be it.
My alternative it to carry illegally, and run the risk of someone taking my gun from me, then shooting me with my own gun.
I like my risk managed.
Remington holds key patents on electronic ignition of a round, so Remington would make some scratch.
weakness of such technology: False reject on id of user diables gun...you are confronted with knife swinging home invader, you grab gun hastily and not with a grip registered perfectly, or you have just stepped out of the shower sopping wet... the gun is a useful as a rock, trigger is locked, it cant tell who you are.
I would need shitloads of assurance that scenario could not happen before I'd buy a gun in NJ.
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
I predict these guns will eventually be litigated out of existance.
Lawyer: My client was killed in front of his wife and kids by the Joe Criminal when his smart gun failed to operate properly. Big bad gun manufacturer sells defective products.
Jury: Awards 10 million dollars damages, 30 million in pain & suffering.
Company: Bankruptcy - no more smart guns.
It's a bit of a moot point. The personnel area of most modern gunships is sufficiently well protected as to be effectively immune to small arms fire.
Then again, the optimum kill angle for a helicopter is normally to shoot down through the blades from above, so that's not looking so good for Joe Rebel-Without-A-RPG either...
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
and upload it to central web site with "Real Shootings Syndication" ... could do away with the need for nightly local newscast murder and mayhem listings.
I agree that the gun should work properly. I also agree that instruments besides firearms may be used as weapons.
x pe riment.pdf
For research, statistics and other scientific data which you apparently have not read, I suggest the following paper;
http://www.sfu.ca/~mauser/papers/failed/FailedE
Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think. -Ayn Rand
Call me when smart means homing ammunition, variable rate of fire, adjusting powder load based on target/range, etc... Then the electronics improve the utility of a gun. Until then the last thing I need is a gun that has two supplies that run out (ammo and batteries) and even more parts that can fail.
-- $G
I'd prefer smart bullets, actually.
You know, the kind that aim themselves with little rocket thrusters and only hit unfriendlies, ideally several unfriendlies in a row.
Perhaps the proper term is 'small-caliber cruise missiles'
"We have to go forth and crush every world view that doesn't believe in tolerance and free speech." - David Brin
...one would note that this might be an interim step to entirely prevent private gun sales.
Besides, "For smart gun, the observed actions are how the person squeezes something to produce a unique and measurable pattern." Fark that. If I need my gun, I would like to know that it will work even if my hand is broken, sweaty, I'm trembling in fear, or if I've been shot in the arm.
Thanks but no. Not that I ever expect to need a gun, but when one does it's not usually a fault-tolerant situation.
-Styopa
I have seen a lot of responces throwing FUD without any factual basis so far on this topic. For some reason, the gun topic seems to bring out the paranoid fringe in Slashdot.
l
e .h tml
I will adddress the very basic topics, which anyone who had bothered to use Google would have found the answers to. If I seem angry and disappointed, it is because of the uniformly low quality of thought displayed so far on this topic. Emotion rather than logic has been debated so far on a topic so clearly "News for Nerds".
The gun is *more* technically reliable than other conventional guns. It has *fewer* moving parts, which are the critical failure point, due to its all electronic nature. The following responce is from the Metal Storm Website.
Reliability - how reliable can an electronic weapon be?
Mechanical weapons, because of the movement, wear and operating stresses on the operating metal components, are expected to experience mechanical failure of some sort, such as jamming, after a calculated average number of firings. This is termed the 'mean rounds between failure'.
Metal Storm weapons have no mechanical components, and therefore certainly none which can jam. Accordingly, we expect more than an order of magnitude improvement of reliability in such weapons.
All of these questions and more are answered in the Metal Storm FAQ.
http://www.metalstorm.com/04_faq_technology.htm
But what happens if the battery goes flat?
No matter how well maintained a weapon might be, it must be expected that there will nonetheless be a time when the battery will fail.
For this reason, the VLe military handgun is being developed to include a slide device, which can be operated to generate and store electrically energy to enable the weapon to operate even if a battery is not installed.
The Metal Storm handgun, at least the military/police version, is a tremendous improvement on a standard handgun. Especially given the extremely high rates of fire. As this handgun is primarily being marketed as a military tool for the Australian/American armies, yes I do think the technology is vastly better than current handguns. So the FUD claiming that the police were not actually going to use the weapon because they "knew better" is exposed for what it is.
It is more reliable, has a greater rate of fire, and better accuracy. It also prevents unauthorized use of the weapon against the wielder, and considering that this is the very first test of the weapon recognition system, a 90% success rate *IS* outstanding. While not acceptable for day to day use yet, the accuracy rate can only improve.
A recognition system does not need to be 100%. And contrary to what the stated remarks claim about the system being based on a "handgrip", the Metal Storm website makes it claim that a ring system will be used instead. The authorised user will employ a ring equipped with a transponder.
http://www.metalstorm.com/12_odwyervle/prototyp
Again, all available from their website, and it seems to contradict this press release almost totally. Is the gun marketed at the military or civlians? From everything I've heard about this company before, it had an exclusively military focus.
But following the NJ logic, lets appoint a government body to admin all our (and your) mail servers. Following CA logic, lets prohibit large mail servers, or mail servers that can send mail more than once a month. Following IL logic, lets ban mail servers all together and send SWAT teams after people who defy the government.
Following CO logic, let people have any mail server they want but make sure to catch spammers and send them to jail for a very long time.
I can see integrated fire-control and logic systems in all kinds of small-arms. I'm not sure that this is entirely a good thing, but I can forsee it happening.
g _w eb_viewable/h2k2_arms_nitzberg_files/frame.htm
s _p art
The engineering in the future (and in the present) will have to be damned-well engineered. If it isn't, be prepared for guns to catch computer-viruses, share data, and fail for no apparent reason. Guns might even fire for no apparent reason if their electronic - ignition or interlock systems are undermined or are improperly upgraded.
I did a presentation a while back touching on some of these ideas. Anyone interested is invited to look at my presentation:
http://iamsam.com/papers/H2K2/h2k2_arms_nitzber
http://www.iamsam.com###dont_spam_me_remove_thi
Also when little Jimmy finds dad's gun in the closet...
The Farewell Tour II
I will concede that this is not a grab at the right to own guns *IF* you allow me to introduce a 9 month waiting period on abortions and concede I am not trying to outlaw them. (Really I'm not. Please abort your children. In fact some of your offspring that lived should have been aborted.) Fucking Nazis. My Venom is getting all over so I'll stop now.
Sometimes at night I imagine the darkness is filled with horrible things with too many teeth, like Julia Roberts.
His freudean slip reveals his true intention well enough. It's all about having a hard-on for killing.
The complexity of the system will be a difficult problem to overcome. The full auto is a simpler mechanism than the semi-auto. The semi-auto "smart gun" will be a masterpiece of complexity when they make it work.
If they actually make this work then they've solved the physical access problem for computer hardware.
Besides which, the American public can't be bothered to revolt. Look at the shit that went down in the Urkrane. That'd never happen here. We just don't care that much. At least until the government starts fucking with the 7 PM lineup. You can take my freedom, but you will never take my reality shows!
Damn, I'm cynical...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Sixteen electronic computerized sensors embedded in the gun's grip
I have a feeling that it's going to be hard fooling all 16 sensors in the time it takes to break into someone's house and rummage around making tons of noise before confronting the homeowners. What I wonder is how the gun will behave if someone changes their grip after using it. And what about the home owner fumbling to fire the thing in the dark of night at an intruder (hopefully not little Jimmy sleepwalking)?
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
As long as this stays in New Jersey and doesn't come to the United States, I think we're safe.
VERY INCORRECT. 1891 was 30 years later.
The 1861 Springfield rifle (first made in Springfield Ill(?) in 1861) was the first non musket gun. it was the first weapon to use brass cartridges and was not muzzle loading. It was used to the extreme detriment of American Civil War confederate forces, who were still using Napoleonic tactics at the Battle of Gettysberg, where the rapid reload (10 times faster than older systems) and added accuracy killed, (far too many) soldiers. This changed the face of war completely.
There has not been an equally important development in hand held weapons till the the AK47. This is amazing to think, since the Steam engine has come and gone in that time, and yet modern troops have essentially {VERY} upgraded versions of the same (140 year old) technology.
Happy to debate this point, but give the guys at Springfield their just respect.
Thanks
Move along... there is no sig here.
Modern helicopters (designed after 1970) generaly have the Jesus nut safely buried inside the center of the roterhead. The Apache of which I have very strong knowledge has its nut deep inside the rotor head, no small arms fire could possibly hit it and even if it could the bolt is close to an inch thick.
I used to have a cool sig, back when I cared
So now we'll have a whole new set of laws to deal with hacking or modifying embedded systems in guns - oh ... I guess the DMCA will keep us safe.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Well, so long as it's non-trivial to bypass, it will stop the problem of "I got shot with my own gun by an intruder" or "my kid shot his friend when they got into my sock drawer."
To be replaced by "I got shot/knifed/clubed/stomped by the intruder when my gun didn't recognize me." (A false-negative error.)
And by "My kid shot his friend when they got into my sock drawer after I trusted the new 'smart gun' and didn't lock it in the safe like I do the 'dumb' ones." (A false-positive error.)
Maybe once in eight average lifetimes only a gun will protect you from murder. Maybe several times in an average lifetime a gun will protect you and/or yours from death or serious bodily harm from criminal activity. (Your mileage WILL vary greatly.) In each of these situations, maybe nineteen times in twenty showing the gun is enough, one time in twenty your "bluff gets called" and you actually have to FIRE the gun.
For people in some locations (such as rural) and/or some occupations (such as stockraising), a gun may be needed as often as several times a year to defend livestock, family, or self against predators (which, even if they're after livestock, will often switch to being after the stockman once challenged). People who work on horseback may need to use a pistol to shoot the horse if they are being dragged.
When one of these things happens, if you need your gun to fire it MUST fire.
If, in such a situation, a "smart gun" decides, in its electronic wisdom, that you're really joe blow non-owner and refuses to fire, you're very likely to become a casualty.
While these incidents are rare, in a country of 300 million people they add up to very large number per year.
Uniformed police officers are the main victims of "gun taken away and used on owner". It happens to them a lot. They wear their guns in exposed holsters. They get into altercations with lawbreakers - sometimes with groups of them - where it's their job to maintain contact and subdue the wrongoers. When they're focused on one perpetrator, another may come up behind them, grab their gun, and perhaps fire it at them. Police have the MOST to be gained by making their guns refuse to fire in unauthorized hands.
Several "smart gun" systems have already been devised for them - systems much less likely to make mistakes than a biometric device. Typically these are enabled by something worn by the officer, such as a ring or bracelet containing a magnet or an ID chip.
But because of the risk of the gun refusing to fire when needed by the duly authorized officer, police departments have so far resisted enormous political pressure and refused to use such systems.
If even the police won't deploy an extremely reliable 'smart gun' device when its usefulness is so great, due to the risk from even a small number of misidentifications, why should a civillian purchase something less reliable?
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Unrelenting fucktard.
May you, your shithole of a trailer and your even more ignorant cousin/sisterwife get sucked into an F5 tornado, along with that walking mange of a coondog and that pile of wrecked steel and cinderblocks you call a driveway, you nunshitting popefelcher.
Please stop logging in here, lackwit. The chiggers that fall out of your mullet are absolutely disgusting. Your dog smells. You smell worse than a tour-ripe hippy rolling - stoned - in a steamy March meadow full of fresh cowpies. You have no idea how much we've been spending on deadly toxic fumigants to delouse the place after you finally leave.
When a computer, iPod, etc. fails--even at the worst possible time--at most you are severely inconvienced. When your firearm fails at an inopportune time--say, I dunno, when a knife- or dumb gun-wielding intruder breaks into your bedroom maybe?--you are dead.
(Subject line says it all.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
This is a way to get around (almost said shortcircuit) second amendment protections.
Smart weapon -> Cops can shut it off -> Police state can shut it off -> We are now emasculated.
Point blank: One of the most persuasive arguments in favor of weapon freedom is the fact that an armed populace is a final last ditch check against tyranny. When the death squad comes for you or your neighbor or the family you're hiding in your crawlspace, you can at least go out like a man.
If they want to give us Metalstorm automatics and have those be smartchipped... HA HA as if that would ever happen, had you going there for a moment didn't I.
"How we burned in the prison camps later thinking: What would things have been like if every police operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive? If during periods of mass arrests people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever was at hand? The organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt." -- Alexander Solzhenitsyn
(Oh and by the way I'm a tree-hugging pacifist liberal hippie. What a pass we have come to...)
Intolerance for ambiguity is the mark of the authoritarian personality.
I have a real problem with people throwing out "Stats" that prove something or another. In the case of the last few responses they have failed to provide links to the research that they seem to want to support much less give the name of who conducted it, much less were they read it simply that it exsists. And I don't mean throwing out figures from the NRA or Handgun Control, Inc. Both are horribly bias. To add my 2cents I don't have a problem with people carrying guns if they want to. I don't know how racism has weasled it's way into this. If you have a clean record you can get a CCW if you follow the rules. (at least here in Michigan)
If these guns are so great, why does the law exempt New Jersey Police? This is especially troublesome since gun assaults on police are most often with their own weapon. So lets get rid of the hipocrasy; lets make all the New Jersey police departments use the technology for three years before requiring it for everyone else. Let them debug it not the citizens of the state.
You know, they wrote the law so that police wouldn't have to use smartguns, though they were first developed to save cops who lost the scuffle for the dropped handgun.
Under current law; they are classified as machine guns. They wont ever be available for sale to the public since machine guns are illegal to own in this country since 1986. The only exception is maching guns registered before 1986. This is an incredibly bad idea.
What does that have to do with the argument? Ammo is very reliable. The only ammo I've had fail on me was due to my improper storage, and even most of that fired. I've had one gun fail on me, after many thousands of rounds, and it was a cheap model. People have shot ammo that is over 100 years old, and it works like brand new.
In short: the systems of our current guns are very reliable. Things do not break often.
There is nothing about current guns that you can get rid of with a smart gun. You change some (the safety is not electrical), but mostly you add parts that can fail. Care to consider the odds this so called smart gun will recognize me after 50 years on the shelf. This is a likely situation in the case of self defense guns. (though you should shoot it more often)
Geek Gun Smith Co.: Virus, Spam, Spyware and Gun Lock removal - $60...
Oh well, what the hell...
I just remote hacked your pistol dude, bend over!
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
Law enforcement is excempt from the NJ law. This should tell you all you need to know about the reliability. Bit its actually worse than that. The metel storm guns would be illegal to own from federal law. So NJ says you have to buy a metal storm if you want a pistol, and the federal government wont let you get one; so no pistols in NJ. The metel storm pistols use an electronic trigger mechanism. This is classafied as a machine gun by BATFE; machine guns were made illegal under Reagon in 1986.
Who needs to read slashdot? Who needs a TV? Who needs electric lights? Who needs pets? Who needs a radio? Who needs books? Answer: nobody. You need the basics: food, clothing, and shelter. Everything else is a luxury that is nice to have.
Despite the ability to kill, guns are far less dangerous than things like cars.
Dumb people kill people...
Oh well, what the hell...
Here's an interesting tidbit:
Canada
Households with guns: 26%
Gun deaths per million: 6
Gun suicides per million: 33.5
Banned guns: Fully automatics; Converted automatics; Semi-automatic assault weapons; Some handguns
USA
Households with guns: 41%
Gun deaths per million: 62.4
Gun suicides per million: 72.3
Banned guns: some guns in some states
What's my point here? Let's see, if you adjust for households with guns you see that just as many people who want to shoot THEMSELVES to death get a chance to in both countries....Yet despite having only half the number of households with guns (ie ownership) we have ONE TENTH the number of gun murders...with the major difference being that in Canada it's not alright to be a one man army. Those numbers really do speak all for themselves.
Guns have a purpose (like hunting or law enforcement), but really, taking on burglars (That 6 vs 62.4 deaths per million thing would be the "perpetrated by criminals" number) or THE LARGEST STANDING ARMY IN THE ENTIRE WORLD (2nd amendment) probably aren't that high up on the list of things they're good for. This has been a really long winded way of asking you, did you ever think that maybe if you made less military grade/easily concealable weaponry available it might make you less likely to be shot by it? It works in lots of other places.
Just my 2x$0.25 (adjusted for currency exchange)
"Nokia is not a country, it's the capital of Finland!" -Moderated "Informative". Yeesh.
Especially so if you're from the US. Cops don't have to respond to an incident if they reasonably believe their lives may be placed in jeopardy by doing so. (McShaney vs Winnebago County) You're really on your own here - "... a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any particular individual citizen..." (Warren v. District of Columbia) So yeah, take away everybody's guns and then call a cop. If they decide to show up and find the right house, they'll shoot everyone inside (including you) and burn the place to the ground.
As for the "smart gun" technology, I'll believe it works after law enforcement personnel have carried them for a couple years without any problems. In the real world, however, "smart guns" won't hit the market until there's federal legislation that exempts the manufacturers from liability in case of a failure.
Time to post > Fr. Frog's gun safety lecture.</a>
Read it.
Here's the part that applies to this discussion, but you should read the rest, it's valuable.
"The current politically correct rage is "trigger locks" and "smart guns." Trigger locks have a place but they are not a cure-all. First, their use on a loaded firearm kept for self protection is dangerous as their installation or removable could cause an unintended discharge. Second, they are slow to remove. As to their preventing unauthorized use of a stolen firearm their protection is illusionary. At least one major brand name trigger lock can be be defeated simply by using a thin bladed screw driver through its rubber pads. If a firearm is properly stored under lock and key, the chances of an unauthorized individual getting to it is slim, and if it is gotten to locks can easily be removed by an individual with a drill or bolt cutters. The place of trigger locks in my mind is to provide temporary denial of use during unloaded transportation or temporary storage.
The "smart gun" idea is no where near a useful state, and probably will never be, especially for a firearm used for personal protection. A dead battery, a lost magnetic ring, or a loose connection can cause disastrous consequences as could a burst of high energy radio or magnetic energy. There have even been proposals that the government should have the means to remotely deactivate all civilian held "smart guns" in the event of a "national emergency."
(In NJ they recently passed a law which states that if/when "smart guns " come into use that the police will not be required to use them. Hmmmm! Great technology, eh? Good enough for the peons but not the government.) The claim that they would prevent someone from using a stolen gun is also a joke. If the firearm is stolen the device can be easily deactivated by just about anyone by disassembling (forcefully or otherwise) the firearm.
No, safety is not gadgets! It is common sense."
Not a sentence!
I think his concern is more that the sensors will fail to recognize the proper owner when the time comes to use the weapon, at least that's how i read it. And anyway, in the FA it indicates that the readings are from pressure sensors (at least partly), and that the "Embedded sensors in the experimental gun then can read and record the size and force of the users' hand during the first second when the trigger is squeezed." I guess I'd be worried that in a high-stress situation I don't hold the weapon with the same amount of force that I do while at the range.
Also, the idea of a gun needing electricity seems a little strange, I just picture a cop coming home at night and plugging in their pistol next to their cellphone charger...
Sure sounds like you are, from what you say in the rest of your post!
You should read my comment more carefully. But okay, you ask for it, I'll try and downsize some of your arguments:
So should we ban these items?
Not at all. My home is full of dangerous items. The only real violent situation I ever experienced, enabled me to put some of these items (a door, some furniture) between the bastard and myself, so that he only managed to damage furniture. Better for me, better for him. A gun on either side would have done more damage, with longer lasting consequences. In my case, only goods and ego's were damaged. Oh BTW: the guy involved received a jail sentence, and I had a nice weekend right after the event, and cleaned up the mess the day after. So how's that for smart?
How about the situation where you turn your car down the wrong dead-end street and find yourself surrounded by thugs with pipes and knives?
You must have driven into a really bad neighbourhood. Not smart! Or you managed to piss off a whole bunch of thugs enough to make them come after you, armed with pipes and knives. What stupid things did you do to make them so angry? Oh yeah, you're driving in a car? So you can back up out of that street, right? Or explain to me how a thug with a pipe is going to stop you from driving over him. Don't need a gun here, a car will do. BTW: If they're smart thugs, they'll jump aside at the last moment, you're free to drive out, and nobody gets hurt. What, you drive a car that doesn't have a reverse gear? That is stupid!
Or just one mugger who is twice as strong as you?
Mugger: just wants your money, I assume? So observe his appearance, toss your wallet out, provide police with a detailed description, you're down a bit of cash and replaceable plastic, and maybe police will grab him quickly and again, no-one gets hurt (well, maybe the mugger, after resisting arrest). BTW: shoot/kill a mugger in self-defense, and you have to live with the fact that you killed a man, just to stop him from taking your wallet. A high price I'd say. I'll take the 'lose wallet' option here anytime.
That's okay, because in your fantasy world we are safe because there are NO GUNS (..) Which makes you feel less safe than having cops without guns (see above).
Bullshit. I have 0 problems with gun ownership, it's just that having a gun wouldn't make me feel safe/safer. Nor am I scared of cops with guns. Cops don't make it a habit of shooting at reasonable behaving people, in my country they're only allowed to use their gun in very strict circumstances, and rarely do so. Almost all situations can be handled without the use of deadly force (as it should be).
You are assuming that all robbers are professionals.
I'll give you that one. But then again, the bad guy usually has the element of surprise (a big advantage, you know) on his side. And maybe used to a violent situation, unlike the victim.
By the way - anyone can twist statistics any way they want.
Sure, you have some kids, and a gun in your home? Than it's waaay more likely that some innocent person will be hurt, than prevented from being hurt as a result. All the statistics-twisting you like, doesn't change that.
now when I am mugged, not only will they take my eyeball and thumb to access my bank account, now they will chop off my whole hand so they can shoot someone in my name.
also, isnt this discriminatory against disabled people with no hands?
Your personal experience undoubtably means a lot to you. Thanks for sharing. However, not everyone has parents as intellegent as yours, nor is every child as obiedient and intellegent as you were. So we can spend a lot of time and money trying to educate children and parents, or we can pass a law making smart guns the law. Which do you thing is easier and cheaper for the government to do?
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
However, not everyone has parents as intellegent as yours, nor is every child as obiedient and intellegent as you were. So we can spend a lot of time and money trying to educate children and parents, or we can pass a law making smart guns the law. Which do you thing is easier and cheaper for the government to do?
Yeah, but one of those ways helps morons clone and feed, while the other lets the problem take care of itself.
When you idiot-proof the world, nature will produce a better idiot.
Thank you for speaking for EVERYBODY. I'm sure EVERYONE agrees with your view. I was afraid for a minute that you'd let other people form their own opinion.
Thanks.
Like a government police force or army? Yeah, that's why we have the second amendment.
Q. How many people were killed by governments around the world in the twentieth century?
A. Over half the current population of the United States.
How the availability of guns affect crime is beside the point. It seems the grand-parent post alluded to it. You seem to concur. So allow me to drop all ambiguity and state it plainly for those who would consider greater gun control measures.
Though you may consider it antiquated, the second amendment is there for a good reason. Just like the first. Just like the third. Take away the second amendment and Kent State becomes Tiananmen Square. Perhaps you would like to redefine/revise/revoke those other outdated amendments too? Change the meaning of "Support our troops" from tying a yellow ribbon around your tree to bunking a couple of soldiers in your spare bedroom perhaps? For the greater good, right comrades? Though it is the second amendment, removing your right to bear arms is the first step to removing all of your rights.
This site disagrees:
http://www.usdoj.gov/olc/secondamendment2.htm
But what would the US Government known about US Government laws compared to your San Francisco based left wing site? Motherjones.com? Give me a f'ing break.
- asks "are you sure you want to fire? [yes|no]
- asks "are you really sure? [yes|no]
- then BSOD's
Privacy is terrorism.
No permit required to own or carry a handgun (openly or concealed), no registration of guns, no requirement to dismantle the gun or stick silly "trigger locks" on it and make it inaccessibly for emergency self-defense usage.
pointy end goes in the other guy, no muss, no fuss.
May you, your shithole of a trailer and your even more ignorant cousin/sisterwife get sucked into an F5 tornado, along with that walking mange of a coondog and that pile of wrecked steel and cinderblocks you call a driveway, you nunshitting popefelcher.
With such an intelligent and eloquent argument, it's a wonder you haven't cinched up the debate already.
How about the gun that works only when:
(1)- You, the owner are using it...
-and-
(2)- No policeman in range is broadcasting the "do not fire" signal (after all, cops in range mean that the problem is well in hand, and you certainly shouldn't be firing at an officer), a signal which all guns will be regulated to obey.
Also handles that annoying "revolution" problem that some places tend to have. That way, a government can stay in power without the consent of the governed, which will finally bring us back to they way God meant it to be- we obey the largest alpha male within range, who derives his power from tradition and birth, and no one gets out of line.
It worked so well for so long!
You say this like a regular gun never malfunctions. I think smart guns will fail to recognize the owner as much as a real gun will jam, maybe less, plus there should be a test mode to just check that the gun still recognizes you as the owner, test as often as you'd like (like when you clean the gun or something) and you shouldn't need to test it more than you handle the gun cause what could have gone wrong while the gun was being stored?
But, seeing as that is never going to be the case, people like Senator Frank Lautenberg can get fucked in the ass and die of AIDS.
Since he's already earned the death penalty for his victim disarmament activities in Congress, that would be a good alternative to a firing squad. But then again, he's too old. He'd likely die of old age before AIDS set in (yes, even without medications). Therefore, he should simply be shot down on the steps of the Capitol, or outside his home, etc.
But those who passed the New Jersey law, and all those who are trying to make it federal law, should suffer the same fate.
You'll notice IIRC that law enforcement are exempt from the requirement to use the technology and that
the manufacturers of the technology are supposed to be immune to lawsuits (in striking contrast to everyone else involved with firearms).
Having a demonstration system that works in the lab is one thing having a system that works reliabily under all field conditions is yet another.
Expect this to be litigated up to the Supreme Court.
It is after all merely another attempt at civilian firearms prohibition.
Those laws are for us, not them.
There are some good comments about this issue, but one glaring problem is missing. How many criminals are going to be obeying this law? This law, and other gun laws only affect people who are law abiding citizens. If criminals are law abiding, then they wouldn't be criminals. Keep this in mind whenever any gun law comes up, the only people affected are the people who aren't criminals, and when guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.
Imagine the scene: Good guys have Bad guy cornered in an abandoned house. They yell, "Give up." He yells, "You'll never get me alive, coppers." He aims a HERF (high energy radio frequency) gun through the closed wooden doorway at the cop's smart-guns' brains.
He then steps out with an AK-47 and wreaks mayhem while the cops wave lobotomized smart-guns. Bad guy is finally clubbed to death after he runs out of ammo.
But No Fucking Gloves Allowed
I'll stick with a gun that I know will fire if I follow some simple maintenance guidelines, thank you. Adding complexity to a life and death situation is a recipe for the second option.
My SIG P226 has thousands of rounds from it. Not one fucky ejection, not one jam, not one misfire. Nothing but perfect peformance. Id didnt even fuckup during break-in.
See I think biometrics is the wrong way to go on the smart gun technology. Biometrics is not an exacting science, it's all about averages, because your hand is never going to be exactly the same every time you try to activate the gun, so there are allowances, which may be enough for someone else to use it- or may not be enough for you to use it in a time of crisis (Only applies to law enforcement agents; but there the ones who will be beta testing this garbage)
It's a lot easier/energy efficent/reliable to simply have a 'key' ring that the gun's opperator will wear on one of his fingers/thumb which like any RFID device will signal that 'yes this is the guns owner' and allow firing. This is an exacting science; the RFID tag will have a specific key to it, and only that key will do. The power requirements would be so small that the action of sliding the magazine into the weapon could charge a capacitor for several minutes of opperation, and some of the kick from the gun could be applied to keeping that capacitor charged. The ring itself could be a completely passive key (uses the incomming radio signal for power and sends a responce signal), requring no batteries.
-Millions of Monkeys, Millions of typewriters, 6 hours of sorting through faeces encrusted pages to find: This post
Not all that unlikely. Think about it from another angle. If an individual or individuals enter a home when they know a person is likely to be there (at night for example) that person or those persons have a plan for dealing with the inhabitants of that home. It could be as simple as tieing them up while they rob the place, shooting them in cold blood, driving them to ATMs to empty their bank accounts and then killing them, or any combination of heinous things. About a month ago a few miles to my east a woman was the victim of a home invasion. She lived but will never be the same again (is any victim ever the same?). If a home invasion does happen to you, it's likely that you will be injured in some way or even killed. Maybe you've heard of our local serial killer, self-dubbed "BTK" for "Bind, Torture, Kill." It's been on CNN for some time now, America's Most Wanted too. He invades his victim's homes. Home invasions are not that uncommon. I heard testimony before the Kansas Senate FSA Committee last year from a Kansas House member on behalf of a woman in her district that had been the victim of a home invasion. This invasion wasn't for money. It was to rape the mother. The attacker told her he'd kill her children down the hall if she screamed or fought him. When you look at raw statistics take into account that home invasions are listed in many different categories including but not limited to burglary, violent offences, aggravated assault, forcible rape, and murder. There isn't a category in the FBI's UCR for home invasions.
I'm also sure that the people who have been the victim of a home invasion would also disagree with your sentiment that it doesn't happen very often. I have a good example from you from the town in which I currently live. Have you ever heard of the Wichita Massacre. Yes, the name is a bit on the Hollywood-side but once you read the story you'll feel the title is quite justified. Only one person survived that night raped by the attackers and by her friends forced to rape her at gun point and after being shot in the head. That happened in a well-to-do neighborhood. Want to hear about another person who was the victim of another home invasion? Have you heard about Bridget Kelly? Her attacker only shot her 3 times in the back after robbing and raping her. I think there are some people who would disagree with you when you trivialize the number of people that are the victims of home invasions.
ring... ring... BANG!
[20:36] wwwdot/.dotorg
...the latest (2001) figures from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had 2,911 children and teens dead that year from gunshot wounds. Not even 1/2 that many children in the same age group drown each year, let alone in plastic buckets.
I don't know about plastic buckets, but the CDC data from 2002 show that drowning killed almost fourteen times as many children under age 15 as firearm accidents. So zorander is correct in suggesting that keeping kids away from water would save far more lives than childproofing guns.
Apparently you are including homicides among older teens in your numbers, which is fine if you just want to prove that the grandparent post is imprecisely worded. But knowing how many, say, 18-year old drug dealers get shot in a year is not at all relevant to judging the threat guns kept in a home pose to children.
Why should I put bars on my windows and install
a steel door, in order to protect myself? It
sounds remarkably like a prison cell to keep
the bad guys out. (Sort of like the inmates
running the asylum, IMO.)
No thank you. I sleep with a loaded 45ACP
pistol under my pillow -- "cocked and locked".
And a loaded 12 guage shotgun under the bed.
(And yes, I also visit the shooting range
often enough to remain quite proficient.)
IMHO, both NJ and MD are completely on the
wrong track regarding firearms safety -- any
biometric "lock" will fail. And Murphy's Law
states that if a thing will fail, it will fail
at the worst possible time. Far better to
educate your children to respect firearms, and
to become proficient in their use, than to
treat them as taboo and locked away where they
cannot be used for self-defense by family.
As you might have perceived, yes, I am one of
those "violent gun-toting" Americans, and I
make no apologies for my freedom to protect
myself from violent criminal perpetrators.
And I am widely read enough to know that in
many parts of the world, only criminals and
the police (sometimes the very same thing)
are allowed to have firearms.
Sure they do. Ever hear of Canada? Canada has more guns per capita than us here in the US and yet they have practically no gun-related murders. They also have a very small TCI or crime rate. They have very little of this type of crime because EVERYONE has a gun. Crooks don't like attacking people that might have a gun. They don't mind cops with guns because they are ham-stringed by department policies and laws and they know it. Citizens are much less likely to fully comprehend the laws and will be much more likely to shoot first and ask questions later. That's why most of Canada's criminals went south to the US where it's much easier to do what they do best without getting shot. Don't blame the problem on the guns. Don't blame the problem on lawful gun owners either. Criminals ignore the gun laws (obviously). Gun control laws do nothing to keep guns out of the hands of criminals. All they do is keep guns out of the hands of law-abiding citizens that wish to protect themselves.
Some time ago, I saw a program, in which a SWAT officer was facing a hostage-taker with a hostage, and trying to persuade him to let the hostage go. During this, he was covering behind a large shield, with a horizontal window about two inches high (and almost certainly some reinforced glass in it).
In order for the police officer to aim his gun at the hostage-taker, he had his arm around the right side of the shield, and holding the pistol so he could use the iron sights while looking through the window of his shield. In order to do this, he held his gun horizontally, to be able to have as little as possible of his forearm exposed. Since shooting a hostagetaker behind a hostage is probably very difficult even at close range (ten feet in this situation), I would think that it is possible to learn to fire a weapon accurately "gangsta style".
Disclaimers: I have never held a gun, nor seen an unholstered gun outside of TV, pictures and games. I know very little about SWAT tactics, the program I quoted wasn't even about SWAT teams. Please don't mod me insightful :)
Xel'Naga
why? does it use wince?
_ In Egypt Networks: Network Solutions with a Twist
From the article:
"This technology is similar to how electronic machines read an individual's signature upon completing a credit card transaction," said Sebastian.
Bullshit - I work as a cashier and half of the people "signing" their transaction either make a quick dash or scribble random lines. Hopefully these new smart guns aren't "similar", otherwise Police will have a false sense of security that their unsafe firearms can't be used against them.
It seems like there are only pro-gun comments modded up. Why are you so obsessed b y your guns? During my duty at the army (German Bundeswehr), i found it quite interesting on the shooting range. But i don't feel the need to own a gun. Because once you have one, you are not far from using it. Even if you just use it for threatening other people because they act in a way that you do not like.
When it comes to guns, i always have to think of a comment Chris Rock did at some MTV Video Music Awards: If a bullett cost 5000$, less people would be killed.
This is all part of making the CHIP in everybodys hand mandatory - they say all other measurements are insecure and ready for failure... so the CHIP will be made mandatory on all fronts!
I wouldnt want to live in America for anytime longer, considering the way its heading...
If you are, then get your ass up and do something to get some real alternative into oval-office
The Magna Trigger conversion for Smith and Wesson revolvers already exists, it seems to work well (magnetic ring and special trigger assembly).
... the level of reliability with electronic components just isn't possible; among other things you'll get corrosive gases, unburnt powder, massive recoil forces, and nasty, corrosive cleaners leaking into these things.
However, it's not foolproof.
I can see this being mandated to Police and citizens, and MASSIVE LAWSUITS when the system with chips inevitably fails and police and citizens are killed.
It's a mess
Send this to 5 years ago, when it would have been relevant.... html :l e
http://www.metalstorm.com/04_electronic_prototype
Videos here
http://www.metalstorm.com/04_videos/videos.html#v
I'm from the UK where handguns are banned (gun crime has since gone up, but I digress).
This thing works be recognising pressure from your hand. If you fish the gun out at 3am after hearing someone breaking in, wouldn't nervousness / sweat alter the way you hold the gun? Would it then not shoot?
Also, suppose you get one of these guns and then don't use it for 5 years. It must have a battery in, and batteries go flat... I can't really imagine leaving a gun to charge. Perhaps they could build the battery in to the magazine (that the right word?) and you could leave that out to charge with the gun locked away.
PocketGamer.org - For the gamer on the go!
No one in New Jersey really gives a shit about this tech it was just a way for the state to funnel some extra cash into NJIT and Newark.
As a student at NJIT I'm not going to complain!
Plus Newark does have a real problem with gun violence so I can't blame them for trying although I agree it's pretty flawed.
Still it gives the school a couple mil in extra funds which was the real intent of the program anyways, the probably didn't expect it to ever actually produce something usable.
I can see these being hacked and used for homocide, all while having the owner being pinned as the criminal because the gun obviously won't fire for anyone else, so who else could it be?
Accidental discharge of firearms All 5-14
762 48
Drowning or submersion All 5-14
3,447 321
Assumption are that if you're less than 5 years someone else is doing the 'accidental discharge' for you (i.e. on-topic). You're therefore 6.5 times more likely to acccidentally drown. 5-14 years deaths make-up 6% of accidental discharges and 9% of drownings.
So put this against the background of childhood. Would an average child spend 'only' 6.5 greater time swimming, taking baths, etc., or being exposed to accidental gunshot discharge? Rather undermines the original 'plastic bucket' comment.
The 911 hijackers are taking over a plane. The president presses a button and all boxcutters in america retract their blades...
Announcing WWW.GUNMODS.COM, your source for the best HANDGUN MODCHIPS and PENIS ENLARGEMENT PILLS!!! (oddly enough, we get a lot of orders for both at the same time, go figure)
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
While it is unfortunate that you didn't have a logical or on-point counterargument to the post, that is not cause to change the subject and argue against something that was not said or implied.
Nowhere do the words "white" "suburban" "mexican" "gang" "race" or "drugs" appear in that post. Go somewhere where something racist actually is said to argue about racism.
Now, we all know it's a matter before these "secure" systems are hacked and your stolen firearm becomes a SERIOUS liability because any crime committed with your "smart gun" pretty much automatically puts you in the clink!
Britain has never banned firearms. It has always been legal to won a licensed non-automatic shotgun, i.e. one without a magazine. You can also own a non automatic rifle, again providing you have the correct license. Most of these weapons are used for sport or gamekeeping.
After the Dunblane masacre there was a ban on all handguns, including models designed for target shooting, and some replicas, starting pistols and the like.
As Cedric pointed out you can also own air rifles, but these are limited in power.
I know of nobody that actually owns a weapon for protection, or home defense. Is there not an arguement to made that there is an escalation factor here? As an increase in avaialable pornography leads to a corrisponding increase in sexual crime, as an increase in the use of soft drugs leads to an increase in instances of addiction to harder drugs so the increased preavalence of weaponry, combined with there use in popular entertainment, leads to an increase in gun and gun related crime?
The only reason some people get lost in thought is because it's unfamiliar territory.
Is the burglar going to see your gun and say "Well, there's only a 90% chance it'll go off...."
If it doesn't work, just say really confidentally "Don't MAKE me enter the manual circuitry override code!"
paintball
Nobody ever got killed because I wore my seatbelt, bought insurance, locked my door, took a self-defense course, wore a helmet, used a surge protector, used a firewall, installed a fire extinguisher, or bought a car with airbags.
Thousands of people are shot every year because people bought guns.
See the difference?
Guns have a downside. Everything you mentioned, aside from cost, has no downside.
Your insurance will never burn your house down, but your gun very well might be used to shoot you, your kid, or just some random person if it's stolen from you.
paintball
Are smart lighters next? I won't even be able to light a girls cigarette at the bar with my buddies lighter?
Its in the fucking constitution and its there for a reason.
If I had a gun when I lived in Yugoslavia
I'd have fought back.
Maybe once in eight average lifetimes only a gun will protect you from murder. Maybe several times in an average lifetime a gun will protect you and/or yours from death or serious bodily harm from criminal activity. (Your mileage WILL vary greatly.) In each of these situations, maybe nineteen times in twenty showing the gun is enough, one time in twenty your "bluff gets called" and you actually have to FIRE the gun. ...
When one of these things happens, if you need your gun to fire it MUST fire.
I live in Texas, where we have a concealed hangun law. One must undergo (and pass) training to get such a permit.
One thing stressed heavily in every single class is that one does not pull out a gun with no intention of using it. Pulling out a gun in hopes that it will defuse or get a situation under control is beyond irresponsible. You are taught explictily that if you pull out your gun, you are going to fire it. Period. Pulling a gun on someone is going to enhance the severity of any situation you're in, not calm it down.
So anyway, your statement that 19/20 times you'll only need to pull a gun to get a situation under control is flat stupid. If you can't see the logic of it, perhaps you would benefit from a few hours of handgun training in Texas.
Guess the manufacturer will HAVE TO be using something like an EULA:
"By purchasing this weapon you agree to absolve the manufacturer of any liability due to its use, misuse or failure."
BTW googling did not find any reference to lawsuits for defective guns; a lot of lawsuits blaming the manufacturer for stupid use though.
I can't speak for everyone, but here's the deal for me:
When I lived in England, I had my place broken into (while I was gone). I don't know if you've ever been robbed, but it is a rather unpleasant thing. After said robbery, I would often have nightmares and even night tremors, which are really nasty.
When I returned to the U.S., I bought a house and had the same problem, for a short while... you see, I took a trip to my parents' place and picked up my 'ol 12 gauge. I stuck it under my bed and the feeling of security I get is invaluable. I am home nearly 24/7, so if anyone breaks in, I will likely be here.
I am single and nobody, and I really do mean nobody, has any business entering my home. I have a really squeeky floor outside my room, and if anyone should squeek their way past my door, they're in for a surprise, as I am an extremely light sleeper and they while likely wake me up upon entering my home.
So there... there's why I feel "I need a gun to shoot intruders in my home". You may feel that scaring them off with the pump of the shotgun is sufficient, but I would much rather shoot the intruder. You may think it's a warped sense of justice, but I personally feel that anyone that breaks into my home is a complete piece of shit that the world can do without.
This make any sense to you?
If it was REALLY smart it would only shoot cops.
This fear of home invasions by armed intruders is a fantasy perpetuated by Hollywood & the media. Unless one's a drug dealer or a Asian businessman the odds of falling victim to a [b]armed invasion[/b] in the home are so little that they are even less than the odds of being the victim of a firearm incident in a pub or the street.
Firearm incidents in the home are useally accidents or as a result of a act of impulsion/compulsion by a spouse, friend, relative or aquaintence, or maybe a combination of both (someones drunk & or lost it in a domestic & threatens another in a house with a gun & it accidently discharges, such incident are common as in demographics of high social dysfunction & firearm ownership)
The vast majority of intrusions into homes when residents are at home are cases where a desperate scrote burglar mistakingly thought the house was empty. In such situations all one need do is turn on the bedside light or make some noise (if during daylight) & the scrote will be out the door & running down the street as far as his abused body can take him.
As a regular & not so regular IV drug user & part-time dealer of 20 years standing I know this as I have known more than a few desperate scrotes in my time that habitually broke into peoples homes, & not one would ever have elected to continue to burglarise a home once they realised someone was home, well unless there's something valuable they saw within easy grab range (when the light when off or when they heard the noise) that they can take before pissing off.
Two things:
... not much else.
One: The article says the tech works 90% of the time. That's 100% unacceptable and will place lives at risk, which is why these laws always make an exception for the police, not requiring them to use the technology.
Two: Metalstorm is involved. If you've been deeply into guns for a long time, you know that "Metalstorm's newest thing" is the gun business equivalent of "Duke Nukem Forever" for gamers. There's interesting ideas, nice press releases, lots of PR, and
electronic assemblies tend to go dusty & have soldered joints that go 'dry' after a few years (5 year old computer monitors that have screens that go funny colours intimintently which are resolved by banging the side of the monitor useally have such problems)
Now can we imagine what effect the regular discharging of bullets in a smart gun would have in regards dry joints?
Blood or other materials on your hands
something happening to your hands (burns, calluses, or just plain rubbing off of your prints
Not to mention that often a smart gun requires proper hand placement. There is a big difference between checking your guns proper operation when you're safe, and trying to get it to unlock while your life is in danger.
If you own a gun and are serious about it, you'll take a class. In that class they will drill you repeatedly about the most basic aspects of shooting, like the safety. We all laugh at movies where the actor "forgets" to take the safety off, but when your life is in danger, it's something you might not remember to do. And flicking off the safety is extremely simple and straightforward.
Now add to to that the need to make sure your hands address the sensors properly. Shyeah, that's something you want to be thinking about when you're in imminent danger.
Also, I don't know about these guns, but in the past, smart guns have been shown to be VERY unreliable. Hence the other posters commenting on the police being completely unwilling to use them. Other guns, such as the glock, or (especially so) revolvers are nearly 100% reliable. Glocks have been buried in the sand, left in sea-water, and all sorts of other horrible conditions, pulled out, and fired, with no jams or failures.
Now lets see a glock sit buried in wet sad or the bottom of a riverbed for a week and fire with a smartgun system in it.
I grant you that this is an unlikely scenario, but the point is the reason people buy guns like that is for their reliability. When your life depends on something, you want to know it's going to work. Let me ask you this, if someone proposed putting these 'smart sensor' devices on your brakes, would you be real comfortable with that? Would you want to depend on proper biometric identification every time you had to use the brakes in your car?
"No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."
--James Madison
If the police aren't effective, lobby your representatives
How often does this actually have a positive effect? One man's note to his representative is basically worthless. A representative will only do something when he starts receiving many, many letters from his constituents. If you want to mobilize enough people to convince your representative to DO something, you're going to have to go on a campaign around your neighborhood and try to convince the masses that they aren't being effectively protected by their police force. Maybe they'll disagree, or just won't want to take the time to write a letter. Maybe there will be a force opposing you. (Like, say, the current police force, unhappy about your criticisms. See if they're will to protect you from criminals while you're lobbying against them.)
There are hundreds of obstacles in the way, and even if you were able to convince your representative in ONE DAY to mobilize, the police force wouldn't be changed for months. In the mean time, what do you do? Hope you're never attacked until the police are ready?
Granted, the odds of being attacked in your home are a thousand to one. But if the situation occurs where there is someone threatening me, I feel safer protecting myself, versus leaving my life in the hands of the police. Even if they have more training than me, it doesn't mean that I'm completely inept, I can defend myself.
This is where the gun control freaks start spitting flames, calling me a "gun nut" and that I think I'm Rambo because I would shoot someone that was trying to hurt me. Let's hear it guys, call me a psycho. I don't care what you say. The difference between me and you isn't that I'm some kind of sicko that gets off on playing cops and robbers with live ammo, the difference is that I'm not afraid to hold my life in my own hands. If the police happen to be helping defend me, that's great, I'd love to have someone else watching my ass too, but I'm sure as hell not going to sit and twiddle my thumbs, hoping that the good guys beat the bad guys.
Even in spite of everything I just said, I'm sure there will be several responses to this post, claiming that I think I'm John Wayne and I like to sling my gun around like a plaything. I really don't care what you believe about my gun habits, my mind is made up: A person's only SURE line of defense is to defend himself. Relying on other people is too uncertain. It's not a BAD thing to have police, I'd still call them if someone broke in, it's just not (in my opinion) safer to leave your life SOLELY in their hands.
Oh, and a couple more things.
Where do you think all those guns the "bad guys" have came from?
Well, did you ever think that perhaps they BOUGHT them? It's not impossible to buy a gun in this country. If your record is clean before you buy a gun, you just have to wait a couple weeks. Or, if you're a criminal and want a gun, you can have a friend who isn't a criminal go buy one for you. Not every homeowner who has a gun is stupid enough to let it get taken from him.
And to those who are about to tell their tales about homeowners hurting their own family members with their guns: The odds of being attacked in your own home are, let's say 1 in a 1000. (Not a factual number.) However, out of all the times that a criminal invaded someone's house, and a homeowner used a gun, how many times did he injure his own family? 1 in 100? That means that the average number of times a gun owner hurt his own family with his gun is 1 in 100000. Obviously, my numbers aren't exact, but anyone who would like to spend the time to look up the actual numbers would find that the odds of shooting your own family are on the same order of magnitude.
All that aside, if the situation were me in my home, protecting my family, I would have the good sense to make sure all my family was accounted for before I shot anyone. In fact, I wouldn't shoot anyone right away anyway; instead, I'd wait with my family in the basement, with my wife on the phone with the police. If someone came down and had a weapon in hand, then I'd shoot him. Is that crazy? Fair enough. But you, the sane one, are more likely to be killed than I am.
although with voting booths the DRM is "invisible" (meaning it's not spelled out). The ways votes can be manipulated are hard to see and hard to find out - if everyone's guns stop working, a lot of people will know, fast. I don't like computer voting because there are easier and more transparent ways to get rapid and simple voting procedures and because the companies implementing it may be neither trustworthy nor competent. That just wasn't the issue here.
1) "well-regulated" doesn't refer to the right to bear arms - the need for a well-regulated militia is the reason why the right to bear arms should not be infringed. The first clause explains, rather than constrains, the second.
2) the militia noted were organized by state - they weren't organized a a single force. Why might that be? Well, one good reason was so that the states could retain power in case the federal gov't got despotic. Geographic considerations and political organization factor in as well, but if defense of the US is the only reason to use militias, it doesn't make sense.
The point of the Constitution was to limit the rights of the government, not those of its people. The Bill of Rights exists solely to express the rights of the people, not the government, and not to limit those rights.
Have you looked at the discrepencies between pre kindergarden tests and future sat scores? Thats not going to work well and will lead to gross ineficencies in the economy. So no, its not the same. Even in the fictional world of Gattica, people still have the freedom to choose their future occupation.
I understand the basic critisism you are trying to make,even if the analogy is a bit off. Obviously, there are some situations where morality overrules any solution that is easier and cheaper than another solution. However, gun control is not one of them.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
One thing stressed heavily in every single class is that one does not pull out a gun with no intention of using it. Pulling out a gun in hopes that it will defuse or get a situation under control is beyond irresponsible. You are taught explictily that if you pull out your gun, you are going to fire it. Period. Pulling a gun on someone is going to enhance the severity of any situation you're in, not calm it down.
...", "attempted murder", "improper discharge of a firearm", ..., and the list grows further if you hit and injure or kill him.
I believe that either you misunderstood the lesson or the State of Texas law on the training program has done a slight tweak on the course for their permit requirements.
The rule is that you make the decision that you ARE AREADY JUSTIFIED in using the gun and WILL use the gun if necessary before you pull and point it. This is for several reasons:
- If you actually have to use it you aren't fatally delayed by making the decision on-the-fly.
- If you weren't already legally justified in using deadly force, pulling it is "brandishing", pointing it is "assault with a deadly weapon", firing it "aggravated assault with
It is not a requirement that you actually fire if you draw. In the real world the usual result is that the crook turns and runs (perhaps yelling "House shoots! House shoots!" to his buddies) as soon as the gun is visible. (Once he's turned you may NOT shoot in most jurisdictions, although Texas MAY be one where you still can.) And even if the crook is armed only with a knife, club, or a strong arm and is six feet away you may have to draw/aim/fire as nearly one motion to avoid being disarmed or having your gun hand knocked off-aim.
But the point is that you made the decisions that you are legally (and morally) justified to shoot, and you will do so, before you drew. You do NOT draw in the hope that the show will scare him off. (You just take that as a welcome bonus if it occurs - and occurs quickly enough that you can abort firing.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
First off, realise that the gun carried by the average burglar will always be at least as reliable as the average homeowner's gun.
That means your best chance against an armed burglar is to avoid a gunfight altogether. This is where unreliable weaponry helps: You need guns that are reliable enough to pose a threat that can't be ignored, and yet unreliable enough that nobody will want to use them if there is any alternative - such as running away.
The principle of mutually assured destruction at work.
More components mean more points of potential failure.
Unreliable weaponry is preferable to reliable ditto. A gun at 90% reliability is an excellent deterrent, but a lousy attack weapon.
Which is exactly the combination we should be going for.
Call me crazy but what are the chances that this could be a "back door" method of disarming the public. What would happen if a High-energy radio-frequency Weapon is directed by the government at these type of guns? Would they be permanently disabled? If so, then how can we, the people, defend ourselves from the government if the government turns against it's people.
To bring this theory a little down to earth, could Terrorists use such a device to disable our guns during an attack?
How can anyone truly trust such a weapon if at any moment it can be rendered useless?
Kimber TLE 2 here. Exactly 950 rounds through it so far (owned it for 4 months now). Absolute perfection. Now it just needs a new mainspring and maybe a seer job to lighten the trigger pull ;)
Either you know what you're talking about and are deliberately downplaying the danger posed by a knife, or you don't have a clue, but I confess I can't tell which.
Old martial arts joke #1:
Q: What do you call a guy who dies in hospital two days after a knife fight?
A: The winner.
Old martial arts joke #2:
Don't bring a knife to a gun fight.
Don't bring a gun to a knife fight.
Old (but true) martial arts story #3:
Several law enforcement agencies changed their firearms rules of engagement after discovering accidentally (they were trying to study something else at the time) that even a highly trained officer cannot draw his firearm and reliably discharge it to stop a knife-wielding aggressor from 7 metres away before a fatal wound is inflicted using the knife.
If we're talking about home defence, you're welcome to keep your handguns, "smart" or otherwise. I'll take an assault weapon and kevlar body armour, a knife, and a handgun, in that order, thanks. And despite what you may have heard, you can teach anyone the basics of how to use a knife in about an hour, and they will be pretty much 100% lethal against anyone; the only question is whether what the other guy's packing will return the favour along the way. There are a lot more ways to fatally wound someone with a knife than just stabbing (though stabbing is most effective).
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Absolutely: it sounds pretty clear that you would shoot first and (maybe) ask questions later, which should automatically remove whatever otherwise reasonable legal rights you might have had to bear arms.
If you'd been a paramedic, you'd know that you might actually be required to enter someone's home (normally with a police escort to gain access) in response to a report that the owner was incapacitated, for example. Please consider how you'd feel if you shot the paramedic/police officer who'd come to your home in response to such a call after you passed out and a worried friend/relative/neighbour called in that you hadn't been seen. And before you claim that you'd have answered the door when they knocked and called in, consider that if they're there in the first place, maybe you actually did pass out, have a fit, or otherwise miss their call without knowing it.
How about a case that's closer to the gray area: if an unfortunate young child, forced into working as a thief for someone else, breaks into someone's home to steal something, do they deserve to be shot dead? Is that proportionate? Were they any threat to you, and did you have no more moderate means of defending yourself?
I don't mind you having a weapon to defend your home, or for that matter as a last resort to defend your civil liberties. I do mind you having an attitude where you'd open fire without knowing what you were shooting at, ever, even in your own home.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Bosnia voted to separate from Yugoslavia.
2 G.html
Milosevic didn't like that, so he
released criminals and mental patients
and made them part of the Serbian army,
and then set them all loose on the civilian population.
As to why Bosnia (and Croatia, Slovenia)
wanted to separate, and the real reason behind the war read
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO20
So the collectors are all going to go away? The people who believe in their right to keep and bear arms are all going to go away? Are they (the government) mandate retro-fitting all firearms to a "smart" configuration - thus ruining their balance, feel and value as collector's items? Are they going to PAY for it. Ain't going to happen. While I'm no NRA member or right-wing whack-o, the minute they outlaw "standard" firearms will be the day I go out and buy one. Lee Darrow, C.H.
Glock 21 (.45) and Springfield XD-9 (9mm)
Neither one has given me any trouble even on my occasional 400 round days as for CCW just remember "Each bullet comes with a lawsuit attached"
Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice doggie" until you can find a rock. Will Rogers
On http://futurefeedforward.com/front.php?fid=15 it was already mentioned years ago like so many other stories here.
...
/. that sounds familiar because this FFF guy already wrote about it in some way or another.
"Microsoft Announces Handguns with Web Access"
"PHOENIX--Microsoft today unveiled its latest effort to ensure that the Web is accessible "everywhere through everything" and that versions of its Windows operating system become "ubiquitous and necessary, like the air we breathe." Speaking to a skeptical audience at CUEC (Conference on Ubiquitous and Environmental Computing), CEO Steve Ballmer revealed that Microsoft has acquired rights to the legendary Colt brand and has a custom version of Windows for Handguns currently in beta testing."
"Ballmer also demonstrated the Kodak Gun-Cam, one of the many peripherals in the works. The small camera plugs into the e.Colt's USB port and gathers real-time footage through a patented down-the-sights view. "There's lots of important uses for this," noted Ballmer. "With Windows HG's remote firing capability and personal server functionality, you could set your gun up somewhere, then, from anywhere in the world, keep track of what it's aiming at and, when you're ready, fire. We expect something like this to be really big for rifle manufacturers interested in building the remote hunting market.""
Now and again I come across a story on
Of course you provided no evidence in support of your rant. You don't even consider that in most case of home invasion or assault the simple display of a firearm will send a criminal running. The answer to accidental shootings is not no guns, but rather proper gun training. Considering that there are something like 80 millions privately owed guns in America, most people are doing a pretty good job of keeping their firearms safe. Of course there is always going to be some idiot who points a weapon that they were SURE was unloaded at someone and ends up injuring or killing them, but that is no reason to take the principle tool of self-defence away from safe, law abiding citizens. Many studies have shown that private gun ownership is correlated with lower levels of crime. A survey of prisoners showed that they were more afraid of a private citizen with a gun than of the police. You only have those rights which you can actually defend.
I grant you that this is an unlikely scenario, but the point is the reason people buy guns like that is for their reliability. When your life depends on something, you want to know it's going to work. Let me ask you this, if someone proposed putting these 'smart sensor' devices on your brakes, would you be real comfortable with that? Would you want to depend on proper biometric identification every time you had to use the brakes in your car?
I'm sorry but I drive my car daily. My life has never been in danger to the point where having a gun would be the one and only way to save me. I love guns, but I've never needed one, I don't even own one (living in NYC, if I lived upstate I'd deffinitely own a few rifles because at least I can use them, but I don't think the neighbors would like it much if I started shooting targets out back.)
Having a smart gun wouldn't bother me, having smart brakes, that doesn't sound like too good of an idea because usually when I'm pressing the brakes, 99% of the time it's a life or death situation where I depend on them working (except when I'm in stop and go traffic.) I think when choosing what to put smart technology on, something with the primary purpose of hurting or killing someone should have it more than a device meant to stop your vehicle from smashing into something.
Bottom Line is that "There are simply too many points of failure in this technology for it to ever work 100% and when your life is on the line you aren't going to settle for anything less". Besides the "points of failure" I think that they are approaching the issue the wrong way. A very good article at http://www.lp.org/lpnews/0011/libsolutions.html explains a few of the problems with gun ownership in the United States and why as a supposed country of "gun owners" we still have such a rampant amount of violent crime. two quick excerpts from the article As a matter of fact, a view of gun ownership from an international perspective can be very enlightening about the efficacy of firearms as a crime-fighting tool when left in the hands of private citizens. In Switzerland every adult male is required, by law, to keep in his home a fully automatic assault rifle for militia service. Shooting is practically a national pastime, and a permit to carry a handgun is easily obtained. Far from attacking those it views as "stockpiling" weapons, surplus military rifles are made available by the Swiss government for around $50 each. Far from having blood running in the streets, crime in Switzerland is virtually non-existent -- putting even England's peaceful reputation to shame. And this in a country of gun-owners! and For example, a study by economist John Lott revealed that when laws are passed to give people the right to carry concealed handguns, murder rates go down by 8.5% and rape by 5%. If every state had such concealed-carry laws, reported Lott, there would be 1,600 fewer murders nationally and 4,200 fewer rapes each year. Jason
Jay Dale "If you're not living on the edge then you're taking up too much space!"
About 1950, A.E. van Vogt published "The Weapon Shops of Isher" in which one of the themes was the existence of a network of subversive shops, selling weapons to every 2nd Amendment nutcase, but with restrictions [only the owner, only defensive, no cops allowed].
I'm going to ask you to engage in a simple thought-experiment.
The parameters:
* You are a burglar.
* You have a sense of self-preservation.
* You are not a complete idiot.
* Your potential targets consist of houses that may or may not have guns.
* You can see some houses with NRA stickers and gun racks in the back of the vehicles.
* You can see some houses with "War is Not the Answer" signs in the front yard.
* Some of the houses with "War is Not the Answer" signs also have NRA stickers.
* Some of the houses have neither "War is Not the Answer" signs or NRA stickers.
* All of the houses appear to have someone home.
* You have a limited amount of time to burgle a house.
* You are armed with a 9mm semi-auto that you purchased off the street with a 15-round clip.
Explain what criteria you would use to choose a house to burgle. Does that criteria include self-preservation considerations? Would the probable presence of a firearm in a potential target influence your decision? In what way?
The majority of times that a gun is used to prevent a crime, it is not fired. However, this does not make good news, therefore we do not read about it nor watch it on the evening news.
On a slightly different note, I find it interesting when someone uses the "If it saves the life of one child, it's worth it!" arguments *for* gun-control, but dismisses the same argument when it can be shown that a child's life would have been saved if a gun had been available to defend the child's life.
You are all assuming that the smart guns will work every time you need them to. I have had a "smart gun" since 1977. It is a Smith & Wesson modle 25, 45 auto revolver, modified with a trigger block released only by wearing a special magnetic ring. The weapon will only fire if the ring is worn on the proper finger of the firing hand (magnatrigger). http://www.tarnhelm.com/ However, the [positioning of the ring is very sensitive. Often, I have found the gun would not fire because the ring was a couple of millimeters out of range of the device's magnet. During rapid fire, only 2 or 3 rounds can be fired without repositioning the hand on the grip. As annoying as this is, it would be unacceptable in a "shoot or die" situation. In stressful situations, or during a hand to hand struggle, it is not pratical to double check your hand position on the grip. You just want it to work, and work everytime!!!! I dont think that this new smart gun would be any less sensitive to proper hand positioning. Dying because your hand was a few mm offposition is not acceptable.
We have about 240,000 doctors and 11,000 reported accidential deaths per years.
But 4.2 million guns and only 1,200 accidential deaths per year.
What is more dangerous? Doctor killed 100 times more often than guns do.
Mmmm...
Strangely enough, Switzerland - the country where you can find the most "house-guns" - is also the country in Europe where you find also the highest number of gun related deaths.
With it's gun pollitics, Switzerland is a kind of "mini-USA" inside Europe.
But as other slashdotters said, firing military weapons at home is prohibited, striclty controlled and severly punished, so the death isn't as bad as it is in USA.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
It's only logical that where there are guns (or any other dangerous objects) there are deaths and/or injuries related to said dangerous objects. I'm NOT saying that guns are no more dangerous than dandelions...nothing could be further from my point.
I am saying that not owning guns is, for a society, more dangerous than owning guns. Tyrants like unarmed peasants. There's a reason that Switzerland has never been invaded.
The pacifist ideal is suicide. Just ask the Tibetans.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Or maybe because we're just a bunch of small village hidden in the moutain that does not represent a target strategically interesting enough to be worth wasting ressource on it.
If you're a mad tyran, invading us means
pro : no more hole on you megalomiac map.
con : if Switzerland get destroyed, so get its banking system, include all the parts that you, the tyran, have inside our banks. Definilty not a good idea.
Then you should do some research on the meaning of"Mutual Assured Destruction" (hint: try Here)
and realise that trying to always have the biggest weapon isn't a very brillant solution either.
So all these accidents, all the small children doing stupid things, all the drunk/psychotic people using weapon when arguing, all morons shooting first and think aftwerward, all people commiting suicide using the wepons they have home, are all these worth the perceived increase of security attributed to having guns at home ?
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I belong to the JPFO, so my use of liberal kykes was referring to the pussies in Germany being herded like sheep and the pseudo Jews Ashkinasi pussies in North America - liberal pussies who know nothing of the FRONT LINE. Real sephardic Jews like ME with a spine that dont put up with Yasser Towelfat and the Al Aksa Martyrs brigade! Look how after Towelfat's death, Abbas is starting to try a cleanup. Death to Towelfat's legacy.
The root of Kyke is simple circle, referring to the yarmulke/kipah - hardly racist. Its like saying, Hey CIRCLE HAT MAN! Oh no, oh for CHRISTS SAKE NO! Not the dreader CIRCLE HAT SLUR!
Kyke, Hebe, hook-nose, Shylock, or what the Arab pig-dogs call us, "Al Halsuada," Bagel Dog, Bar code, Camper, Caphead, Chakh-Chakh"
Jews noses are so big that when they walk into a wall with a boner they break a nose.
Confuse a Jew? Circular room, tell him there is a penny in the corner.
How do Jews play football? They try to get the Quarter back.
Semiautomatic assault weapons are not machine guns of the sort used by Al Capone. The sale or transfer of fully automatic machine guns, which automatically feed ammunition into the chamber so that one depression of the trigger automatically sprays multiple bullets as long as the trigger is pulled, were restricted by the National Firearms Act of 1934 (see The Six Federal Gun Laws). These fully automatic machine guns are still available, but acquiring them requires the payment of a significant tax, a thorough FBI background check, and the approval of local law enforcement officials. Moreover, as replacement parts for these truly military guns become harder to find, the price of these weapons has steadily increased while their availability have declined.
Semiautomatic assault weapons are only slightly less deadly than machine guns. Pulling the trigger on these guns fires a single bullet, but also automatically loads the next bullet into the chamber, so that the user can fire up to 30 bullets in five seconds by repeatedly pulling the trigger. The best-known semi-automatic weapons, including the Israeli UZI, the Chinese-made SKS rifle and the Soviet AK-47 were all developed for military use, and are ill-suited for hunting.
The Gun Control Act of 1968 allows the government to prohibit the import of guns not designed for sporting purposes, which most certainly includes assault weapons. As crimes committed with assault weapons increased, President George H. W. Bush took the first step in controlling these weapons by banning certain imported assault rifles in 1989.[...]
Although it took four years and enormous public support to overcome the National Rifle Association's implacable opposition, the 1994 crime bill specifically banned the future manufacture and importation of semiautomatic assault weapons with no hunting or sporting purpose. The crime bill defines semiautomatic assault weapons both with a list of 19 specifically banned weapons, and with objective criteria designed to ban the futher production of these weapons clearly intended and accessorized for military or criminal use. The crime bill also banned the future manufacture and import of large-capacity ammunition magazines holding more than 10 bullets.
The brady campaign website - the people who designed the assault weapons ban of 1994