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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"."
One EMP pulse and you're disarmed. Thanks, but we're not interested.
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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
Now on the otherhand my Marlin 336SS has an extremely high failure rate. In the 3-4 years I've owned it I've had it jam up so bad I have to disassemble it to unjam it. In fact it's jammed up this very moment and I can't get the thing apart. I have to send it back to the factory for repair. That gun's failure rate is more than a little unacceptable. My Marlin 1894 hasn't ever had a problem though. Odd. It must be a manufaturing error in my 336.
You last sentence is a good one. I used the same arguement when I wrote to my state's senators last year when we were trying to get a CCW law passed (house passed it, Senate passed it with a veto-proof majority, the governess vetoed it. grrr). One of the good senators tried to introduce alternate language while the bill was in committee that would only allow the CCW permits to be issued for tasers and other non-lethal defensive weapons. Your arguement is the defense to that senator's language. The police don't trust the technology so why should I? Now let me expand on that. The police do use tasers. In fact they are becoming extremely common which is both a good and bad thing. The police however do not solely relay on tasers. They of course carry conventional firearms. Whenever you see cops enter a building with a non-lethal weapon to root out a suspect they never go in alone. They have at least one officer at their side with a conventional firearm drawn and ready to use. Stun guns don't always work. The clothing might be too thick. The probes might bounce off a large button, pin, cell phone, pocket protector, flask, bottle of jack, etc. It might hit the person's leather belt. It could hit in any number of places or ways that would render it useless. That also assumes the person firing it actually hits their target. Most consumer versions of stun guns are single-shot only. The user would have to reload to take a second shot. Since the range is usually limited to a about 15 feet (Taser International's product limitations) and since the minimum safe distance recommended by all personal safety classes is about 20 feet (see my previous post from tonight) the user wouldn't be able to reload the weapon, aim and fire again before the attacker was on them. Heck they'd already have to be in the person's buffer zone for the rounds to reach them period. The rounds aren't exactly the fastest in the world either so dodging them isn't impossible. Taser rounds aren't cheap either. How is a typical user supposed to practice with their gun when each round costs in the neighborhood of $20 or 7% of the cheapest Taser I found on the market (I just searched using Froogle for both the gun and the ammo). Practice makes perfect but apparently not if you can't afford to practice with your gun. .50AE rounds aren't even that bad. Neither are 470 Nitro Express rounds. Sheesh. You'd think the rounds were gold encased.
Yeah, I think "smart" guns are for idiots and any law requiring their use must also be crafted by the same. Anyhow, I'm starting to rant. Nice Springfield though. I want a Kimber Gold Combat II.
Gun control laws don't work so there's no point discussing them.
Guns can be reliable. They can also fail miserably. I do an excellent job maintaining my guns and ammo. Still I've experienced many failures. Few however were the fault of the gun (the 336 and SKS problem certainly are though). Adding electronics to a gun won't make it more reliable though. It will undoubtedly make it more likely to fail. Suddenly we'll be faced with the prospect of guns that have to be serviced every 200 shots, or guns that only have a shelf-life of 5 years. That's absurd. I made a lot of other points about the "smart" gun in other threads. Check my profile if you want to read them. I think I asked some interesting questions though. With blood on your hand with the "smart" gun still recognize you, for example?
The rise in guncrime is predominantly unrelated to the ban on public ownership.
The majority of firearms on the streets are actually converted air-pistols and other weapons not originally sold to fire gunpowder propelled projectiles.
Even if gun ownership was legal (and hell, it still is for shotguns and some other weapons) the level of gun crime would have risen.
~cederic