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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 :)
I for one welcome our sentient weapon overlords
If you're dealing with someone who has the foresight to use an EMP pulse, and has the equipment necessary to do it, you have bigger things to worry about.
- oZ
// i am here.
good grief that's offtopic
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
Good idea. Criminalize carrying a gun. That will stop the criminals -- they always obey the law. If this actually works, I say that we pass a law requiring all criminals to report to their nearest police station for arrest. That will clean up the streets.
People who fill out the paperwork for a conceled permit, take the manditory safely training course, pay the rather large fee, and get fingerprinted (I have been through this process) are the ones most likely to obey the law. A criminal will NOT go through all of this trouble, and a criminal would not be stopped by a law criminalizing concealed carry.
"-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
As long as this stays in New Jersey and doesn't come to the United States, I think we're safe.
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?