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Using Technology To Make Guns Safer
Hugh Pickens writes writes "Farhad Manjoo writes that there are a number of technologies that gunmakers could add to their products that might prevent hundreds or thousands of deaths per year. One area of active research is known as the 'smart gun' — a trigger-identification system that prevents a gun from being fired by anyone other than its authorized user. Researchers at New Jersey Institute of Technology created a working prototype of a gun that determines whether or not to fire based on a user's 'grip pattern.' Gunmakers have been slow to add other safety technologies as well, including indicators that show whether a gun is loaded, and 'magazine safeties' that prevent weapons from being fired when their ammunition magazine is removed (PDF). That could save 400 lives a year. So why aren't gunmakers making safer guns? Because guns are exempt from most of the consumer safety laws that have improved the rest of American life. The Consumer Product Safety Commission, charged with looking over thousands of different kinds of products, is explicitly prohibited from regulating firearms. In 2005, Congress passed and President George W. Bush signed the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which immunizes gun makers against lawsuits resulting from 'misuse' of the products. If they can't be sued and can't be regulated, gunmakers have no incentive to make smarter guns." Note that gun safety features (not universally loved) like loaded-chamber indicators, grip safeties, and magazine disconnects are constantly evolving and have been available in some form and in various combinations for many decades, so gun makers seem to have some incentive to produce and improve them, and that the PLCAA does not prevent consumer safety lawsuits, but does shield gun makers from suits based on criminal conduct by gun buyers (though imperfectly).
Are kind of missing the point. If you actually need to use a gun, you don't want a ton of hardware that will prevent it from firing when you pull the trigger.
Ask the Army if they really want their guns locked to only work when they pull the trigger, so when they pick up a fallen soldier's gun in the middle of a battle after running out of ammo it won't fire.
These guns aren't for the army, their for the typical idiot consumer.
I remember this old story on the news that a 3 year old picked up a gun, not knowing what it was, and shot his(?) mother when she tried to take it back.
This would prevent stories like that.
The author mostly had me with the first half of the article, then went overboard praising the Product Safety Commission and even worse, safety-related lawsuits. I'm glad guns are exempt -- many if not most product safety lawsuits are shining examples of why we need tort reform.
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is one of those obvious legalities that you would think you shouldnt have to have.
It's like the family that sued Cessna after their father, with insufficient training, crashed and died. (I guess its not his fault he didnt know how to fly)
Or the people who sue the bar for the drunk who rams their car. (i guess its not his fault he was too drunk to drive)
Or the guy who cut off his finger on a table saw, and sued Sears for not including the tech that automagically stops the saw. (I guess its not his fault he put hs finger on a frigging saw blade)
The MFR simply makes the product.
The owner still carries full weight and responsibility for proper use and misuse.
Shouldnt have to have a law to state that.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
The key to having an improvement in design implemented is that it must be acceptable to the buyer. It can't reduce the utility of the gun. The fact that a gun doesn't have a network of potentially unreliable sensors in it that identify a user by his grip means that gun can't be used with the other hand, or may fail to identify the user if he grips differently when under stress. One that recognizes fingerprints won't work if he's wearing a glove, using the other hand or has foreign material on his finger. These would be unacceptable to buyers. They're not going anywhere. If they have electronics of any kind, they need batteries. Why would you want to add a battery to a gun? The only one mentioned that makes sense to me is the ammo-clip lockout. That's simple to implement and would prevent accidental firing if a person forgets to eject the bullet in the chamber.
My Hi-Point C9 will not fire if the magazine is out of the pistol, even if a round is chambered. Looks like its already being done.
We're basically talking about adding technology to made guns NOT WORK, which means you are just adding another potential layer of failure to prevent the weapon from working. You want to know what solves most of those problems?, gun safes, which won't add a single potential failure layer to the overall picture.
Note: magazine safeties prevent you from clearing the firearm, which means you can't guarantee it's not loaded.
Uhh, I think you mean someone watched License to Kill and liked the idea. No doubt the idea has been in fiction since long before 1989, but that's the oldest reference I know of (I was six at the time).
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With a gun, like with climbing gear, the responsibility for saftey lies solely between the ears of the operator. The safest gun, like the safest climbing gear, is the one with the simplest possible operation that functions exactly the same way every time. Anything that creates the illusion that some component of the system can be relied upon to be responsible for the safety of the system ultimately lowers the safety of the system because it:
1) Increases the mechanical complexity of the system. More parts to fail, jam, or otherwise not operate as expected
2) Changes the behavior of the system based on the configuration. You shouldn't create a system that develops a sense of complacency in users because it's safe to do something in one configuration but not in another. In a situation that isn't intentionally firing the gun, a user shouldn't pull the trigger on a weapon without checking the chamber because he or she is relying on a magazine safety to prevent it from firing. At some ponit, encouraging this fundamentally dangerous behavior will come back and bite some user in the ass because they'll do the fundamentally unsafe thing when the system isn't in the "safe" configuration of having the magazine removed.
People get complacent, and complacency results in people doing unsafe things.
The reason why the PLCAA was passed was to prevent executive agencies from attempting to implement their own de-facto gun control via regulation, and to shut down a spate of lawsuits by a couple of states Attorneys General who were attempting to do the same thing via litigation on cases that had little to no basis in law, but were so costly that the manufacturers would have to "cave in" and settle.
As for the other features, they all suffer from a glaring weakness in that it is trivially easy to bypass them in one way or another. Let's keep in mind that firearms are, at their core, just a pipe with a relatively simple mechanism behind it to smack a pin into the back of a cartridge. Even autoloading mechanisms only have a few parts, and it is physically impossible to prevent someone from disassembling the weapon and jamming the mechanism into a permanent "fire" mode with a drop of glue, a small screw, or even by just taking some lever out. All that it really would do is add cost and reduce reliability.
Show me how exactly can you aim well after getting woken up by a break-in. Sometimes, the burglars will freeze in place, standing and shouting obscenities at you so you can aim at _one_. Sometimes. Usually, it's quick action, where even a trained soldier would likely miss a lot. Oh, and you have multiple opponents.
Also, against rational criminals one bullet would be enough: the risk of being the one who gets shot is enough of a deterrent, so they'll leave you alone. The problem is, most criminals are anything but rational. Alcohol and/or drugs don't help them think straight.
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Then you carry two guns.
The gun is always loaded.
In other words, always treat a gun like it's loaded even if you don't think it is.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Many gun owners seem to be particular about the amount and type of safety mechanisms they will accept on a gun. One good example is the key lock system that you see on Taurus and S&W Revolvers. It's just a small mechanism w/ special key that renders the gun inoperable if locked, and it is completely optional, however it's not difficult to see cases of individuals refusing to buy one for that reason alone, or looking to get a "pre-lock" version of the weapon.
Bork Bork Bork!!
except in the case of an incompetent shooter (i.e. poor aim).
Right, because when someone walks into your store and you grab your gun to defend yourself, you are going to be perfectly calm and stable and hit the robber with all 3 of your rounds.
This is the same nonsense I hear from people who say they carry and they'll shoot anyone that tries to rob them. As if the robber is going to wait for them to pull out their gun instead of telling them to empty their pockets and getting a second gun.
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Which one of these two guns should be banned and why?
3 rounds...why 3 rounds? when I worked as a paramedic I treated a coke head who'd been shot 7 times and was still raging...what if a private citizen had been attacked by him? 3 rounds would've just pissed him off...
I am pretty sure that most people have poor aim.
And theoretically private citizens are allowed guns partly to protect them from the government and invasion. And if you actually get in a firefight with the government or an invading army you would need more than three rounds.
Not to mansion that that would completely ruin the fun of owning a fully automatic weapon.
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Yeah, that's what I want. A gun that I know might not fire if I'm not gripping it completely consistently. My laptop won't even log me in via my fingerprint half the time. If I pull the trigger, I want it to fire 100% of the time.
If I pull the trigger while a bullet is chambered but the mag is out, it's because I pretended to disarm it when someone else had a gun on me and I still want the chambered one to fire. If I REALLY want to disarm it, I'll un-chamber the last round, which takes approx 0.25 seconds in most pistols.
If you need a special indicator to tell you if the gun is loaded because you don't know how to check otherwise, you shouldn't have a gun, because you're an idiot.
What they really need to do is keep guns out of the hands of idiots who don't know what they're doing. That would solve all the problem actually.
That's a great idea, indeed. Morons.
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Since firearms accidents are quite rare (you're more than five times more likely to die in a fire than a gun accident, with just 600 out of 128,200 unintentional injury deaths in 2009 being from firearms), and "smart gun" technologies mostly would interfere with the ability to quickly deploy guns for defensive purposes, the call for these technologies ranges from well-intentioned ignorance to a back-door attempt to drive up the price of guns and make self-defense tools unavailable to poor people.
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If you put yourself in the mindset of someone who owns a weapon for personal defense, then the single most important safety feature is that the weapon goes "bang" when the trigger is pulled. From an engineering standpoint, any additional gizmos on the gun to keep it from going "bang" on command are *guaranteed* to reduce reliability. If someone is coming at you with deadly force, having an unreliable gun in your hand is a huge safety issue.
This particular gun design debate is similar to the "Boeing versus Airbus" design philosophy debate, and for similar reasons: ultimately, do you let the safety systems over-ride the pilot, or do you let the pilot over-ride the safety systems?
So a machine designed to kill people, and was recently used by a child to kill lots of people, can be made to kill fewer people?
I have an idea, ban guns. Same as Europe, where the death rate from guns is a tiny fraction of the death rate from guns in the US. And before the Republicans and NRA talk their ***p, no the overall rate is far lower too.
The gun enables kill options, that simply wouldn't be possible if you only were armed with a knife and reducing the number of guns means criminals with guns are a lot easier to catch spot and arrest.
If the kid didn't have a gun, then the schoolkids would be alive today. The NRA caused those deaths with their lobbying.
Isn't grip recognition essentially DRM for guns?
It prevents usage from an unauthorized user.
An unauthorized user would take steps to remove this feature from the gun before use.
How many deaths occur from someone picking up a gun and using it before having time to test fire it and thus having time to remove this feature?
Premeditated attacks will not be significantly reduced.
Accidents will be reduced so there is some benefit there.
My main concern with this idea is how often would this method fail to identify an authorized user?
From the linked document, it appears to identify a grip by finger placement and possibly pressure.
Considering the difference between one user's grip and pressure is supposed to be detectable then small changes in someone's grip would mark them as unauthorized.
In a tense moment when a gun might be needed, someone shifts their grip and is suddenly unauthorized.
Whatever the failure rate of this detection system, that rate is a possible number of times that someone would be unable to fire their weapon when they may need it.
If a soldier would be unable to trust their weapon to fire there is quite a bit of loss of confidence in them defending themselves.
So, in short, I'm concerned that this will function just like video game DRM: It's fairly easily removed by unauthorized users so that authorized users have trouble with the feature where unauthorized users do not.
A serious flaw exists whether or not we have smart guns. The individual who is contemplating a crime with a gun as their tool doesn't care if they know that a bullet is in the chamber, or of the magazine is in. Their goal is to commit a crime. Hell, someone could be killed with a #2 pencil. Where are the smart pencils? What about smart kitchen knives that automatically dull themselves when the user is about to cut their finger? Smart guns just will not work as long as there are crazed idiots out there who somehow manage to obtain a gun.
The article and especially the summary is completely wrong about their central claim "gunmakers have no incentive...". Of course that's typical - anti-gunners would never shoot, never handle a firearm, so they normally have no idea what they are talking about. The supreme requirement in a firearm is RELIABILITY. If you are in a situation where you actually have to fire your sidearm, you die if it doesn't work right that time. A defensive weapon has to work every single time. That's why the 1911 design is still the second most popular model over a hundred years later - because it's been proven reliable. That's why you keep firearms simple - complex things break. That's also why you definitely don't add a bunch of complexity designed to make the gun NOT WORK if something isn't perfect - it has to fire, or an innocent person dies. It's only people who don't know about firearms, or about dealing with bad guys in general, who think something like "fingerprinting" one persons particular grip sounds like a good idea. It does sound good, until you think about the fact that the user is UNDER ATTACK. They may very well have to fire with their other hand, after the BG smashes their right arms with a baseball bat, car, stabs them with a knife ....
These "smart guns" look cool in movies, but anyone with any tactical experience or training knows they are only movie props. In real life, these ideas would get good guys killed every day. If you've never even been trained in USING a firearm, please don't pontificate about how they be be designed.
How dare those evil gun makers not make their products more fragile, less likely to fire and more prone to failure! If only guns could be made as safe as a child's toy,
Firearms manufacturers certainly do have an incentive to make their products safer. Just not an incentive so powerful as to completely over-ride other concerns, as the poster would like. Everyone would like a safer firearm and most are even happy to pay extra for it - IF it still functions reliably, IF it isnt TOO MUCH more. Systems currently available tend to be very expensive and have serious drawbacks, which limits their sales. As those systems are refined and perfected people sales will improve. But the manufacturers have to actually provide a system that the customers are happy with, rather than rushing to break things that we rely on in order to make victim-disarmament advocates... well, celebrate and then go right back on the attack shortly after, I am sure.
This is what really eats him up. He doesnt like firearms manufacturers offering what firearms buyers want in the first place, and he'd like to see any law passed that would interfere.
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And because you've never encountered it, that means it could never happen, right?
Anecdote != data.
Oh, and there are plenty of shotguns that carry more than 3 rounds, which can be bought at many sporting goods stores. The 3 round limit is usually a hunting regulation.
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Two reasons:
1) How can you make something "safe" that has the explicit purpose of being fatal
2) therefore a gun NOT firing when needed is seen as a DECLINE in safety.
bickerdyke
Show me how exactly can you aim well after getting woken up by a break-in.
The best defense against home break-ins is to move away from high-crime areas.
Better to limit all non-professional firearms to 3 rounds (shotgun, iirc, already are).
That's only for waterfowl hunting. Shotguns with higher capacities are perfectly legal and easy to obtain. In fact, many come with higher-capacity tubes and an insert that prevents it being fully loaded. It is then perfectly legal to remove the insert, but illegal to go duck/goose hunting with it removed.
Show me how exactly can you aim well after getting woken up by a break-in.
It's called point shooting and it's something you can't train for at many ranges (e.g. pretty much any indoor range) because their rules prohibit shooting across lanes and rapid fire. Most will permit double-tap, but that's about it. But of course, it's best done with a semi-automatic pistol... something comfortable and with a very light trigger, like a 1911 or a BHP.
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I remember seeing a Tales of the Gun on the History channel (you know, back when they did history) that included smart gun technology. The prototype had a watch-sized wristband that had to be behind the gun for it to be able to fire. This was maybe 10-15 years ago. The fact that it is still not out shows how difficult these kinds of countermeasures are to bring into practice.
Also, by Taurus PT-22 (use it for carry and plinking) has 3 different safety mechanisms. One is a standard switch safety. The second immobilizes the slide when the magazine is removed. The third is actually a built-in lock that is turned by an allen wrench that also prevents the firearm from discharging. My Sig Sauer SP2022 has only a loaded chamber indicator. However, may main safety when it comes to firearms is simply not keeping a round in the chamber.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
So the answer to solve the problem of people with emotional/psychological problems, or plain drunk, or whatever having weapons is to keep selling them weapons, but with extra features and more expensive?
That is the answer for the question of how to get more profit for the gun makers, not for making guns madshooter proof.
It's fairly well understood that the sound of racking (that's the proper term, I believe) a shotgun actually will not scare away an intruder. I wish it did--I'd much rather have the bad guy run away than have to shoot him.
Secondly, if you want a larger spread, you don't get a larger barrel--it's 12gauge (or 40, or whatever) all the way down. You can get barrels with different chokes, which constrict the opening at the end of the barrel to various degrees.
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Last I was aware, magazine safeties were pretty ubiquitous on semiautomatic handguns.
Nope. They are common, but far from ubiquitous. Two reasons:
1) Some older designs simply don't have them.
2) Some people don't want them. If you're thinking about the "lightning strikes" scenarios, then it's possible you'd suddenly want to fire that last round halfway through changing mags...
The editor, timothy, corrected the egregious errors in the submission while letting the parts worthy of commentary and debate stand. He did what an editor is supposed to do! Maybe 12/22 will be the end of the world after all, and this is one of the first signs of the imminent apocalypse!
Speaking of which, automatic firearms are already banned, unless you go through a rigorous screening process. Nearly all handguns today, and many rifles, are semi-automatic (one trigger pull per shot). It's "semi" because although the gun automatically loads the next round, it will not automatically fire that next round.
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What a grand idea. If we did that with hammer's to limit their misuses, we could really cut down the blunt force trauma deaths too.
Where's you get the 3 rounds idea? Every 12g I've ever fired held 7 shells. During certain hunting seasons they are limited to 3 or 4, in which case we cut off a pencil and use it as plug.
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I've never encountered a situation, and am at a loss for an actual, private-citizen, real-world situation, where more than 3 rounds would be necessary except in the case of an incompetent shooter (i.e. poor aim).
Perhaps law-enforcement officers can be in situations where more then 3 rounds are needed?
Right, because walking around with 5 guns is not only safer and more convenient, but less threatening than simply having a single gun with 15 bullets.
There are more, but those are the most basic and most important. Guns aren't responsible for violence anymore than cakes are responsible for fat people.
I actually do have one of these installed on a .40 caliber S&W. Works pretty well...until you try to switch hands. In hindsight not such a great idea for us ambidextrous guys.
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Because not aiming works really well when the bad guy is close to your children.
In a crisis, your grip changes, and this can also happen during injury, which is when a gun may be used to stave off a threat. People who clamor for this sort of thing tend NOT to actually know about or use guns themselves, and that's the problem. Training is more important than any added part of a gun that can fail, causing the death of the operator from inability to defend oneself.
Intoxication and lack of training are more dangerous than guns that can fire without the magazine, and frankly, I and other gun enthusiasts AVOID guns with lots of extra nonsense as stuff that can fail and make it difficult to do things with our own property, such as decide to sell or trade the gun toward something we would like better. Guns are collectable items that often increase in value. Let's stop this nonsense already. It is unwanted by those who actually use them.
Things have changed so much since the second amendment has passed. Personal firearms aren't going to save you in the event of a government or foreign invasion. They'll just fly over with a drone and drop a bomb on your house. Private citizens have pretty much no chance of standing up to any well equipped military. If it's a foreign invader, you'd better leave it up to the US military. If it's the US government coming to get you, you probably don't stand much of a chance.
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using common sense to implement better gun control.
First off, the limit you reference about shotguns I think only applies to bird hunting or something. At least, I used a pump-action Mossberg that held 5 in the tube.
But on to my real question... this is a technology-oriented community... yet we seem very quick to crap all over the role that technology could play here.
Would an RFID-based system, in which you identify yourself to the gun using public key cryptography, be such a terrible thing? Assuming the mechanism can be made reliable (and with enough work, why can't it be made reliable enough?), to me it seems like it wouldn't be a bad idea to limit the number of people who can fire the weapon. E.g., you and your spouse both have key fobs that allow you to fire the gun, but without the fob, no one else can fire it.
If the fob is the problem - hear me out - why not have the RFID chip implanted in your wrist? Imagine it - you pick up your gun, and you can fire it, but if someone else picks it up, they can't. To me, that actually sounds pretty cool and futuristic. It would eliminate the need for a lot of fight scenes in sci-fi movies, though.
I know, not everyone wants something implanted in their wrist (although in this community I'd expect more than the average number to be willing). Well, maybe this is something only required for semi-automatic pistols, etc.... if you want a revolver, no RFID interlock required.
There are all sorts of interesting solutions we could come up with. Police departments could use a department key, so that any officer could fire any other officer's weapon, but a criminal in a struggle wouldn't be able to fire the officer's weapon.
Of course, we all know there are flaws with RFID. Could someone, with enough time and effort, clone a key fob? Probably. With enough time and effort, any sort of system we could devise will be defeated. Maybe someone will set off an EMP and render all our smart guns useless. The better question is, what is the increase in effectiveness we gain by doing this?
We seem very willing to invent scenarios in which safety mechanisms would cause problems... e.g., "me and my friend were working in the garage when someone came up and shot me! I told my friend to get my gun and shoot back, but he couldn't because of the RFID interlock!" and use this as a justification to ignore the potential of technology in this area. But are these really realistic scenarios? Or are we trying to justify what we already want to believe based on anecdotes...
Obviously this is not a total solution by any means. It does nothing to address the large number of firearms already in circulation. Some people suggest buy-back programs (although I'm a bit skeptical of those, since it seems like the people who are least likely to use a gun are going to be the most likely to trade it in for cash, and good luck trying to get the government to spend any money on a new program right now)... maybe gun manufacturers could offer a trade-in program, where people can upgrade to smart guns.
To sum up, I think there are viable things that can be done, but for some reason, a lot of us like to invent reasons, no matter how far-fetched, for us to conclude that nothing can be done.
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Here is a crazy idea, GET RID OF THEM. If people want to go hunting let them use bows and there is no reason to have automatic weapons and handguns.
I genuinely don't understand this idea.
The firearm is a force multiplier when it comes to self defense. It allows a properly trained 90#, 4'11" person to be able to defend themselves from a 6'5" 250# person.
It is the responsibility of the owner of said firearm to learn how to properly and safely use it, and that's where I believe everyone agrees the breakdown is. The firearm is a tool. Improperly used, it's lethal, much like many other tools.
Guns don't need safety features, we just need to stop grooming human beings to become incompetent idiots. We dumb everything down, make people expect everything to be safe, treat grown adults like children... then they do stupid stuff and hurt themselves... like children. Uh oh, we better dumb everything down even more. Also, if you believe you should relinquish your gun rights to the US government, you don't deserve to be a US citizen. This is a country built on personal freedoms. The original idea was for the populace to be as well armed as the military so we could never be subjugated by our government. Asking the government to disarm us goes against everything this country stands for.
Have you ever been target shooting? Having to reload a handgun after every three rounds would be a significant inconvenience, for no actual benefit. That's not to say that some sort of limit on high-capacity magazines may not have some effect, but 3 is probably going a bit far.
Also, shotguns are only limited to three rounds when used for hunting or trap/skeet competitions. You can easily find models that hold 7 rounds, e.g.
I do not think it is nearly as rigorous as you are implying. And it is even less if you are buying an old FA gun.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
And that is why we're still a very long way off from relying on personal defense weapons that require electricity.
Exactly! This was one of the primary reasons I purchased and carried a Glock when I worked as an armed guard. That firearm actually did have 3 safeties, but they were all designed to prevent accidental discharge of the weapon if you dropped it or the trigger snagged on something. If there was a round in the chamber and your finger was all the way on the trigger the gun would fire.
These are the things that anti-gun people ignore. It's a shame that guns are used in crimes such as these, but taking 1 tool away from someone doesn't stop them from doing what they are determined to do.
In fact, if you do even one day of actual defense training, one of the exercises you do is shooting with a two-handed grip in the "A" stance, then shooting left handed "side stance" and then right handed "side stance".
This simple exercise would be impossible with some kind of electronic garbage that prevents firing based on grip signature. Also, I'd rather not have to worry about if the batteries are dead if I need the gun.
Here's what we need: a 1911-style grip safety, and a Walther PPK-style indicator pin that pops out close to the rear sight if a round is in the chamber. Those two things are remarkably effective, and cost practically nothing. Oh, and they've been around for decades.
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Are knives also "exempt"? Look, the point of a gun is to kill or destroy something, the only safety aspect is that the shooter should remain safe (i.e. the gun shouldn't blow up and maim me when I shoot it). Beyond that they're not safe, and, furthermore, that's the entire point.
My entire family knows how to shoot and handle guns. If someone breaks in while my kids are home and I'm not, they know how to take care of business. God forbid there would be a gun that they would point at someone and it had a "safety" feature that cost them their lives.
Likewise, I'd hate to be a police officer or soldier and know that if one of my colleagues was shot and possibly put out of action I wouldn't have his weapon available if I needed it.
I don't even know why we're having these "debates" except that a bunch of gun-hating imbeciles are always looking for some way to get their camels nose under the tent.
Do you have ESP?
I agree, but the issue is not really how effective you would be. If you have a right to own firearms to protect you from military forces, then you have a right to big clips.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
That's why you keep firearms simple - complex things break.
I find this to be an interesting sentiment coming from a technology oriented community like Slashdot.
Of course complexity can increase error-proneness. But if this logic is always true, why aren't we still driving Model Ts? Maybe it really is up for debate, but it seems to me that cars have became vastly more complex over the decades, but reliability is on the rise, and cost of maintenance has gone down.
Planes - planes are vastly more complex than in the past, but very reliable. And peoples' lives literally hang in the balance.
My point is, we can in fact make complex AND reliable things when we want to, and when we spend the time and resources required. Why are guns exempt from this?
FWIW, I know how to use (some) guns, and I agree with you... "grip recognition" sounds like something that at best, will work 99% of the time, which isn't enough. But surely we can do better than that.
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Weapons can have all of the safety features in the world, but the ultimate safety feature will always be the person holding the weapon. If the person in question takes a weapon, loads a round, points it at someone, takes aim, and pulls the trigger none of these measures will matter.
No one talks about suing GM because a distracted driver causes a 10 car pile up. No one wants to sue Ford if they fail to get the oil changed. They can, but they will never find a judge willing to take that case. In these cases, we make the car owner not the company, responsible.
Am I calling for weapons bans? No. If the safety features prevent accidental shootings, good. Limited magaines -- infeffective. Ever see "The Outlaw Josey Wales?" Clint Eastwood's character had multiple revolvers and plenty of firepower. As assault weapons ban? No. CnC milling machines and 3D printers have never been cheaper. If you can buy the steel, you can make the weapon. Heck you can invent your own designs.
Plus banning something for the good of society never works. Alcohol in the 30s and narcotics in the 60s both created enormous criminal empires with the resources of a small country. In the case of narcotics, they have threatened the governments of Columbia and Mexico. Heck diamonds destroyed major parts of Africa and they are legal AND highly regulated. People were enslaved just to mine diamonds so First World people could look pretty and thugs could make war.
Only the dead have seen the end of War. - Plato
Better to limit all non-professional firearms to 3 rounds (shotgun, iirc, already are).
Shotguns are limited to three rounds in the field, but not in your house. You can insert a wooden plug to temporarily restrict them to three rounds if they aren't constructed to take that few. Some weapons offer an ammo restrictor so that you don't need a plug. For self-defense, though, I would rather have a whole lot of rounds. If I'm confronted by an armed attacker, I'm going to treat rounds like potato chips, and they're can't have just one. And frankly, what unarmed attacker will charge me when armed with my firearm unless they're hopped up on something that merits more rounds anyway?
California already places ammo restrictions. Most of the decent pistols not too small for me to meaningfully hold (I have big paws) carry 13 rounds or more, and they're illegal in California. So I got something that takes .45 ACP, because if you're not allowed to carry as many rounds, you want them to be big. California also will ream you up down and sideways if there's a competing story, so not only do they encourage maximally lethal ammunition with their ammo limits, but they also encourage lethal shot placement with their habits in prosecution. This is what you get with "gun control" and "equipment limits".
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Three rounds of .22 are not the same as three rounds of .45 or 9mm +P load.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Which is why we went into Afghanistan and Iraq and cleared out all the terrorists overnight.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Personal firearms aren't going to save you in the event of a government or foreign invasion. They'll just fly over with a drone and drop a bomb on your house.
We're not quite there yet. The drones can't quite identify who is who and what is what yet. That's useful when they know they want to kill you, but in the taking-and-holding neighborhoods phase, they're going to want to root out the firearms and they can't yet do that with drones. That is just around the corner though, and then we can have this argument all over again about militarized drones. California will ban assault drones and they'll have a long and specious list of characteristics that will also impinge upon the hobbyist aviation and rocketry communities in dozens of ways that will do nothing whatsoever to protect anyone.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
OK, but I'm 6'2". How is it in my best interests for someone who's 4'11" to be able to attack me with equal force? Hmmm?
Didn't think of that did you.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Jesus fucking christ loser, did you even fucking RED the quote you used?
I've never encountered a situation, and am at a loss for an actual, private-citizen, real-world situation, where more than 3 rounds would be necessary except in the case of an incompetent shooter (i.e. poor aim).
Fuck you're retarded.
Rights without responsibilities leads to anarchy.
Your beloved Constitution says precious little about what citizens owe to their county and to each other. Might explain everyone's overweening sense of personal entitlement -- it's implicitly enshrined in the US Constitution.
I've killed probably hundreds of times with my various guns! At least 20 deer, which I've proceeded to nom, and when I lived in Maine it was open season on red squirrels - beaning those suckers on the run is just about the most challenging shooting I've ever done.
In all seriousness though, never ever once even thought about killing a person. And I've put FAR more holes in paper than in animals.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
Oh, and THAT is called an argument from authority. Reflect on how that makes you look.
Guns are plenty safe just as they are.
It takes a human to make them unsafe.
In a crisis I want my gun to fire every time I pull the trigger.
My sidearm has a de-cocker and can be dropped or even thrown with a round in the chamber safely.
Say we are in a crisis situation, both pinned down behind cover, I don't have a shot, but you do.
You have been shot in your dominant arm (or handicapped one armed) so you are unable to fiddle with a weapon.
I can safely throw you my weapon with a round in the chamber ready to shoot, you can pick it up and shoot with no delay.
Try that with some electronic gizmo......
Rick B.
...that should come out of the Connecticut school shooting tragedy should be this:
If anyone is planning to begin legal proceedings to have a family member involuntarily committed for mental health issues, then they must remove all weapons out of their home first.
That sounds even more than average stupid. If this was passed, the result would be that fewer would try to get their family members committed, and the white elephant hidden even more than it is now.
Make it easier for people to get help (and I mean help), not harder. And work for conditions less conducive to people developing mental health problems in the first place. Undo Reagan's damage. It's late, but not too late.
Guns exist, period. Even if every new gun is bio metrically tied to a person that has undergone intensive psychiatric testing and thousands of hours of training, the fact is old guns exist and if someone wants to get a hold of a gun, they can. Also consider that making a gun from scratch isn't rocket science. If someone wants to use a device that can fire off projectiles that can cause death, they will find a way to do so.
Also, stupid people exist, you know, the kind of people that have an arsenal of guns in the presence of their mentally disturbed children.
Instead of gun control, focus on why there exists a society where people feel the need to draw a weapon to solve their problems. Also figure out why people are too stupid to not be able to lock up their guns or exercise common sense on whether their children are responsible enough to have access to a gun.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
Even so, I wish that research into reliable non-lethal disabling weapons would increase tenfold.
We could give reliable stun guns to every teacher, and train them, without fear that students would get killed due to negligence.
We could enact gun control legislation without reducing personal defense. This in turn could cause more criminals to choose the available non-lethal weapons when committing crimes.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
actually, no, the sound of a cycling shotgun will not chase most home invaders away. Most of those types of criminals are either high enough or stupid enough not to recognize the sound for what it is - especially since they're not expecting to hear the sound at all... (and not all shotguns sound like the stock Foley SFX from the movies). But, if you start off with a very loud "I have a shotgun aimed at your head, asshole" followed by racking a round, *then* they'll know what's happening. But you've probably just ejected a perfectly good cartridge just for dramatic effect when all you really had to do was turn on the lights so he could see you coming. This gives him an opportunity to flee, which is by most accounts the best outcome, if only so you don't have to call for someone to come replace your carpet and drapes in the morning.
Of course, the most effective way to let a home intruder know that you have a shotgun, if that is the primary goal, is to cause it to make a brief flash of light followed in quick succession with a very loud bang. If you have it pointed in the proper direction, he'll even *feel* it.
Some examples in fiction of weapons-user-identification systems:
- 1976 --- _Logan's Run_, William F Nolan, George Clayton Johnson
- 1983 --- _Single Combat_, Dean Ing
- 1990 --- Judge Dredd: The Megazine, Steve McManus
It'd be interesting to see a compleat list.
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
Really? You can't think of *one* real-world situation that requires more than 3 rounds? Here's a hint: it's the most popular activity associated with guns. It's not hunting, and it's not shooting bad guys, and it typically uses dozens - and many times hundreds - of rounds each time this activity is undertaken.
True, but how many of us actually make squirrels fly, anyway?
There are 2 simple reasons why this isn't being done.
1. Cost for the indentification unit is prohibitive. It would double the cost of the weapon.
2. It has been proven over the years that you can not make something idiot proof. I don't care if it's a weapon or a power tool, some moron will always come along and try something nobody else ever imagined and injure themselves or someone else. Look at all the safety warnings in any instruction manual and realize that someone actually did that.
Teaching people to have a respect for human life would do more to stop these mass killings than anything else. When I was in High School (class of 74) half the vehicles in the student parking lot were pickup trucks with a gun rack in the back window. There was always a rifle and/or a shotgun in the rack. We never had anyone shot at school because we knew the difference between right and wrong.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
The article is wrong from the start, there is nothing analogous between known-to-be-unsafe Ford Pintos being sold, and selling a reliable firearm that operates as designed.
I guess a lie this big wants much repetition.*
*No, I don't fucking lose .
They feared that it could be used to suppress protest or support unpopular rule.
OK, but I'm 6'2". How is it in my best interests for someone who's 4'11" to be able to attack me with equal force? Hmmm?
Didn't think of that did you.
The same applies the other direction: With current law (in most US states anyway), both the 4'11 and you have equal opportunity to legally acquire and train on the proper handling of firearms. I'm not seeing the problem here.
The loudest sound in the world:
``Hearing `click', when you expected to hear `bang'.''
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
And? There are people who have remained functional and survived multiple .45 shots. Hell, there are people who have taken a .50 BMG and kept fighting.
The problem is I don't get to retain my advantage over midgets.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
2 attackers, "double tap" is the standard training for putting down a threat, you're short a round.
I suspect you've never had any firearm training, and your statement that "I've never encountered a situation..." is just obfuscating the fact that you don't even have or use firearms.
I'm throwing this back at you, AC, in that I doubt you've had any real firearms training, either. Double taps, failure drills, etc, are NOT standard training by any stretch of the imagination, and are typically only practiced by those who kill people and break things for a living. Police, regular military, civilians leaning armed self-defense, are typically trained to shoot center mass, and keep shooting until the target is no longer a threat (i.e. until they hit the ground). I'll grant that more advanced techniques are taught in more advanced classes (I've been through a few), and many shooters have been at least been exposed to the concepts and (briefly!) run through them, but this is by no means "standard."
What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
More prone to failure, and more costly.
No gun has ever killed anyone on its own. It cant jump up on its own and fire. People are the problem. What is the solution? I dont know, but blaming a tool for its owners actions is ludicrous.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
It's probably safe to say that the vast majority of Slashdotters are programmers of some kind or are very familiar with computers and software.
Which is why I am astounded that anyone with such a background would think putting a computer (microchip, etc) in a firearm is a good idea.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Most of these ideas are unworkable and a total joke to anyone who uses firearms regularly. Their only merit is the person with the patent is trying to make their idea mandatory to get rich.
Automatic firearms are not banned, but you need a $3000 dollar tax and the guns themselves cost upwards of $6000, plus it can take months to get through the licensing process.
You didn't kill the Taliban, young, rootless, aggressive men. You are killing a lot of actual civilians - noncombatants. People who are invested in where they live do not stand a chance against a modern army.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Except no one is saying: ""freedom" and "if more people had guns things like this would never happen"", they're saying that it's a tool for specific situations.
Unlike many lobbies in this country, the gun lobby doesn't represent an industry. It represents millions of Americans. It is their collective voice trying to tell the government to not trample on their rights. And this isn't just the NRA, but groups like Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership and the Pink Pistols ("Armed gays don't get bashed").
Gun company lobby money on the rights issue is a drop in the bucket in comparison to what the people donate. Gun companies, like any other, do lobby to try to get government contracts, and most of their lobby money goes there.
True, and we already have a ton of laws about that.
Yeah, there's no reason we should follow the most basic law of our country. Remember this sentiment next time someone complains about US citizens being detained without trial, or the government spies on its own people without a warrant, or copyright being effectively forever. Our Constitution is supposed to prohibit all that too, and only fetishists would get mad when it happens.
Any weapon will be inherently dangerous, attempting to "protect" consumers from danger doesn't really apply to something that is meant to be dangerous. The loaded chamber indicator on my SR9c is my least favorite feature; I treat guns as if they are always loaded so it doesn't make a difference in how I handle the gun, it only sticks up and gets snagged on my clothes or in my holster. I'd argue that the loaded chamber indicator actually makes my gun less safe, although it is by such a small margin it is mostly inconsequential.
Those who know, do not speak. Those who speak, do not know. ~Lao Tzu
That depends on the state though.
I have an idea for an invention that I think I could build to make the AR15 safer, but I'm reticent to do anything with it because of the dominance of patent trolls in America and their ability to squash little guys like me. The free market could likely respond with some innovative concepts if we had patent reform.
The real safety issue is the raging idiot behind the trigger.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
A lot of folks load their shells with rock salt. Criminals don't know that and it hurts like hell when they get hit.
I think it's a little disingenuous the way the PLCA is cited, here.
The PLCA was quite clearly passed to immunize gun makers from the sort of punitive lawsuit that hit the tobacco makers (which I also think was in many way unfair).
In essence, our government likes to say "You make an entirely legal product, and we don't want to face the political consequences of banning or circumscribing access to your product, so we'll just attack your industry via the avenue of clear misuse by your customers."
Now, tobacco was a grey-area case, as the tobacco industry pretty clearly was adding addiction-agents to at least some of the brands. Fair game, I say.
But the PLCA was rightfully passed in a climate (like now) of people blaming GUNS for the actions of the people that wielded them.
To make any other assertion - that gun manufacturers are nevertheless responsible for the acts committed with their products - introduces a fairly slippery precedent. Are we going to sue Nikon because some pedophile took pictures of a naked child? How about going after Ford if someone deliberately runs over some kindergartners with his van?
One COULD further argue (albeit with a disturbing lack of humanity), I suppose, that - regardless of context - guns are meant to kill things, period. If they perform their function successfully (leaving out the context of whether the target is a deer, a classmate, or random bystander), then the manufacturer holds no liability.
Now if, on the other hand, one wants to assert that the gun manufacturers (via their dealers) are making their guns too freely available without restriction, that's a reasonable point. But if they are conforming to the relevant law, then your problem is with the LAW and LAWMAKERS, not the manufacturers. And again, we have a slippery slope: if they were to prohibit sales based on (for example) mental state or profiles of likely criminals, that would seem to condemn them to an endless stream of lawsuits based on racism, etc.
Essentially the lawmakers define the playing field and rules. If you have a beef with the game itself, don't have a go at the players.
-Styopa
... without using any electrical parts, let me know.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
... the problem is that in many countries about everyone can get his/her hands on a gun without any regulation or prior screening.
I hope you realize there is no such thing as non lethal weapons. The technical term is "Less than Lethal" because they can still kill or seriously injure. The military uses basically a hard core paintball gun in detention camps. It does serious damage if you shoot it in the wrong area. Ever get a frozen paintball in your eye? Tazers kill too, especially if the person has some sort of electrical implant. just google around. The argument you didn't mean to kill the person with a tazer wouldn't hold, just try explaining it to the family. It's the same as if you stabbed or shot or made someone beed somehow and they bled to death. "Well, I didn't mean to kill them I only sliced him up with my kitchen knife."
This article is totally misleading.
First, the electronic identification methods that only allow the owner to fire the gun are hugely error prone. The "idea" is great, and police departments especially would love to have them. I'd buy one. But in reality they fail to recognize the owner far too often. And when the owner pulls the trigger, that gun needs to fire. Period. Any failure at all and the owner is likely going to die (as he's likely being attacked.)
Second, most of the other safety features mentioned ARE on guns. They all seem to be specific to handguns, as grip safeties and such are not something you'd put on a rifle. But if you go into any gun shop the vast majority, if not all pistols in the store are going to have these features. They are just not required by law and the majority of gun owners want them because they are improvements over old safety mechanisms. My pistol has them and what they basically add up to is you can't fire the fun unless you're holding it correctly, and pointing it away from you. They prevent you from firing the gun while it's on the bench by mistake, or catching the trigger on your finger while you're drawing it from the holster. Then you have the "There's a bullet in the chamber" indicator... which my pistol has but is pretty much useless. You always treat the gun like there's a bullet in the chamber. Always. My pistols never been pointed at a human being, loaded or unloaded, and hopefully never will.
If anybody "needs" user-restricted handguns and these other features, it would be law enforcement. I'd go so far as to say that these should be mandatory for LEO on and off duty, and optional for the rest of us.
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
Automatic firearms are not banned, but you need a $3000 dollar tax and the guns themselves cost upwards of $6000, plus it can take months to get through the licensing process.
Ehhhhh, not sure on that. I don't own any automatic firearms, but I have friends that own upwards of over forty 7.62 rifles. No licensing or permits required. Just went down to the local shop and bought them. This is in NH and I know the laws vary from state to state.
Keeping guns around mentally unhealthy folks is negligence. No different than storing a loaded gun in the baby's crib.
I agree we need to undo the damage that was done to this nations mental health system, but allowing incompetents or those a danger to themselves or others access to weapons is negligence.
Once the police begin using these "safety" devices that prevent others from using the gun, then it should become widespread.
Extra safety measures sound great until you try to implement them. I don't know of any biometric safety method that is reliable enough to stake your life on. Grip recognition sounds great until the system fails, you don't get your "calm and collected grip", you have to use your other hand, or you get injured somehow. There are some magnetic ones that work if you are wearing a magnetic ring and these seem reliable but only work for revolvers. People who want to impose these measures don't shoot guns themselves apparently. It's like imposing efficiency standards that are unattainable.
When it's reliable enough for the police, it will be reliable enough for everyone else.
Of course you've never had to overthrow the government, which may involve you needing to kill twenty federal troops in one bloody day. If there had been a revolution, I would have read about it in the news. That doesn't mean you go around repealing amendments, though. You have the amendment, in order to inform/bluff everyone into knowing that twenty federal troops will die by your hand if they attack the states too directly, which strangely has the effect of the conflict never happening.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
Good try on the car analogy though, somebody had to do it.
Thanks :-)
You can't add electronics to a simple mechanical device and make it more reliable. Electronics are less reliable than simple mechanical things, so any such change is a step backward.
Okay, even if it is a step backward in theory, in practice, are we really not able to engineer something to an acceptable level of reliability? Guns already do not work 100% of the time. They occasionally jam and misfire. We tolerate this unreliability because it is infrequent.
Let's say you have a gun that is 99.99% reliable... so one out of every 10,000 rounds it jams or misfires. And now, we add electronic safety components to it, and with testing and good engineering, we produce a gun that is 99.97% reliable. So it jams, misfires, or fails to fire 3 out of every 10,000 rounds.
The question is, I think, whether that decrease in reliability is an acceptable tradeoff for the increase in safety gained due to only the owner being able to fire it.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
Your friend may own 40 semi-automatic rifles, but I doubt he owns 40 automatic or select fire rifles.
OMG I want a GAU-8 booster for my civic! I could really burn the ricers with that ;-) I couldn't stop laughing when I saw that.
..is the indicator that the gun has a round in the chamber. And that should only be done if the simplicity (and thus reliability) of gun design can be maintained. You don't want a gun to fail because of a safety measure when you want to use it properly.
The smart grips are especially dumb:
* Annoying: While out shooting new guns... Friend: "Hey - Can I try that one out? That's awesome..." Owner: "Sorry - smart grip.."
* Tin foil hat: If you start putting smart tech in guns, how do you avoid the inevitable tracking that would be put into them by the government or others interested in "safety"? Could guns be disabled remotely?
Thanks, but no thanks... Training and safety are the smartest "smart" technologies you can invest in a gun.
When the amendment was written, what percentage of firearms were capable of holding more than three shots?
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
The fear is not that invaders will take your stuff. The fear is that they are there to kill/rape/imprison you and/or your family. (And yes, 'imprison' is a factor -- many gun owners expect their personal defense to protect them from the government.)
Whether it is a useful deterrent or not is in doubt. Most home invaders are either well-armed or on heavy drugs, or both.
Blame the existence of the second amendment for giving citizens that they have a chance, solo, against government forces. Also blame television for making people think that violent home invasions happen once a week.
Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
How would a striker fired pistol get it's non-existent trigger snagged ?
And how is firing more than three rounds in succession *critical* to target shooting? It isn't.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
These dangerous fantasies people have about stopping multiple home invaders with their glock or fighing off a government takeover are insane - what is wrong with these people and their delusions? - rarely is any home invason stopped by a firearm, you would think you would read about this in the local paper once in a while - and as for the government takeover, the last thing I would want if I was an insurgent is a firearm, I am a physicist, I could cause more mayhem by going shopping for the right stuff at home depot than I every could with an AK47, having an assault weapon would just out me as an insurgent
Show me how exactly can you aim well after getting woken up by a break-in.
The best defense against home break-ins is to move away from high-crime areas.
And the best way to afford to live in a low crime area is to be rich. So if the poor are unsafe, they should become rich! They can become rich by not wasting their money on bread and just eat cake!
"Note that gun safety features (not universally loved) like grip safeties, have been available in some form and in various combinations for many decades."
Grip safeties have been around on guns a long time. The 1911 has one, and that is a 100+ year old design that is still in prominent use today.
And the best way to afford to live in a low crime area is to be rich. So if the poor are unsafe, they should become rich! They can become rich by not wasting their money on bread and just eat cake!
I make 17k a year. Our last murder here was in the 80s.
.
How about making it illegal (except law enforcement, no grandfathering) any firearm that can be fired within 1,000 feet of a school.
I'd you can ban magnetic balls then you can do this.
Remember that when it fails, people DIE. One failure EVER is too many.
This is the kind of statement I'm talking about, though. Guns ALREADY fail.They occasionally jam and misfire. If they are not cleaned and maintained, they fail more often. We tolerate this unreliability because it is infrequent and we can keep it that way through maintenance.
Let's say you have a gun that is 99.99% reliable... so one out of every 10,000 rounds it jams or misfires. And now, we add electronic safety components to it, and with testing and good engineering, we produce a gun that is 99.97% reliable. So it jams, misfires, or fails to fire 3 out of every 10,000 rounds.
The question is, I think, whether that decrease in reliability is an acceptable tradeoff for the increase in safety gained due to only the owner being able to fire it. Nothing is perfect... but can we make something acceptable, where the benefits outweight the costs?
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
Here's what we need: a 1911-style grip safety, and a Walther PPK-style indicator pin that pops out close to the rear sight if a round is in the chamber. Those two things are remarkably effective, and cost practically nothing. Oh, and they've been around for decades.
And such a pistol already exists: the Springfield Armory XD.
.
Step #2, Gun manufacturers will be forced by market economics to develop a reliable interlock technology or risk the loss of those lucrative Government contracts.They will see the writing on the wall and step up their development plans. Research will finally get serious about developing it.
Step #3, Economy of scale in production of the law enforcement market makes the interlock technology more affordable, since the technology is available to all manufacturers.
Step #4, After a study of the economics of scale in the industry shows that the technology is in fact affordable, Congress creates a reverse incentive for purchasing firearms without the technology as to tip the balance away from the more dangerous firearms. One simple example is requiring that all non-interlocked firearms are stored 'disabled' by a trigger key lock mechanism at all times, and stored under lock an key. Nobody prevents you from having it; its just not very convenient to pull it out and use it on someone. Another possibility is a tax on non-interlocked firearms which directly pays for law enforcement procurement programs to make up for the initial cost of development.
Step #5, Have amnesty gun collections for firearms specifically without the proper interlocks, just to get them off the streets.
Note that the market forces do the brunt of the work, and the Government can uses its economic weight to tip the scales in favour of safer firearms. Nobody including law enforcement is forced to get rid of what they currently have, and gun collectors are not prevented from acquiring whatever arms they choose to collect. The down side is that Law enforcement carries the initial load as for the cost of developing the technology, but then they also benefit from fewer deaths at the hands of criminals. Its a trade off. If I personally had to choose between paying five dollars a year in taxes or seeing 10 offerers die, I would pay the money. No question. The benefit to society in general, as a side effect of market forces, would be monumental, though it will take years for the process to work its way through all the steps described. The market economy is a slow manipulator, but it moves things along in the right direction none the less.
What about all of the other legitimate uses of firearms? If someone has a bunch of pistols or rifles because they are a target shooter wouldn't all those complexities be a great way to mitigate accidental discharges? While you're target shooting (and maybe even hunting) you have plenty of time to move your finger to the right position or switch to left hand mode. Police can still use the "simple gun" since they are more likely to use it in a life/death situation than someone that hangs out at a gun range. Hell, keep one simple gun under your pillow in the extremely unlikely case of a break in. But if you have 20 guns for fun it seems to me there is less chance of an accident if 19 of them have some attempt at idiot proofing. Am I wrong?
Target shooting is one of the safest sports a school-age kid can participate in. There are millions of injuries in school sports every year, hundreds of thousands requiring doctors, tens of thousands requiring hospital care, permenent disabling injuries and even deaths. Sports are a major cause of traumatic brain injury in kids. Shoulders and knees are being permanently damaged daily. Among the major sports players, something like 15-30% of kids will be injured at some point.
But serious injuries involving shooting sports are extremely rare. When there are injuries, it's generally of the type a Band-Aid will fix.
Plus, it's not likely a malicious shooter will get very far in his rampage on the range.
"...a trigger-identification system that prevents a gun from being fired by anyone other than its authorized user..."
Yeah, this was in Skyfall. Didn't realize it was actually practical. Or is it?
Neat, science-fictiony idea, but from a practical standpoint, all you're doing is adding a point of failure to a system of defense that must be extremely relialel to be effective... so no, not really practical.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
And come standard in the Springfield XD and XDm, what I carry on a day-to-day basis.
(It has a small leaf that's popped up by the round in the chamber and becomes instantly visible if it's loaded.)
BUT this does not preclude the #1 rule of firearm safety, which has been drilled incessantly (and for good reason) by many groups and responsible owners and users: treat all guns as if they are loaded.
The 4 rules (all as loaded, muzzle control, trigger discipline and awareness) prevent 99% of accidents. The remaining 1% are due to inherent mechanical failures that plague anything that moves -- guns, cars, mattresses, washing machines, etc. And to a lesser extent, people doing stupid shit, like reloading ammunition and grossly overcharging the cases.
It's not. When some early hominid invented the idea of the club (and as the technological progression continued toward laser blasters) you started to lose your advantage. That's a done deal, and no law can ever change it. Sorry. You may, in fact, be attacked by a 4'11" person armed with a weapon some day, and if you are unarmed, the 4'11" person will have the advantage. Sucks to be you.
Gun laws are about whether or not (should you choose to adopt a strategy of opposing that 4'11" attacker with similar force, making a slightly better contest rather than you automatically losing) you will live in a constant state of fear from your government, considered an outlaw.
When the village idiot says "get rid of all the guns," we can all laugh him off, just as though he had said, "everyone should have a pony."
When a politician says "get rid of all the guns," he's actually seriously talking about attacking you, should you ever be detected having a gun.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
And what happens to your children or wife while you're cowering under your bed?
I will not depend on the kindness of someone who has already violated the sanctity of my house to protect the safety of my family.
*sigh* back to work...
Similarly, there are many documented cases of air bags killing people. We still use them though, because they save way more people than they kill.
I had a guy try to break into my apartment and I was waiting for him with my loaded pistol. Turns out he was drunk and was looking for a place to take a piss, and given the party outside I was not surprised. He left quietly.
No, I have yet to see a reasonable case for more than 3 rounds in a private weapon - i.e. non-law enforcement, non-military.
Multiple attackers. Well, if it's more than one on one, you're going to be shot by the other guy before you get three rounds off.
Gang Bangers. See above.
Poor aim. See my original comment.
Bar fight. Really? Amid a bar full of bystanders, you're going to squeeze off multiple rounds? Talk about lack of training - you should work for the NYPD.
Home invasion robbery. (1) poor aim, see original comment or (2) quit taking shots YOU DON'T HAVE
Target practice. If you can't hit it on your first three shots, you probably should stop and re-center yourself anyway. You might as well reload at the same time.
But they're non-lethal for 1-2 shots. If you're attacker is in close proximity and his/her progress isn't stopped in two shots, it's unlikely that you're going to survive regardless of the number of rounds remaining in your weapon when you get tackled and lose the ability to control your gun.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
I have a flashlight that I can shake like crazy to power in my trunk. Maybe we could do the same in the guns!!!
And no remorse when it goes off accidentally and a round is pumping through your brain...
Oh, the hyperbole!
Serious question: does it hurt to be that much of a dumbfuck? Because it should.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
...And as long as you get a shotgun with a large spread (larger diameter or shorter barrel), you'll not have to aim so well.
This is a common misconception among people who don't use shotguns. Unless you cut the barrel down to about 4 inches, the spread at 10' (the distance from the end of the barrel to the other side of your bedroom) will be on the order of 8"-10". That's not enough to make much difference in your chances of hitting the target, but it will make a hell of a mess out of whatever it does hit.
You never really know how close to the edge you can go until you fall off.
I worked for a place that had tried to develop electronics which were supposed to improve gun safety in such manners (for the record, whilst I wouldn't want them on any gun I own, I fully support anyone who wants the option on weapons they purchase). Turns out that actually shooting the gun is *very* hard on the electronics physically and led to many early failures (meaning the gun does not go bang when you need it to).
Possibly it might be possibly to harden the electronics against such shocks but that's even more expense and complexity. Let's have some real R&D instead of pie-in-the-sky BSing.
Here is a crazy idea, GET RID OF THEM. If people want to go hunting let them use bows and there is no reason to have automatic weapons and handguns.
Cops and criminals (which are all too often one and the same) have them.
Reason enough.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
I feel like the popularity of the Glock shows a shift in popular thought towards safety over reliability.
Okay, AC - I read your little story, and it turns out only one shot was needed.
(1) The defender fired on an unknown assailant in pitch dark. That's actually grounds for revocation of a CC permit in about 14 states.
And I quote: "First shot grazed his trigger hand and damaged the base of his glock .40 cal causing the magazine to fall out. He didnt even realize and while running towards me pulling the trigger the only round he had left was in the chamber."
(2) The first shot disabled the opposing mans firearm, no more were actually required
(3) If he had assumed a proper defensive position, he wound't have been in an all-out shootout.
(4) If the first shot would not have hit home, it's unlikely the defender would have had a chance to fire more than three shots since the attacker was actively firing as well.
Congratulations...the ONE, unsubstantiated anecdote you found turns out to prove my point. Thank you.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
1. No chips, electronics, RFID tags. I want my gun to be functional following a nuclear strike, solar flare, airburst meteor, a bath, etc. 2. Zombies rarely travel in herds of 3 or less. I need full magazines. In all seriousness, if you can make a gun safer by some mechanical means without impacting reliability, I'd probably be for it. I've heard enough stories of people accidentally shooting themselves that I'm cautious to the point of paranoia about clearing the chamber when I clean my glock. I'm also not entirely opposed to electronics on a gun as an option. I'd totally buy an assault rifle with an led display. However, I'm strongly opposed to any electronics required by regulation. I was kinda serious about that whole EMP thing. There should always be a choice. If I had kids in the house, I might consider a chipped gun; but that should be an option to consider, not a mandate from the top. As far as limiting the number of rounds a gun can hold...meh. I'd rather spend time and effort on trying to keep people from shooting up schools at all, rather than worrying about how to limit the number of shots fired when someone does go looney. It's the difference between treating a disease and treating a symptom. Safety is never absolute. To strive for absolute safety would be foolish; diminishing returns and whatnot. Tragedy is a part of living and will never be completely eliminated. We can try to mitigate risk, but in most cases you'll find the safety gained is largely ephemeral, while the freedoms lost will never be regained.
Talking about newtown specifically, I'm sure her son would have been authorized to use the guns. he wanted to use the guns. he'd have gripped it properly. and loaded it properly. this wasn't a gun "safety" issue.
The smart feature you want is the exact inverse of the authorized person feature. You want the authorized location feature. This gun can't be fired by anyone in a school (let's say gps-based for this conversation). If zombies attack, you'll need to shoot them outside of the school.
Oh, and the semi-automatic can only be fired in a hunting area.
At that time, citizenry had about the same percentage of more-than-three-shot weapons, as the government did. I think both sides had somewhere around zero.
I believe the situation has changed since then, though. Perhaps I am mistaken. If you can assure me the 2012 government doesn't have any weapons with more than three shots, and doesn't have the capacity to quickly obtain more-than-three-shot weapons, I'll give the citizens-should-only-have-three-shots idea a second look.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
My rule for gun technology is generally... I'll use it when the military and/or police have been using it in active service for 10 or more years. Before then, I might not mind having it on any of my range-use-only guns, but never on a carry piece. My requirements are generally the same as a police department's, because if I ever have to use my gun it will be in defense of the same criminals the police encounter.
And theoretically private citizens are allowed guns partly to protect them from the government and invasion.
No, government does not allow its citizens to protect themselves against them. That is a misinterpretation of the constitution.
Indiana has outright stated that it is perfectly legal to use lethal force against a police officer that is entering your home uninvited or without a warrant. I'm pretty sure that qualifies as protecting yourself from the government.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
How would any of this stopped the Sandy Hook murders? His mother bought the guns legally. She could afford any level of license they wanted to put up.
His mother trusted him with the weapons. He was a nut case that should have been committed, but his mother had a soft heart.
None of these laws would have stopped him.
Other part - guns have to be reliable. You can't sue a gun maker for the gun working. Add a bunch of limiters and the gun fails to fire in an emergency and the gun maker will be sued. Do you have incentive to add the limiters? Add a bunch of limiters and the price must go up, do the sales of those guns go up?
Price and liablity are more important.
Look, I think it's stupid to apply a bunch of technology (e.g. biometric authorization) to a gun in the first place, on the ground that guns are meant to be simple, reliable mechanical devices when you need them to *save* lives. That biometric auth will fail orders of magnitude more often than the gun itself in legitimate use situations, either due to actual electronics failure, loss of power, or because it can't get a clear print due to the mud/dirt/blood on the user's hands in a time of need.
But, that whole argument aside, the reason it's pointless is this: any such requirement that's being required by law (or pushed by the lawsuit environment) will necessarily have to exempt/grandfather existing weapons. If you think it's hard to pass a normal gun law in this country, realize that they almost always have grandfather clauses, and it would be completely impossible to pass a law without one. Then take stock of the existing weapons in private hands in this country, some of which are *very* old technology. These things don't fall apart and get replaced every 5 years. Some of these guns were built in the early 1900s and they'll still be used long after I'm dead. Basically you can't achieve any reasonable coverage rate with these devices in any reasonable amount of time, and thus it's pointless from a pragmatic perspective.
11*43+456^2
I'm not opposed to a manufacturer making a model with extra high-tech safeties for people who don't know how to use guns and/or have kids they don't want to educate on firearms safety but I wouldn't personally buy one and I'm 100% against making anything like this mandatory.
Everyone on /. knows that technology can fail. It will just add to the weight/cost/complexity of the weapon and reduce reliability. Batteries die at the worst time, etc. Simple is best and dead-ass simple is better. "It's not how it works, it's how well if fails."
What you talk about might make sense about the time we get laser rifles. They'll have a power source anyway.
I think modern firearms are actually very safe. People are stupid or do stupid things.
Competition Good, Monopoly Bad.
This is a common misconception among people who don't use shotguns.
You are correct on that statement. I don't own, but I do support ownership as a right. And thanks for the info.
but it will make a hell of a mess out of whatever it does hit.
And that's a good selling point IMO as a home defense system, because if there is a threat, I want it gone.
There are no loopholes. It's either legal or it's not.
And there you have it. I don't know your actual feelings on the matter, but whether you realize it or not you just made the point AGAINST gun control. Well done.
My present is the activity I am currently engaged in with the purpose of turning the future into a better past.
If the device was a pacemaker then that's 3x the deaths due to failure. Why would people buy that product if it was 3x more likely to fail?
Because they gained some other benefit not quantified in the failure rate? E.g., maybe the less-failure prone pacemaker needs to be removed for battery replacement every three years, whereas the (slightly) more-failure prone one has a battery that lasts ten years?
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
Hammer. The word you were looking for here is hammer.
How about a handgun like the sword in the movie blade, that if you grip it and don't disable the booby-trap mechanism blades will swing out, disabling the person attempting to sue the weapon.
In all seriousness, though, making guns safe is not all that difficult. I have a TT pistol made in Yugoslavia sometime in the early 1960's; in order to be sold in the US, a safety switch blocking the trigger had to be added. The safety switch was not necessary, though. First of all, the gun is single-action; you have to cock the hammer in order to fire the gun. The hammer has a half-cock, which does two things: it blocks the trigger (basically your safe-mode--you can't fire the gun), and it keeps the hammer off of the firing pin, so that if you dropped the gun it would not fire accidentally. On top of that, it has a magazine safety--if you remove the magazine from the gun, the trigger is blocked. This is particularly useful because many people assume that a gun without a magazine is unloaded, but there may still be a round in the chamber. In the case of this pistol, no magazine = no firing. If the hammer is pulled back and there is a round in the chamber, you can drop the magazine and prevent the gun from firing; then you can pull back the slide and eject the round. The hammer can also be manually decocked, which is very dangerous if the gun is loaded, but doable if for some reason you had to disarm it without ejecting all the ammo.
My point here is that this gun, which is at least 50 years old, is actually very safe to handle and operate. I don't really think we need fancy technology and shooter-identification systems. Hell, the M1911 features a safety-grip so that you cannot pull the trigger unless you're firmly gripping the gun. To make guns safe, you just have to not do anything that is extremely stupid and you're fine. Don't keep a gun loaded when you don't have to. Adding safety features and technology won't prevent violent crimes--the shooter in the recent mass shooting was using a rifle that he purchased himself and was firing it intentionally, so no safety feature would have made a difference. People make a big deal about how the shooter used an AR-15, an "assault weapon," but in reality it was just a generic semi-automatic rifle. Any hunting or sport rifle could do the same, so in order to prevent shootings you'd basically have to ban all firearms of all kinds, and even with the ban shooters would still get and use them. I doubt a suicidal or insane shooter would care too much about breaking a firearm ban if he already had intentions of committing mass murder. Even with a bolt action rifle, he could have done the same or greater damage (bolt action = increased accuracy, better aiming).
I believe that you are wrong, and I'll use an example from computers:
What happens when people have 20 passwords/authentication methods they have to remember or maintain? They adopt habits which render those protections worse than not having them in the first place. Those 20 passwords become variations on each other at best, and more likely, simply become reused among sites. Even worse, if one changes frequenty, people tend to make their passwords very simple to barely meet the requirement.
If I had 20 'RFID' rings to match me with 20 of my firearms, I'm pretty sure that within 2-3 cases of bringing the wrong dongle to the range, I'd do the same thing I do with my shotgun choke tubes and keys. I'd get an elastic harness for the firearm, and keep it right on the gun.
The result is that you now would have 20 firearms, with the 'lockout' mechanism taped right to the side of the firearm, and the benefit is lost.
(I also don't even want to get into the terror of having a battery within my firearm would cause me from a risk of corrosion standpoint, so any firearm I'd store I'd have to always remember to remove the battery)
Firearms are mechanical devices. A safe is a hell of a lot better of a system than any sort of electronic interlock.
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True, but how many of us actually make squirrels fly, anyway?
Well, it takes 75000 rounds to stop a freight train.
Idiots are some of the most dangerous and creative individuals on the planet (though most of them don't know it).
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
What chance do you really think a consumer-legal weapon will have against the US armed forces?
An example: the Syrian government is doing pretty well at keeping their rebels at bay, and their rebels have far better weapons than those that are legal in the US, and big powers are enforcing a no-fly zone over the whole country. Who is going to enforce a no-fly zone in the US? Are your weapons with *greater* than 3 rounds going to be exceptionally useful against an M1 Abrams?
And, let's be honest, if some nut job takes over the White House, or the Army, or Marines - what is the chance that all of the men and women of the armed forces are actually going to go out and start killing US citizens? If you know your history, you know that the intent of the armed populace was really the prevent oppression from a power like the British monarchy - we were freshly off of a war with that government, which had not been "our own" for more than 100 years.
I'm all for an involved citizenry with checks and balances, but the conditions you appear to fear exist only in Hollywood and other entertainment venues (of which I count talk radio). If the conditions really DID exist that the people would get into a skirmish with the US military, I can guarantee you who I'd be placing my bet on. And it ain't the guys with the 90 round AR-15 magazine they bought from Cabelas.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Giving teachers tasers may be a bad idea though. "Johnny, if I have to tell you to be quiet one more time... ". Teachers have a difficult job at least as far as maintaining sanity goes. Let's not give them that satisfying of an alternative to keep those brats in line.
The sun is the same in a relative way, but you are shorter of breath and one day closer to death
In the event of a 'real life situation' involving your own self defense, missing three times is quite possible. In some cases one or two (poorly placed) hits won't stop an attacker.
That whole 'shoot them once and they go down' is pure Hollywood stuff.
Have gnu, will travel.
Those should be optional. People have different reasons for wanting them, especially the loaded indicator. I know people that want to carry an unloaded gun just so that they can brandish it in case of emergency, but they know they wouldn't be willing to pull the trigger and they aren't comfortable carrying a loaded gun. If indicators for chambered rounds were required, even standardized, then you'd never be able to do that.
"Don't teach a man to fish, feed yourself. He's a grown man. Fishing's not that hard." - Ron Swanson
Seems that Hideo Kojima and the writers from Metal Gear Solid are visionaries. While i understand that guns should be reliable and actually fire when needed, it would be nice if the gun only fired from his legitimate owner. Maybe some exception for the military guns, since that wouldn't work on warfare.
Open Source Java Web Forum with LDAP authentication
Might be better to create a biometric mechanism that "excludes" people from using the firearm. That way if it detects your child holding it then it will not fire. For you, your wife, whoever else it will work normally. Just thinking out loud....
I saw, many years ago, a program on maybe TLC, where the person wore a ring that activated the gun. I thought that was cool.
No single raindrop believes it is to blame for the flood.
I have friends on FB who appear to think that our current political situation is just as dire as in the Civil War, with things so important being argued that fighting could break out at any moment.
It's worth pointing out that we are currently arguing (aside from the Sandy Hook aftermath) over (1) whether everyone should have to have health care (2) whether the taxes we all paid back in 1999 - half of what they were in the 70s - should be reinstated (3) Whether the money we send to Washington should be spent on the elderly, the infirm, and the indigent, or should be reallocated to personal pet projects more suited to each representatives district and (4) If gay people can get married.
The actual political distance between the parties is rather wide, and yet the two candidates in the last election are so close together politically *based on their actual actions* you could have swapped them. Obama had the balls to call in the raid in Pakistan, is bombing the shit out of everyone he can point a drone at, and signed legislation to extend tax cuts and to allow firearms into national parks. Romney basically created the Affordable Healthcare Act when he was governor.
We, as a country, are arguing about - really - mostly trivial things. And yet everyone gets whipped into a frenzy about them because you've got to fill 24 hours of news somehow, and the only way to get people to do anything is to create a fever pitch over it.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Sounds like you should worry about using a bit more parental authority.
I never sneaked out of the house...never ever, ever, because we had guns in the house. For that very reason I would never sneak out of the house.
From a very young age, my parents let me know where the gun was, I wash taken and shown how to use it properly. I also had the fear of God put into me if I ever even thought of touching it when not appropriate. I also knew not to sneak out to risk being shot as an intruder.
One time I was home alone...it was raining, and some bum started ringing the doorbell, wanted some water, etc.
I went to their bedroom, got the gun, cocked and loaded the chamber and safety off....and held that as I yelled through the door for him to leave immediately.
When he finally left, I took the clip out, took the round out of the chamber and back into the clip, clip back into gun with safety on...put it back in place and immediately called my Mom at work to tell what had happened.
Can you not trust your kids to be as responsible?
If not, then I posit the problem is not guns...but a little more parental guidance is needed by the offspring.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
One of the places they'll look is under your bed; a lot of people "hide" valuables there.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Non-lethal is only useful when there isn't an immediate threat to someone's life.
When you absolutely need to be sure someone won't kill someone, there's only one way to do that. That's why police don't wield tasers when confronting an armed criminal. They wield them when confronting someone who is acting wildly, but is not an immediate threat. (A Youtube video comes to mind where someone is going bat crazy at a police officer for writing her a ticket. She starts slapping him so he tases her.)
Using a taser against someone carrying a shovel is one thing. Using one against someone carrying a full-auto M14 is another.
To your point though, I'm not sure if keeping any gun/taser in a classroom is a good idea (unless it was on the teacher's person, in a holster). Too much can happen and a student can gain possession before the teacher can do anything.
We don't live in Shouldland.
I doubt a lot of folks do that, and outside of television I've never known anyone who did that. And it's a stupid idea. Rock salt doesn't make a gun non-lethal. Someone is either a grave threat or not. If they aren't a grave threat, you have no business shooting them with anything.
Your friend may own 40 semi-automatic rifles, but I doubt he owns 40 automatic or select fire rifles.
Nope, all autos and select fire. I actually reload ammo for him. That number doesn't include shotguns, Mosin Nagants, and pistols either. Once a week he and his wife purchase something in larger quantities for storage. One week it was TP. The next it was water. So on and so forth. He's a "prepper" for sure.
While a lower rate (football alone) isn't American Football responsible for approximately 25 deaths or catastrophic injuries per year?
(4+ direct deaths such as severed spines, 9+ indirect deaths like heart attacks, and an average of 13 injuries such as total paralysis)
I'm not saying this as a plea to ban football in HS. (However, I think we do put our HS players in too much danger), but to illustrate that I believe people are wildly overreacting to the actual threat. Mass shootings average 100 deaths per year. That is an astonishingly small number when you factor in the population size, and when you also consider the risk due to things that are completely avoidable like HS football.
The hysteria just bugs the hell out of me.
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The vehicle death rate has increased since seatbelts and aribags were made mandatory; people feel safer, so they're more prone to do stupider shit.
That's simply empirically false. This chart and the associated statistics show that while the absolute number of deaths is increasing, the frequency of deaths is declining, a trend evident since the late 1960s at least.
Cars have clearly become more complex over the same period, and so there is no simple correlation between increased complexity and increased frequency of death.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
There was at one time a mechanical interlock device for guns which used a magnetized ring worn by the user. Without a strong magnet on the grip, the gun would not unlock and fire. It wasn't that popular, but did work. Some gun users with kids at home liked it.
Gun safety systems have improved, and there should be minimum standards in that area. Col. Dave Hackworth (WWII, Korea, Vietnam, highly decorated, quit the Army after Vietnam over war policy and became a noted critic) was involved in evaluating replacements for the M1911A1 pistol. He mentions that Army records showed that weapon had killed more US soldiers through accidents than enemy soldiers. (Bear in mind the military approach to pistols - pistols are carried by people who don't plan to use them. When you're looking for trouble, you carry a rifle or heavier.)
With the M1911A1, you can remove the magazine, but if there's a round in the chamber, still fire the weapon. Most modern semi-auto pistols are interlocked against that, which tends to reduce "I didn't know it was loaded" accidents. The unloading process is more complicated than one might expect, and involves disengaging the safety and pulling the trigger.
That class of problem can be solved by design. It may take legislation, just as it did to get auto transmission quadrants to all be PRNDL. In the 1950s, General Motors used a different sequence than Ford and Chrysler, leading to "I didn't know it was in reverse" accidents.
If there was a reliable way to disable and contain a murderous attacker on a violent rampage without killing him or her that is at least as reliable as a firearm, I'm pretty sure everyone, including dysfunctional US citizens, would be interested.
That would actually be a pretty disruptive technology, and would make bloodshed obsolete.
More Twoson than Cupertino
Never said it was non-lethal. Just less lethal. I had rock salt for awhile. But I just changed to buckshot. I know a few people that have rock salt. Some people don't want to live with the fact they took someone's life. Rock salt being less lethal, allows for the suspect to have a better chance of surviving and facing prosecution.
Automatic weapons are regulated at the federal level.
He either has a million dollars invested in guns between the tax and guns themselves,
or he has been buying his guns illegally,
or you are mistaken.
Most home invaders are either well-armed or on heavy drugs, or both.
Blame the existence of the second amendment for giving citizens that they have a chance, solo, against government forces. Also blame television for making people think that violent home invasions happen once a week.
First, most home invaders are not heavily armed. and second, my home has been broken into twice (not often, 20 years ago and 5 years ago) However, I once held someone at gunpoint after they chased me down the street and into my home. I was able to grab a shotgun and hold them at bay until they ran off. Thankfully for me, they didn't realize that I only grabbed the shotgun and didn't have any ammo for it, but damned if it wasn't a terrifying moment.
I had no chance to call the police until after the guy ran away. I didn't know what he had, or what he intended, other than the fact that he kept trying to coax me to put down the gun and come outside. I didn't want to move an inch or distract myself to try to grab the phone, and I wasn't going to let him out of my sight to try and find some ammunition.
Home invasions do happen, obviously it isn't TV, but then again, TV doesn't exactly portray gun owners in a positive light either.
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I think it's funny you brought up the EMP scenario, since I mentioned it one of my other comments. I recently read Lucifer's Hammer... not an EMP, but a comet creating a post-apocalyptic world where guns were very important.
In large part I agree with you... gun violence, and violent crime in general, is on the decline, and so maybe we shouldn't do anything at all. How much effort should we exert on relatively rare occurrences?
As I've mentioned elsewhere, the most striking thing about this conversation (on /.) is what seems to me to be an anti-advancement attitude. Did musket owners feel the same way about self-contained ammunition? Will future people feel that way before phasers or whatever are widely adopted?
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
It was "standard" in my concealed carry class along with "night shooting" (lights out) and lift to fire (from the table to shoot)
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
The post shows how the military controls distribution and usage of weapons and ammunition to prevent accidents. How would that be an argument against gun control?
In a situation like that, you aren't aiming to destroy a tank with your small arms. You are only making it harder for them to achieve their goal. It's nuisance warfare. If you keep the military forces busy for even a short period of time, others can build up required tools to combat the forces. (IEDs, etc.) If you just throw your hands up and give into the military might there's no possible way to win.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
"The supreme requirement in a firearm is RELIABILITY. "
Absolutely. And the system described, according to their paper, in it's own words,
"The average success rate is 89.44%."
That's with a huge box of electronics attached to the gun via wires, in ideal, controlled conditions.
The ONLY way I would even begin to want to own such a thing is if there were NO external encumbrances, and it worked at least 99.9999% of the time, under varied and chaotic conditions, and doesn't rely on flaky batteries.
I might add, the newspaper had a picture of some Taliban guys in for talks, and they were carrying WW1 era bolt rifles.
"Even so, I wish that research into reliable non-lethal disabling weapons would increase tenfold."
Regular "stun guns" are not always reliable, and the more specific "Taser" type of stun gun is not "non lethal". It is "less lethal". That is why they are only supposed to be used when the only alternative is deadly force (shooting the suspect).
Granted, many law enforcement agencies have abused them, and used them in lieu of any kind of physical confrontation rather than only in lieu of deadly force; nevertheless, the latter is the way they are supposed to be used.
According to Amnesty International, Tasers are responsible for at least 10,000 deaths.
"The technical term is "Less than Lethal"...
No, the technical term is "Less Lethal". Not less than lethal.
" (A Youtube video comes to mind where someone is going bat crazy at a police officer for writing her a ticket. She starts slapping him so he tases her.)"
See, this is what is wrong. That is an inappropriate, abusive use of the Taser.
Tasers are not "non-lethal". They are "less lethal". They are only supposed to be used in lieu of deadly force (i.e., as an alternative to shooting the person). Anything less than that calls for different measures.
In the case of the slapping woman, she should have been physically detained (whether by wrestling with her or with police club or tonfa if necessary... that's even MORE "less lethal") and handcuffed. But a Taser is grossly inappropriate at that point.
As I have said before: I know that some law enforcement agencies use them that way, but that does not make it right or proper.
Not to mention as we've seen in the Arab Spring uprising, it's one thing to use your military against a foreign nation, it's a totally different thing to use it against your own population. Soldiers generally don't like pointing their guns at their bothers, sisters, neighbors and friends.
Would a trigger identification system introduce additional latency to the gun firing? Any latency would reduce the effectiveness.
Automatic weapons are regulated at the federal level.
He either has a million dollars invested in guns between the tax and guns themselves, or he has been buying his guns illegally, or you are mistaken.
Not really sure where he got them. He had them before we met. Since we've known each other he's gotten a few more. He trades a lot. We buy our firearms from friends and stuff. I get mine from an FFL dealer in town. I do have several of my own but none are automatics and I don't have that many. I do reload though and carry a decent amount of ammo and supplies. We are in a small boonie town in the woods. Not much happens here. Not common to see trucks with gun racks in them. Its pretty redneck. But I love it.
It was "standard" in my concealed carry class along with "night shooting" (lights out) and lift to fire (from the table to shoot)
As addressed in my comment, you are one of the 'many shooters" who have been "exposed to the concept." I'll ask directly:do you habitually practice these techniques? The answer may be yes (I know several people who do), but the most likely answer is "no." I still stand behind my statement that this is not the "standard training for putting down a threat."
Also, if your "concealed carry" class (by which I assume you mean the class that many states mandate before you can obtain a carry permit) is teaching this, it's definitely not your run of the mill class, because no state requires such training, thus most classes (honestly, none that I have ever heard of in the state of Tennessee) don't teach it. If you're talking about a level I or II defensive handgun class, this is more normal, but I'll guarantee you spent a LOT more time on other things like basic accuracy, retention, malfunction drills, cover, etc, and did not spend the necessary time training muscle memory.
"Shoot it to the ground" has been harped on in every defensive class I've ever taken. NOT, "Two to the chest, one to the head" or similar.
What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
Well, when Ralph Nader gets up in front of Congress and lies with the goal of killing babies, people accept it as the truth, after all, how much of a nutjob would you have to be to lie, knowing you lie would kill hundreds of babies?
Airbags were declared "safe" by Congress. The statistics showed Congress was wrong. But it was a case where pi was legislated to be 3, and everyone went along with it. Every objective measure indicates airbags are a failure. But the government can *never* be wrong, so airbags are mandated when they don't help. So we alter reality to fit our opinion. Statistics forged, lies in congressional testimony, and "airbags save lives" is out there. But that doesn't make it true.
If you use your seat belt, you are more likely to be harmed by airbags than helped. Though in the large number of cases where it neither helps nor harms, the numbers are written down in the "helped" category. As they "depowered" airbags, the number of deaths went down, and that was used as proof that they were then more helpful, when it was statistically more like removing them from a percentage of cars.
Airbags were a huge mistake and should never have happened. Same with daytime running lights and the center brake light (both proxies for solving something else, and they did a poor job, DRLs are useful only when the sun is low, so they should be on at those times, and not be low-powered high-beams, as some were, and CHMSL was an issue of reaction time/expectations, and the real "fix" was shown to be body-colored stop lamps, but the designers didn't like that, so we put the looks of cars above our safety, or at least Congress did).
Learn to love Alaska
Guns are simple mechanical devices; if a gun required a battery to work (say, a solenoid firing pin), I wouldn't touch it under any circumstances.
So if i gave you a M134 Minigun, and it was legal to own, you wouldn't touch it?
2) Some people don't want them. If you're thinking about the "lightning strikes" scenarios, then it's possible you'd suddenly want to fire that last round halfway through changing mags...
I don't think this is an argument against this "feature" at all. Suppose you're in that bad situation, with a typical 9mm that has a 15 round double-stack mag. Are you counting rounds as you fire them? Will you know for sure that you've fired 14 -- not 15 and you're empty, or 13 and you waste a round when you drop the mag? Guarantee you this will never ever ever happen. The proper way for an auto pistol (double action anyway) to operate is for the slide to lock back when you're empty, then replace with a fresh mag, and hit the slide release to chamber a round. There is absolutely fuck-all reason for such a feature to even exist, but to save a few idiots who might think a gun is safe to point at his own head without checking the chamber. And that's not a good reason.
That I'm right, and you don't like it, doesn't mean I'm a troll.
'Undo Reagan's damage.' What damage? If you have evidence please cite your source.
'I don't know what it's called. I just know the sound it makes, when it takes a man's life.' ~ Four Leaf Tayback
No, we can't have different solutions for different circumstances. That is too logical. We hope and pray for dead children so we can push our pet cause further. Nothing moves a cause like dead children. Why not have the cops have the guns that are unsafe, but teathered to them. One of the issues with police firearms is theft of the gun from the cop. More than one place has the guns teathered to the cop. Other places have systems where if a cop falls over, an alarm goes off, signaling an officer down without him having to call anyone. Use those for the cops, to cater for the edge cases for their firearm use. Except for the speed shooting competitions, target shooters are generally tolerant of misfires and delays. So put the more complex safeties on the more casual use weapons. And no safeties on bolt action weapons. If you want to take out the president with 3 bolt action shots in 8 seconds, that's your right, right? After all, that's the purpose of the 2nd Amendment.
Learn to love Alaska
I am only suggesting what we already do for felons.
Yes, of course due process would have to be involved.
An indicator is not needed. The first rule of handling firearms is to treat each one as it's loaded. If I'm handed a weapon that I see the clip removed and the slide is open when the weapon is handed to me, I still look into the chamber to verify for myself the weapon is indeed not loaded and safe for me to handle.
Basic safety is all that's needed.
I grew up in a house where there were firearms everywhere and easily accessed by me if I had wanted to. My father took the route of taking me to the range and teaching me how to use them safely and that when a firearm went off whatever was hit would be dead. He stressed never point it even unloaded at anything you did not intend to shoot and taught me how to clean and maintain them. The result was when playing around the house if I came across a firearm, I left it alone. There was nothing in it I hadn't had dealings with. I never tried to take it outside and play with it, it wasn't after all a toy and I knew that.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
You last fired this gun 59 seconds ago.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
If something is wrong with a car and people die the carmaker gets sued. Toyota had some issues recently.
The problem with guns is not rational rural users it is primarily irrational urban users. I don't know (or even know of) anyone who has defended him/herself with a gun. I know friends of friends who have had gun-related accidents or who have committed suicide with guns. Statistically in Canada that is not surprising. Gun-related homicides are pretty much organized criminals killing each other, but lots of people have guns and they are a significant suicide option. Violent crime is pretty low because enforcement pretty much leaves burglary and such to the insurance company but takes home invasions and other violent crime seriously.
Gun ownership without training is completely insane. Why would anyone want this?
You got me into this! You were the ideologue! I'm only a poor assassin! - Twenty evocations, Bruce Sterling
That's why we need the research. I'm certain that you can't make any weapon that can't kill or seriously injure, but surely weapons can be made that are both more effective and less lethal than current technology, for a price similar to a handgun.
Gun accident rates were at 0.2 per 100,000 population in the U.S. (according to this article, based on 2006 data). If we can arm 10 times as many people while pushing the accidental death rate farther down, I call that a win for the good guys (people who aren't gunning down people in schools and theaters and the workplace and religious institutions).
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
LEOs are private citizens. An important fact that's often overlooked.
The supreme requirement in a firearm is RELIABILITY
Unfortunately, no tool can be more reliable than the person operating it, and there is a wealth of empirical data demonstrating that untrained (ie typical) handgun owners are extremely unreliable.
Handgun proficiency is hard. Anyone who has even moderate experience with firearms knows this, and knows that handgun proficiency declines dramatically under pressure and when the person has not been actively, regularly and recently (as in, the past few weeks to months) training for combat/emergency response. This is why cops are required to maintain proficiency through regular training, and it's easy to find firearms experts who are critical of how low those proficiency standards are.
People who argue for concealed carry and the use of handguns as a defensive tool for untrained or poorly trained individuals who are not required by law to undergo weekly or monthly refreshers are arguing for something that is dangerous, unreliable and virtually useless as a means of defense against attack of any kind.
Again: anyone familiar with the actual proficiency requirements for the effective use of handguns in emergency situations is an advocate for strictly limiting them to highly trained individuals who undergo regular proficiency maintenance. To argue otherwise is simply to declare your ignorance of the vast amount of empirical data that demonstrates just how hard it is to use a handgun reliably.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
I think you mean someone watched License to Kill and liked the idea
Q also issues OO7 a signature gun in Skyfall.
Make guns trackable with very stiff fines for an untrackable gun, say 10 yrs max for first offence.
"He killed younglings".
Need Mercedes parts ?
And you talk as if you could wave a magic wand and cause every gun in the world to disappear at once. Guns are a reality, and have been for 400 years. Criminals don't give two fucks about so-called gun control laws, because THEY ARE CRIMINALS. If they get guns, I want a gun too so I can make it a fair fight.
And if I get a gun, you bet your ass that I'm going to learn to store and use it properly, and safely.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
I agree that proper safety training is a must, and makes the indicator somewhat superfluous. However, it costs nothing to have it there, and if it saves even one life from a careless accident, it's worth it. Why would you argue against having such a simple feature if it adds nothing to the manufacturing cost?
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
The problem is that lethal / non-lethal is not a binary thing, it's a spectrum. And it correlates pretty closely with ability to stop / incapacitate. In other words, the higher the likelihood of some weapon being effective at stopping an attacker, the more potentially lethal it is.
Exactly right!
When I took hunter safety years ago we did some of that....it's one of the reasons I like revolvers over semi-autos, since some semi-autos have all the switches/levers on only one side vs. thru-and-thru.
All this stuff would do is get people killed.
Ferret
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
That could save 400 lives a year. So why aren't gunmakers making safer guns?
400 lives a year isn't all that much (assuming that all these deaths come from legally owned guns too). Especially, considering that most of these probably were partly responsible for what killed them. And as usual with such proposals, the costs associated with the cure aren't discussed. Moneywise, there probably is some justification as long as the cost doesn't exceed oh, $2-4 billion a year (roughly the liability payout for accidental deaths in the US court system).
But we also need to consider the deaths that come from guns not working when they need to be working. It is worth noting that guns remain, at least in the US, a legal tool for self-defense and that these are commonly used as such. All these safeguards make it less likely that a gun will work when it is needed.
As sad as children being killed with a gun is, it was just over 1% of accidental deaths in 2009. It would be a much better idea to work to lower the main causes of accidental death, just as: automobiles (41%), suffocation (21%), and drowning (15%). Lessen one of those and you will save many more lives. Nobody will ever notice however, because those types of deaths don't mean big news ratings and newspaper sales.
28 Deaths is a tragedy, 28,000 is a statistic.
When humans get all emotional, all reason goes out the window. That's why with the past shootings there hasn't been much action to restrict guns. Quite the opposite. It has been proven that as more people are trained in, and carry weapons, violent crime goes down. Murders may stay the same, because you can't stop someone who is determined to die, but many muggings, robberies, and rapes get stopped and are never reported to the police.
I've seen police reports where several trained officers fired dozens of rounds at a criminal during a standoff, and none of them hit. Then take your average person scared for his life, adrenaline pumping, hands shaking, firing down the hall at an intruder.
It's precisely when you don't really need more than three rounds that you could live with three rounds: relaxing on the range, target shooting. But then constantly reloading gets very annoying.
It depends on the discipline. There are kinds where you take your time for every round, and then there are thing such as cowboy shooting or IPSC and IDPA shooting, which measure timing as much, if not more, than accuracy.
When the amendment was written, what percentage of firearms were capable of holding more than three shots?
Why does it matter? The amendment doesn't say "right to keep and bear arms, only so long as they remain functionally equivalent to what we know today".
"I don't care what the rules are, if they can be broken some will be."
If you can't understand that (what Kup said) being a STRONG argument against gun control then I suppose I can go on to explain, but I'm betting you can figure it out.
My present is the activity I am currently engaged in with the purpose of turning the future into a better past.
Or Judge Dredd and a Lawgiver.
http://www.theliberati.net/quaequamblog/2012/08/07/l-is-for-lawgiver-lawmaster/
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
Not to mention as we've seen in the Arab Spring uprising,
Which BTW was done without firearms, since Tunisia had the lowest gun-ownership rate in the world when they overthrew their dictator.
Sure mine may have been different (It was given by a former JAG officer) but I do at least one clip of each type whenever possible (the lights out can be tough when you don't have the whole range) on my trips to the range. I mainly bought the gun for the target practice aspect and I find that the point and shoot practice helps me with my normal sight shooting by getting me accustomed to the weapon. We were taught two shots. One to the chest and the second should have a better chance for a head shot because of recoil. With my normal practice sessions, I find that I end up a body shot both of them, but I can understand someone with less practice could not compensate for recoil on the second shot.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
Butterfly nets? Large laundry bag? Of course if they are shorter than 3" then you have real problems:
http://www.lucasforums.com/showthread.php?t=77398
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
As someone who doesn't smoke and doesn't want to smell smoke or deal with the effects of second-hand smoke, I like smoke-free workplaces and smoke-free public places. Your right to inhale carcinogens ends at my lungs, buddy. Smoke in your own home where you slowly kill your own family.
As far as those new health care policies, you have your free market to blame for that. The market priced the cost of tobacco use into insurance. There is no problem with the market doing that. Some employers have decided that means those employees are too expensive to insure. It's my opinion that they should be able to pay a higher premium to cover the difference in insurance costs...and maybe if you had a union then they could negotiate such a deal.
:(){
Do customers have any say?
I don't buy a gun for "technology" or for the ways it stops itself from doing what it is supposed to do. I buy a gun for reliably doing what it is supposed to do.
That's why improvements such as firing pin or transfer bar safeties have been widely adopted. And why with the Browning Hi Power which has had a magazine safety for decades, the number one modification is to remove said "safety."
Keep your hands off my guns.
sdb
I can't comprehend analogies unless they involve cars. As for the 20 tags/20 guns, I thought that the goal was to register a gun to a user, not sell RFID tags. A single tag could unlock all the user's guns. Maybe he can even have a spare in case one gets lost....oh oh oh....like how you often get two keys when buying a car....but thats only for one car....perhaps you can shoot me back a better car analogy?
My bad, I missed Kup's posting and thought you were replying to alen.
However I admit I still don't see how the fact that some rules will be broken is an argument against having any rules in the first place.
I flip the safety off and squeeze the trigger it works it needs no improvement.
Got Code?
I take it you've never heard of Libya or Syria? Not saying that in some situations a peaceful revolution can't be successful, but at the same time I don't believe it's the only means of doing so. American history shows that both ways can be successful, but it really depends on the leader.
So.. You almost shot a guy in the face when you were a kid and consider that to be 'responsible'?
Seriously, what do you think you would have done if the guy actually came into your house and proceeded towards your kitchen to drink water and/or rob your house?
Do you really believe calling 911 and running out the back of your house would have been worse?
I was in canada for a few years, I watched a guy pull out his pistol and show it to me (I don't know if this was legal). He did target shooting and speed courses, he explained to me that he always had to have the trigger lock on it while at home. When he wanted to go to the range, he had to call up the range warden to tell him he was coming, drive straight there and straight back after he was done. If he decided to pick up some groceries on the way back and got caught he would end up in jail. About 3 months previous to this about 7 RCMP's died because a guy shot them with an assault rife and a shotgun, these types of guns were not legal so how did this happen? What happens to the average joe when someone like this breaks into his house and he has to get his key out to unlock his gun? You will never be able to eliminate bad people without causing some serious collateral damage to freedom.
As always, it's the simple common-sense reasons and not some crypto-fascist evil corporate gunmaker conspiracy to control the population by putting "murder machines" into the hands of psychopaths. Occam's Razor.
A gun that only fires it if recognizes your grip? um, so when you get injured trying to fight-off a thug before finally resorting to the gun, and your throbbing/bleeding hand makes you hold the thing a little differently - oooops! the thing won't fire!
A gun that indicates whether it's loaded or there's a round in the chamber? dumb. Many Americans have held home invaders, would-be rapists or muggers, etc at bay with unloaded guns (this is safer than keeping the weapon in the nightstand in a fully-loaded and chambered state, and the doubt is often enough to stop a bad guy)
A gun that only fires for the registered owner? Stupid. Somebody breaks into your house, knocks you down, and - oh, wait - your gun won't fire when your wife needs it!
Many of these stupid schemes to make a machine NOT do the very thing it's intended to do just add cost and extra risk, while often being offered by some inventor who hopes lawmakers will mandate his new invention (so he can get rich from the royalties every gun maker will be ordered to pay). Just imagine all the patent litigation and all the royalty checks! Just the added IP activity our society so-desperately needs, right? These things are then also waved before a gullible public by politicians whose real goal (not a conspiracy, many are on-the record for bans/gun-siezures) is tighter gun control (often by either making guns too expensive or so useless that most won't buy them, or by convincing voters that gun makers are evil (since it's obvious that it they were good else they'd already be including the "features"))
These things are not in current guns because most gun buyers are not dumb enough to want to buy a gun that costs more in exchange for crippled functionality - it's just that simple.
The entire thing's a distraction. Your'e supposed to notice the things and not notice your rights shrinking while the rights of crazy/evil people are expanded. Americans used to be able to own fully-automatic machine guns (before congress made them illegal for law-abiding citizens in response to misuse by criminal gangs in the 1930's) and up until much more-recently, many American boys used to carry guns to school (some schools in rural areas had gun clubs, and some boys went hunting before or after school). We NEVER used to have mass-shootings in schools. Before the 1980's we used to keep lunatics in asylums (the ACLU won a legal fight to end that) and it used to be that a thug did not KNOW that a school was an easy place for a massacre ... until the morons in government passed a bunch of "gun-free-zone" laws. We did not need armed school employees (the simple doubt about whether they MIGHT be armed was marginally deterrent) but since all those laws passed everybody KNOWS a school is a place where nobody will shoot back. There are many complex reasons for the massacres of the past few years, but stupidly constructed and rapidly passed laws are not the solution. There are hundreds of millions of guns in the US and many millions of "violent video games" and DVDs of "action movies", but only a tiny number of massacres; in any politics-free zone, the obvious point would be that none of these physical items make a 99.999% of the population commit murder; these physical objects are not the common thread. Only an evil bastard opportunist who is grinding some other axe would try to penalize all the law-abiding people by depriving them of their rights, while refusing to go after the tiny screwed-up minority who are the actual common denominator in all these crimes - and wrap it all in the shroud of a bunch of dead children.
Is there anybody on this site who does not know that within the next decade or two we will all be able to design and 3D-print any sort of firearm we can imagine???
So-called "gun control" is a fantasy of two groups: left-wing politicians and activists who are living in the 1960's, and totalitarian governments (how shocking is it that Putin and China have both chimed-in on the subject?) who believe that they will be able to control their populations by controlling access to firearms (a scheme that used to work) while stupidly imagining they will be able to have modern competitive economies without rapid prototyping systems.
We have a very short time to solve the real problem: how do we deal with the small portion of any population who either refuses, or is incapable of, controlling it's own behavior.
We could give reliable stun guns to every teacher, and train them, without fear that students would get killed due to negligence.
Why do people think that these weapons are non-lethal? Please read:
http://www.ucsf.edu/news/2009/01/4188/first-study-test-real-world-effects-stun-gun-use-raises-questions-abo
Just another day in Paradise
That is why you get a pump shotgun for home protection. The sound of the cocking of a pump action (geez, that looks bad) will chase most folks away. And as long as you get a shotgun with a large spread (larger diameter or shorter barrel), you'll not have to aim so well.
http://www.americanrifleman.org/articles/best-gun-for-home-defense/
Highly recommend this article to anyone thinking that a shotgun is the best home defense weapon. Some quick points from the article:
The pattern from a shotgun at short range isn't much larger than the barrel, making you just as likely to miss as with a pistol or rifle.
The capacity of most shotguns is tiny (typically 4+1) in comparison to many handguns.
Typically, smaller people may have trouble handling the kick from a suitable size shotgun...12 gauge
In close quarters, your opponent may be able to push the barrel out of the way...much more difficult to do with a handgun.
Just another day in Paradise
I see this bullshit posted so frequently that I have to respond.
Please remember that the military is made up of people who volunteered. Except in the event of an all out civil war, they are never going to be used against our own civilians. Even if they were ordered to, I think you'd find that most would disobey that kind of order. And for the record, YOU are not important enough for the government to waste a $60-$70k Hellfire missile on. The history of war over the last hundred years has shown how much damage individuals can do to well armed armies...please go read and learn something.
Just another day in Paradise
Yes.
I would have shot and tried to kill a home invader. Same as I would do today.
I do not have to retreat inside my home, and that's the case in most states.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I'm a fan of the XDm line but I don't own one because I also wanted a manual safety/decocker similar to the H&K USPs or the Beretta 92's.
Can you not trust your kids to be as responsible?
Responsible enough to threaten a homeless man with a loaded gun? Hopefully not...
When humans get all emotional, all reason goes out the window.
This. I wish we had it built into the Constitution that Congress was banned from passing (or even debating) any legislation for 60 days after any national tragedy.
And that is why you are considered a barbarian.
The NRA is demanding armed guards in every school in the nation. http://news.yahoo.com/nra-calls-armed-police-officer-every-school-162851713.html
But as experience in Afghanistan proves, you cannot always trust those armed guards. A bad guy with a desire to gain infamous immortality? Get a job as one of those "Good Guy" armed guards. Hang out for year or so, and set your own record.
So it is inevetible, we need to have children carry their own heat. This will be a big growth industry. I can forsee pink Hello Kitty semi auto rifles for the little girls, and a whole range of GI Joe action assault rifles for the little boys.
All black humor aside, do we really think that this is a path to go down? You really won't be able to stop a determined assailant with an assault rifle and one armed offecer. You would need multiple guards at every ingress/egress point. You would need windowless buildings with solid metal doors on all entrances and exits. A prison essentially. We would need to turn our schools into prisons.
And all this because some folks thing that banning assault weapons is somehow a bad thing? And that the answer is a gun version of the old Soviet-American arms race? Will thse folks support the inevetible tax increases?
Make no mistake, banning assault weapons will not put an end to school or other shootings. Probably nothing will, and certainly 1 armed officer at each school won't. What it would do is first, make it a little more difficult for the crazies to be so efficient, and then if you saw someone wallking down the street with their AR-15, you would know that are a bad guy, and not just on their way to a Tea Party rally.
As a gun owner, I think we must move past the knee jerk reaction whenever there is any mention of firearms of dubious public use being banned, of "Jack booted thugs" (the NRA's words, not mine) breaking into your house, confisticating your guns and ammo, and then sending you off to a FEMA concentration camp. It doesn't follow.
People should be able to own rifles and sidearms, and use them for hunting and self protection. A Bushmaster? Not quite as much.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I think that is extra safe, even when the safety is off.
Amen. Preach it son.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
You of course realize that means there would be no Patriot Act right now?
What are you, some sore of terrorist?
Let's see those papers citizen!
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Treating every weapon as if it were loaded is a safety rule. That's rather different than a chamber indicator, which serves a QOL function for the operator. The indicator isnt meant to replace the safety rule, and it shouldnt. But the PPK style indicator is a classic ease of use function that makes the user's life a little easier, say in the case of a mis-feed or jam when the round doesnt load.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Perhaps randomly shooting in the dark in your own home when you're too tired to aim isn't such a smart idea.
Very little. That's an argument against the three-shot weapon idea, no?
If simulations (and common sense) show that in Government-vs-People, People will lose, then do something to the power of one or both sides. Repeat until projected outcome is that People will win.
What's funny is that (over-simplifying) Democrats propose making the People side weaker in that contest ("gun control"), and Republicans propose making the Government side stronger (strong "defense"). I think both of these folks totally misinterpreted my "do something to the power of one or both sides" suggestion, above. *facepalm* It's almost as though they're not on our side.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
Lots of countries have nuclear weapons. Should I be able to own my own nukes if I don't want to rely on my government's nukes to protect me? If not, why?
Doesn't matter really what I'm considered...as long as I'm the one left still standing, breathing and able to reproduce (optional).
If it is between my life and ANY other human life on this planet, MY life is always the most important to me.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
lol
Free speech was meant to be free for all... how can anyone grow up in a nanny state ?
I would submit that the reliability of brakes on cars is far more important to the public than the reliability of guns, but that has not prevented anti-lock brakes, which are clearly more complex than drum brakes.
Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company -- Mark Twain
I'd rather accidentally shoot my daughter with a taser when she sneaks in after curfew and watch her crap her pants than shoot her with a pistol and watch her bleed out.
And I'd rather my daughter have the means to at least have a chance of defending herself if she's someday dragged into an alley by gang rapists / murderers. Self-defense is a basic human right.
My other UID is three digits.
Soon enough all the gun owners and wanna-be gun owners are properly dead, and the world is a safer place. The gun-shop owners can now shoot themselves and their family and children. Send their estates to the victims of gun crime.
Simple gun safety!
What? Are you protesting that it's your constitutional right to bear arms? So fucking what - it's too fucking dangerous to let civilians have guns. Sheesh, don't you get it yet?
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
All my handguns do have grip safeties and disconnects if the magazines are removed, as does my 55 year old semiautomatic 30-06 Many firearms have included these devices for many years contrary to the content of many articles touting the devices, however they do not have the very expensive "smart gun tech" Mine are always loaded and all should be assumed to be so until proven otherwise. Otherwise Darwin's law becomes paramount.
Doesn't matter really what I'm considered...as long as I'm the one left still standing, breathing and able to reproduce (optional).
That is exactly what a barbarian would say.
If it is between my life and ANY other human life on this planet, MY life is always the most important to me.
You assume the 'home invader' was going to kill you, which according to statistics (and even more so according to your story) is really unlikely (in the US): http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/vdhb.pdf
About 24,000 burglaries yearly lead to serious injury, which is 8.5% of all violent burglaries and 0.6% of all burglaries. And I'm pretty sure things like a broken arm or serious concussion are counted as serious injuries, but this is speculation, of course.
By the way, I do agree on choosing ones' own life over that of another (barring relatives), but I also strongly believe in a civilized society and a civilized judicial and enforcement system. I.e. no vigilantism.
Just take away the bullets. A gun collector buys guns for what purpose. For the technology. Do not allow automatic weapon type bullets into the hands of gun owners, but do allow the bullets to be available at gun ranges. Count the shells to insure all bullets are accounted for.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
Self defense isn't about vigilantism, there's a 45.5% chance if you are confronted by a stranger in your home he will be armed
No there's not. That percentage is for what turned out to be violent burglaries. Only in ~35,000 of ~1,000,000 burglaries (~3,5%) committed by a stranger, a weapon was present.
Yes 3/4ths of the time he's just going to run away and not mess with you when he realizes you're home. In that instance no you're absolutely right shooting him would be wrong. If he doesn't run away there's a very high likely hood that he will be armed himself.
No there's not. That is to say: according to which numbers?
Why don't you dilute your numbers even further since that seems to be your goal. with 114,761,359 households in America that means only 3% were burglarized, door locks must be useless then right?
No, in fact, most of that percentage (~2 percent points) were burglaries into houses with unlocked doors or windows. Locking doors and windows could very well prevent a lot of burglaries. But then again, who locks their doors during the day?
There were 266,560 thousand people in that study who were assaulted, or raped in their homes.
Yes, most of them by relatives, ex-lovers and other people known to them. Also note that the number includes everybody who was punched firmly in the arm or kicked in the balls during the burglary.
That is absolutely barbaric and those people absolutely have the right to protect themselves. You are presumably not one of those people so I doubt you know what it's like to be victimized like that. I've met a great number of the people doing the murdering raping and robbing and I absolutely will use a firearm, or whatever means available to protect myself from them. Now I will use appropriate levels of force. I wouldn't shoot someone in the face for knocking on my car window begging for money when I stop at a red light. But if someone smashed in my window or opened my car door at an intersection they are quite likely to get a face full of pepper spray, and if they persist beyond that I will most likely end them.
I completely agree with this behaviour. Well, up until the "if pepperspray doesn't work, I'll kill him."
Why not just shoot him in the knee? Or the shoulder or the lungs or the gut. I mean.. Does it have escalate that quickly?
However the numbers in the report you posted show that in 45.5% of the burglaries where they were confronted by a stranger in their home that stranger was in fact armed.
Nope. Look again. Violent burglaries only. Whatever total you use, the absolute figure of ~35,000 burglaries in which someone was confronted with a weapon (not even a firearm) will not change.
Lungs are a kill shot, gut is an awful kill shot.
No, they're not: http://www.shootingvoodoo.com/index.php/articles/gunshot_wounds_and_you/
Mortality rates from being hit in a single organ in the gut are as low as 4%.
Anti-gunners like yourself seem to think people properly trained in gun use are going to pull guns outside of lethal force situations, you don't and it's a felony to do such.
Are you kidding me? You were the one who said: "But if someone smashed in my window or opened my car door at an intersection they are quite likely to get a face full of pepper spray, and if they persist beyond that I will most likely end them."
Adding something along the lines of 'if he doesn't stop when pepper sprayed, he's on drugs, so killing him is fine' doesn't really help your case.
You can pin the 'anti-gunner' misconceptions on your own cowboyspeak, buddy.
If it doesn't warrant deadly force you don't cripple a guy for life, that's still deadly force and you would end up charged with attempted murder.
No, it doesn't and no, you wouldn't. What the hell makes you think that deliberately shooting someone in the knee isn't different from deliberately shooting someone in the face?
Confronted by a stranger implies violence, you need to learn to read what you're responding to
Lol. You should really look at that percentage of 45.5% you quoted and what it stands for.
I'll spell it out one last time. There were an average of ~266,000 burglaries in which violence was involved. In a subset of those cases, the burglar was a stranger (~74,000 cases). In a subset of those cases, the 'burglar' had a weapon (~35,000 cases). In a subset of those cases, it was a firearm (~17,000 cases).
It's not that hard, really. Look at page 10 of the linked pdf. Take your time.
Hit someone in the liver they'll drop dead almost instantly. Hit them in the lungs they'll drown in their own blood.
You have a hard time with understanding facts and statistics, don't you? Read the page I linked again or provide your own sources. Right now, you're just babbling.
So someone smashes in your door, you pepper spray them and they charge at you... you don't think killing them is appropriate level of force?
What you were replying to was proving that you yourself are responsible for people thinking you'll whip out your gun at the first sign of trouble, but whatever.
No, I do not think that killing them is an appropriate level of force. Seriously, I could stop a guy with pepper spray in his eyes with one hand. I mean, it's a different story if he has a weapon, but even then, I'd shoot to incapacitate, not kill.
You can't shoot someone in the knees and say "well it wasn't deadly force because he lived!" people get shot in the head and live.
I read up on the US definition of deadly force and it is apparently as black and white is you say it to be. Nevertheless, I am fairly sure that if you are found to have used deadly force erroneously, it makes a difference whether the assailant died and whether you intended to kill him.
If not, it should. Cops over here are instructed to attempt to incapacitate rather than kill when shooting.
Lol. You should really look at that percentage of 45.5% you quoted and what it stands for.
I'll spell it out one last time. There were an average of ~266,000 burglaries in which violence was involved. In a subset of those cases, the burglar was a stranger (~74,000 cases). In a subset of those cases, the 'burglar' had a weapon (~35,000 cases). In a subset of those cases, it was a firearm (~17,000 cases).
It's not that hard, really. Look at page 10 of the linked pdf. Take your time.
So what you're saying is in 45.5% of the cases where the burglar was a stranger and confronted them he had a weapon. exactly what I said (actually your random numbers comes out to 47% but they aren't the numbers in the pdf so we'll go with 45.5% like I and the pdf said)
Don't be an idiot. Look at page 10 of the pdf. Closely. Reread the above. Slowly.
You have a hard time with understanding facts and statistics, don't you? Read the page I linked again or provide your own sources. Right now, you're just babbling.
The section of the organ that says single organ is Factors Affecting Mortality and Morbidity in Patients with Abdominal Gunshot Wounds Adesanya
A single organ hit to the abdomen is likely to be the intestine which yeah wont kill you but will ruin your life even if it doesn't kill you. Your lungs aren't in the abdomen and a liver shot is less likely but will kill you very fast. There's a lot of blood in your liver I've seen animals die faster from a liver shot than from a head shot. Liver shots kill instantly.
Sources?
"None."
The linked percentages do not lie.
Case closed.
What you were replying to was proving that you yourself are responsible for people thinking you'll whip out your gun at the first sign of trouble, but whatever.
No, I do not think that killing them is an appropriate level of force. Seriously, I could stop a guy with pepper spray in his eyes with one hand. I mean, it's a different story if he has a weapon, but even then, I'd shoot to incapacitate, not kill.
I've had people think that and then when they're in cuffs on the ground after pepper spraying me they change their tune fast. Pepper spray is annoying but it doesn't stop everyone
Let me guess. They tried to pepper spray you in the balls?
If not, it should. Cops over here are instructed to attempt to incapacitate rather than kill when shooting.
No officer is instructed to shoot to kill, they are instructed to shoot to stop, or shoot to disable (it varies depending on the local laws.) However they are always trained to only shoot if killing is justifiable.
Yes, we already agreed on that. You have not yet indicated whether you would follow those guidelines when faced with a 'home invader'. If I recall correctly, shooting him in the knees would be 'barbaric' and the next action after trying pepper spray is to 'end him'.
confronted by a stranger (Read VIOLENCE)
So you really are an idiot. Try a course in reading comprehension.
Source is your own linked percentages. It specifies abdomen shots, not torso shots which excludes heart and lungs. The report you quoted does not specify single organ and any organ it just says singe organ. A liver shot is way different from a intestine shot.
"gut is an awful kill shot", AC, 23rd december.
Woops.
Let me guess. They tried to pepper spray you in the balls?
Pepper spraying in the balls? Where are you getting this shit? In case you haven't figured it out I was an officer of the law (Got fed up with supervisors and left to pursue other higher paying careers. So In academy and out in the real world in the face. I'm one of those lucky bastards with a very high tolerance for both OC and CS.
I'll be honest with you, I am not aware of anybody that does not have problems seeing for several seconds when pepper sprayed in the eyes. I'd really have to see some statistics on how probable it is that one would meet someone with such capabilities. That, or the pepper spray you bested was actually deodorant.
Yes if lesser degrees of force have failed, ending him would be the next step. You don't knee cap him and risk hitting someone else (knee caps are way smaller targets than center mass in most instances). The reason you aim for center mass is as much about effectively ending the threat as it is not being a moron and injuring someone else. You end the threat and move on with your life, you don't put targets beyond the threat at risk just so you can cripple someone for life.
So you see the 'shoot to incapacitate' directive as pretty much irrelevant and equal to 'just shoot the fucking bastard'? Nice. You're a great cop.
Don't get me wrong, I fully understand that there are some (if not many) situations where you need to aim for the biggest target. When the guy is 3 feet away however, you'd have to be a really lousy fucking shot if center mass was the only part you could hit.
I have shot one, my brother in Oregon has one. It's a fine weapon.
I prefer my Sig Sauer P229 though.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Talk about a ridiculous argument.
First, define "lots". There are eight declared nuclear states, and one probable undeclared (denoted with *):
United States
Russia
China
England
France
Pakistan
India
North Korea
Israel*
Second, when you use a gun, you shoot a single bullet that can destroy a single target effectively with one trigger pull (unless you're talking about class-3 weapons). With a nuke, you're talking about hundreds of thousands of people with one "trigger pull". If a nation uses a nuclear weapon against another nation, or as you ridiculously claim, against your back yard, your nation (and the rest of the world) are going to pound that nation into dust. If someone jacks your car at gunpoint, the police aren't going to do a damn thing about it other than file a piece of paper and say how sorry they are.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Yeah, and then step back to reality where there are 300M guns in my country alone.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
confrontation: [...] A hostile or argumentative meeting or situation between opposing parties.
violence: [...] Behavior involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something.
There si overlap there and in terms of filing reports you use terms like confrontation or altercation to indicate violence you don't use terms like fight.
Nobody cares how you file reports. The pdf (and reality, I might add) clearly separates the two situations. You've failed.
"gut is an awful kill shot", AC, 23rd december.
Woops.
[irrelevant story about deadly force]
You claimed that shooting somebody in the gut kills someone. I've shown proof it does not. You've failed again.
http://www.defensivechemicals.com/product_info.php?products_id=4?osCsid=gkcdvnfllwvl
It's not altogether uncommon to be capable of functioning after exposure especially if you're already acquainted with it
I'm assuming the link points to the product that you were able to function in spite of. Because it doesn't really say anything about how 'common' it is to function when hit with it. Again, not saying it is impossible and in fact I am very interested in how easy it is to do so. Is it a matter of training by being hit with it (say) 10 times? Is it something 1% of the population can do with training? 80%? 100%?
If the situation does not call for killing the person you do not draw your gun. To do otherwise is irresponsible. You don't aim for the head, you don't aim for the knee caps, you aim for center mass. If the only target that presents itself is the head that becomes center mass. You don't aim for the head if it isn't center mass, you don't aim for the guys kneecaps if it's not center mass this is elementary shooting knowledge. Self defense is not hunting it's self defense you shoot for the biggest target and shoot to end the threat. To do otherwise is irresponsible and barbaric. Why do you shoot for center mass? Well the short answer is because thats what everyone gets trained to do. More importantly you shoot for center mass because you need to be sure of your target and what is beyond it. Aiming for the smaller target opens you up to hitting what is beyond your target. Modern self defense ammunition is designed to open up and expand preventing over penetration. When you aim for a smaller target it has less of an opportunity to expand and will have a tendency to continue on and potentially cause casualties beyond your target. This is in addition to the increased risk of missing your target. So would you think its a good idea to aim for someones kneecaps after you've put a bullet in your neighbor living below you thinking you were being humane by maiming a guy for life when the situation didn't in your eyes call for killing him but you felt deadly force was needed?
You keep saying that maiming is worse than killing. The judicial system disagrees with you.
Anyway, 'center mass' still includes the gut, which is still different from 'ending him'. I think it is extremely irresponsible for a cop to shoot to kill instead of incapacitate. Just recently there was a story about a teenage kid getting shot in the neck. Considering the situation, the officers very probably shouldn't have shot him at all, but I bet there are very few people that would say "well, he's lucky he wasn't shot in the gut".
You mean like, "And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor." Yeah, no Americans would ever do that.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Note that gun safety features (not universally loved) like loaded-chamber indicators, grip safeties, and magazine disconnects are constantly evolving and have been available in some form and in various combinations for many decades, so gun makers seem to have some incentive to produce and improve them, and that the PLCAA does not prevent consumer safety lawsuits, but does shield gun makers from suits based on criminal conduct by gun buyers (though imperfectly).
Do you know why these so-called safety features can't be found on police or military firearms?
Because they're dangerous and get people killed. I wish that were overly dramatic, but it isn't: I've personally had a built-in "safety" features fail (the built-in safety lock found on some guns) and I'm not exactly what you'd consider a die hard shooter or gun owner.
We're talking about devices which are often required by professionals to go shoot anywhere from 2,000 to 5,000 consecutive problem-free rounds of ammunition before they consider it 'reliable'. If the firearm has a failure, they start back at zero. By adding electronics to the mix, it adds one more point of failure. There is no beneficial trade off: firearms need to be as simple as possible because they have to do one thing, and do it every single time: accurately, consistently, and effectively propel a bullet from the barrel.
Think about it for a second. Do you really think it's a good idea to put miniaturized biometrics on a device which will be banged, dropped, get wet, be in constant contact with an acidic sweaty meat sack, etc.? They also sit untouched for (sometimes) decades. How long do you think the MTBF will be? 10,000 hours? 5,000? That'll make the handgun or shotgun in Grandma's closet or bedstand she uses for protection somewhat useless, won't it? The shorting battery will cause a couple issues for the security guard who gets jumped, too.
This isn't just the raving of some gun nut: this is pretty simple logic. If firearm manufacturers were able to make guarantee (or at least provide a reasonable method) that the person who owns the gun is the only one who can shoot it, they would, because there would be a market for it. Not only would there be a market for it, but it would be exceedingly lucrative and/or (potentially) remove them from any legal liability for someone's actions (because the person would have to go through a gov't background check to purchase that firearm).
This isn't about "gun safety". It's about denying firearms to the common person on the grounds of safety - for our own good.
This is "gun safety" like the kind of "knife safety" which resulted in the invention of the butter knife: it makes the device uselessly crippled and only applicable to a very small subset of reasons why people legitimately purchase firearms.
People scream about the evil of SecureBoot on Slashdot but yet there are so many people who would willingly require people to have something like this on a firearm. Really? Are you seriously making that argument? Are we really having this discussion with a straight face? "It'll protect legitimate users!" *sigh* And yet, it's so much more than just "freedom" we're talking about here.
If we want to talk about "gun safety" why don't we talk about putting firearm training in schools? The physical safety of firearms is already pretty damn high.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers