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Smart Guns To Stop Mass Killings
New submitter Bugs42 writes "CNN.com has an opinion piece on the possibility of cramming guns full of computers and sensors to disable them in certain buildings or around children. The author, in true mainstream media fashion, completely fails to see any possible technical problems with this. Quoting: 'How might this work? Start with locational "self-awareness." Guns should know where they are and if another gun is nearby. Global positioning systems can meet most of the need, refining a gun's location to the building level, even within buildings. Control of the gun would remain in the hand of the person carrying it, but the ability to fire multiple shots in crowded areas or when no other guns are present would be limited by software that understands where the gun is being used. Guns should also be designed to sense where they are being aimed. Artificial vision and optical sensing technology can be adapted from military and medical communities. Sensory data can be used by built-in software to disable firing if the gun is pointed at a child or someone holding a child."
Quite possibly the dumbest article I've ever seen.
I'm sure all this technology will make a huge difference for the millions of guns already in circulation in the US.
So next time I want to murder a guy who has a gun, I have to kidnap a baby first to disable his weapon? Come on, people, I'm on a schedule. These guys aren't going to whack themselves.
How are we supposed to secure a free state if the tyrant can wirelessly disable our arms?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Stop giving them tons of media attention and "high scores".
Stop giving other crazy people incentives of guaranteed posthumous fame.
crazy dynamite monkey
Sensory data can be used by built-in software to disable firing if the gun is pointed at a child
What do I do if I'm being assaulted by a dwarf?
If we're really going to solve this problem, guns should have captcha-like technology, determining that the wielder retains the capacity for empathy before he can fire it.
As soon as he removes the safety, the gun should pose a simple question, such as "You're in a desert, walking along in the sand, when all of a sudden you look down and see a tortoise. You reach down and you flip the tortoise over on its back. The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over, but it can't. Not without your help. But you're not helping. Why is that?"
how many pairs of boxer shorts should you own?
Arguments about the second amendment used to revolve around whether guns keep us free. These days, however, they're all about whether guns keep us safe. Something significant has already been lost, even if we still have the right to bear arms.
The problem ISN"T the guns, its the idiots who think its a good idea to shoot people with them. Its the lack of reverence that our culture has for human life. Its the lack of empathy that our culture allows.
Hell, look at all the bullying stories in the last several years. Do you really think that those incidences would have occurred had the bully been taught empathy by his or her parents? Someone that goes into a crowd and starts shooting has a distinct lack of empathy. Is there perhaps something we can identify in that behavior and perhaps take action against?
The anti-firearms hysteria needs to stop. This reminds me of when Steve Irwin was killed by a stingray, so a bunch of dead stingrays started showing up everywhere because people suddenly thought of them as being too dangerous to have around. Yeah, firearms can kill people. So can a bunch of other things.
There are three times as many automobile related fatalities each year as firearms related fatalities:
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/01/05/Federal-Gov-Annual-Auto-Related-Deaths-Three-Times-Higher-Than-Gun-Related-Deaths
Even better, there are more people killed with hammers and clubs than with firearms:
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/01/03/FBI-More-People-Killed-With-Hammers-and-Clubs-Each-Year-Than-With-Rifles
So why the fuck are we going after people who own firearms?
First they came for the NRA,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't an NRA member.
(Yeah, I invoked Godwin's Law, so what.)
Also, in Afghanistan it is not unheard of for "enemy combatants" (we can't call them terrorists anymore) to carry kids while they are on the battlefield, either for the purpose of preventing themselves from being shot at, or propaganda ("Look at these baby killers! They must die in the name of allah!") That goes to show you what people are capable of. If firearms were disabled in a similar manner in domestic situations, only it happened automatically, I imagine that would come home as well.
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
I greatly enjoy target shooting with my PS90, AR15's and even my 10/22 and there is absolutely no reason to not have 50, 30 and 10 round magazines for these to appease someone like you is afraid of law abiding citizens and inanimate objects.
-- Slashdot, making the Left look conservative since 1997.
Rather than having guns that ware smart, we should have smart bullets that will only kill bad people. After being fired the smart bullet will immediately ascertain the worst person within range using a sophisticated algorithm weighing criminal history, internet searches, and music preference, and impact that person right in the face, piercing any face armor up to 2 inches of hardened steel, and igniting it's incendiary and high explosive payloads.
It is logically impossible that there is not at least one bad person nearby, because a room full of only good people would never fire a gun. It's logic.
The fact that the most likely target of a smart bullet is yourself, this will greatly reduce the number of shootings. The only trick is to get people to abandon regular bullets. I know, we could make people with regular bullets at the top priority of the smart bullet hit list algorithm! There will a violent but short war between the "smarties" and the "norms", but *then* there will be reduced shootings.
Nothing related to guns can ever be considered "smart", since guns are for weak and fearful.
Smart people never own guns, because smart people know guns are more harmful than they are helpful.
Smart people do not make broad generalizations that are misleading and mostly incorrect.
Thanks for confirming that you're a complete moron.
because smart people know guns are more harmful than they are helpful.
Maybe for stupids with no training. As a former Marine, I can tell you my having a gun is more helpful. I know when to use it, and when not to use it. I have restraint, situational awareness, compassion, and the determination to use it when necessary. I can retain my weapon when someone tries to take it and I have it well secured when not in use. Plenty of smart people own guns, unless you are defining smart people as people who agree with you.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
I don't really care about guns. I don't ever want to own one, but it doesn't bother me if other people own one either because I don't assume that people around me are all potential mass murderers.
What worries me about gun control is the idea that the government wants to control ownership of a piece of metal that anybody can fabricate in a day in their home and to which there are lots of lethal alternatives. I wonder what the principle there is supposed to be. Are we going to outlaw everything that person A can use to kill person B? Where are we going to stop? Are we going to make files and drills illegal because they could be used to manufacture guns? What's going to happen with 3D printers? And if government can throw people in jail for something as silly as merely carrying a piece of metal that's shaped a particular way, what are the arguments against government controlling how we have sex or whether women can have abortions? Control of what we see, record, eat and get high on already seems to be considered normal by everybody.
Let's try and turn this back. Liberals live up to their name and give in on gun control and taxation, and conservatives realize the small non-intrusive government they keep talking about and give in on abortion and restrictive marriage, and both agree to loosen up drugs and copyrights.
It's cute how people think stuff like this would work.
Black markets don't only trade in illegal goods.
In Soviet Russia (ha!) and similar environments, if anyone wanted to know the real value of any good or product, they checked the black market prices.
The only lack of intelligence is on your part.
Let's say you're a 75 year old woman, weigh maybe 90 pounds. You live alone. you don't walk or sleep so good anymore. You live down town in a major city in the south. A 300 pound thug breaks into your home. By the way he's a convicted rapist.
What do you do?
If you own a gun, you shoot him, just as my grandmother did a year ago.
Guns are for the weak? Yes, in the sense that they enable a frail old women like my grandmother to stand up to someone 3x her size, and survive. Nothing else would have enabled her to do that.
Guns are for the fearful? Yes, in the sense that she was afraid of dying and did not desire to do so.
Smart people never own guns? I guess you believe that there's a real world analogy to the charisma score in D&D talking your way out of harmful situations with someone intent on doing you bodily harm?
Guns are more harmful than helpful? Only to the criminal that illegally entered her house in the middle of the night. What is she supposed to do, try to reason with him? Hope the cops can get there faster than he can cross the house?
A gun is the equaliser that allows a tiny old lady to defend herself against someone 3x her size.
You are an absolute fool for saying what you did.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Everyone, repeat after me: "Technological solutions to social problems are doomed to failure."
You want to stop school shootings, here's what you do:
1) Vastly improve the mental health system. The number of deranged gunmen slaughtering kids is directly proportional to the number of deranged psychopaths.
2) Fix the media's obsession with violent tragedies. Half of them are only doing it because they'll get fame (or at least infamy) for doing so. I'm not advocating a total Herostratus solution, but do we really need to have weeks of constant news coverage for every single one of these?
3) Fix the school system. A lot of the things that would improve education overall (less focus on rote learning, stop keeping everyone generalists until college, smaller schools with a lower teacher/student ratio, etc) would also reduce student stress immensely.
4) And yeah, we could probably stand to lower gun proliferation a bit. It wouldn't have affected any of the school shootings I can recall, but it would reduce general gun violence, which isn't a bad thing. I think the laws we have right now are fine, or even too restrictive, but certain cultural biases towards prolific gun ownership could stand a change.