New Smart Gun Company Hopes To Begin Production This Summer

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New Smart Gun Company Hopes To Begin Production This Summer

Posted by samzenpus on Monday April 29, 2013 @05:28AM from the smarter-shooting dept.

Lucas123 writes Safe Gun Technology (SGTi) is hoping it can begin production on its version of a smart gun within the next two months. The Columbus, Ga.-based company uses relatively simple fingerprint recognition through a flat, infrared reader positioned on the weapon's grip. The biometrics reader enables three other physical mechanisms that control the trigger, the firing pin and the gun hammer. The controller chip can save from 15,000 to 20,000 fingerprints. If a large military unit wanted to program thousands of finger prints into a single weapon, it would be possible. A single gun owner could also temporarily program a friend or family member's print into the gun to go target shooting and then remove it upon returning home."

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I won't be buying one... by jsrjsr · 2013-04-29 05:30 · Score: 5, Insightful

When I pull the trigger, I want the gun to fire. I doubt this will be reliable enough to depend upon.
1. Re:I won't be buying one... by EmagGeek · 2013-04-29 05:36 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Precisely. If there is any chance at all that my gun will simply refuse to fire when I pull the trigger, I don't want anything to do with it.
2. Re:I won't be buying one... by gandhi_2 · 2013-04-29 05:36 · Score: 1
  
  I would buy one!
  I think this kind of technology is really neat, and quite useful.
  I just don't want it to be the ONLY option.
  But part of my collection? Sure. Sounds cool.
  
  --
  THL phish sticks
3. Re:I won't be buying one... by Antipater · 2013-04-29 05:38 · Score: 0, Troll
  
  Precisely. If there is any chance at all that my gun will simply refuse to fire when I pull the trigger, I don't want anything to do with it.
  Do you remove the safety from your gun as well? After all, a defective safety can mean that your gun will refuse to fire when you pull the trigger.
  
  --
  Everything is better with chainsaws.
4. Re:I won't be buying one... by Jane+Q.+Public · 2013-04-29 05:39 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  "When I pull the trigger, I want the gun to fire. I doubt this will be reliable enough to depend upon."
  More to the point: if you want it to be reliable, then the fingerprint technology has to be loose enough to be UNreliable. We already know this. With today's technology, if you want to allow access with fingerprints reliably, you have to make your parameters loose enough that false positives slip in too easily.
  
  Which means that in order to be near 100% reliable for an "authorized" shooter, this thing provably can't do what it's intended to do: reliably block the UNauthorized.
5. Re:I won't be buying one... by tutufan · 2013-04-29 05:41 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Me neither. If a kid finds that gun on the piano, they should pay the price...
6. Re:I won't be buying one... by DJ+Jones · 2013-04-29 05:41 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  "We've dedicated well over 10 years to come up with this solution. We have a lot of people in this company who've put a lot of blood sweat and tears into it and never gotten a penny out of it. If we were in it for the money, we would have been out of it a long time ago. "Our motto is ... if we save the life of one child, it's a miracle to that child and everyone that child touches."
  If they were true to their motto they should have dropped the project and donated their funding to a children's hospital 10 years ago.
7. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 05:42 · Score: 1
  
  Yes.
8. Re:I won't be buying one... by bellers · 2013-04-29 05:42 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  a spring and a lever have a MTBF measured in millions of cycles. RoHS-compliant electronics made with commodity parts do not.
  And I buy guns with as few extraneous safeties as possible.
  
  --
  This space for rent.
9. Re:I won't be buying one... by mark-t · 2013-04-29 05:45 · Score: 1
  
  Who should pay the price? The kid?
  
  --
  File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
10. Re:I won't be buying one... by Jane+Q.+Public · 2013-04-29 05:46 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Qualifiers:
  
  When I say "near 100% reliable", I'm not joking. 99.9% just isn't good enough for something I'd trust my life to. But if it approached 99.99%, then it's getting near the reliability of the gun itself, and may be good enough. That's approximately 1 error in 1000 rounds. Even that is pushing what I view as acceptable limits.
  
  And even just given that it's battery-powered, it probably will never reach that goal in the foreseeable future.
  
  As for its intended purpose (blocking unauthorized users), I have no doubt that it would work some of the time. But how often, given that it has to be that accurate for the authorized? I'm not confident that it would be that good at its job. It's a very difficult balancing act, and I would need a lot of convincing.
11. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 05:46 · Score: 0
  
  You don't trust technology seen in Bond movies?
12. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 05:46 · Score: 1
  
  what's a safety?
  ^^^ Glock owners ask
13. Re:I won't be buying one... by bogidu · 2013-04-29 05:47 · Score: 1
  
  Yes
14. Re:I won't be buying one... by SupplyMission · 2013-04-29 05:48 · Score: 1
  
  Agreed, that's the dumbest motto I've ever seen, from a weapons company. They must think people are idiots if they think anybody will buy that bleeding heart line of bullshit.
15. Re:I won't be buying one... by EmagGeek · 2013-04-29 05:48 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  A mechanical failure is not the same as refusing to fire "for my own safety" because it doesn't think it's me.
  Besides, a rare mechanical failure is what my BUG is for.
  With all of that said, I've never had a FTF due to mechanical failure of my firearm - only due to defective ammunition.
16. Re:I won't be buying one... by gmuslera · 2013-04-29 05:49 · Score: 1
  
  At least BSODs will be more meaningful in real life.
17. Re:I won't be buying one... by magic+maverick+ · 2013-04-29 05:50 · Score: 1
  
  Sure it'll be reliable. Just make sure to lift the gun owner's fingerprints and transfer to a gummy bear before trying to shoot this weapon.
  I doubt that the fingerprint reader will be able to recognize gummy fingerprints...
  
  --
  HELP MY ACCOUNT HAS BEEN HACKED BY AN ILLIBERAL ART STUDENT SET TO DESTROY THE INTERWEBZ!
18. Re:I won't be buying one... by Jane+Q.+Public · 2013-04-29 05:50 · Score: 1
  
  Meh. Bad math. That should be "1 error per 10000 rounds".
19. Re:I won't be buying one... by losfromla · 2013-04-29 05:52 · Score: 1
  
  I am sure the victims and families of the victims of Charles Manson the adult who was once a child beg to differ with the motto as well.
  
  --
  Only I can judge you.
20. Re:I won't be buying one... by bobbied · 2013-04-29 05:54 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  Not having a round chambered..
  I know a guy who carries his fully loaded with a round chambered and doesn't use a holster. I would prefer he didn't chamber that final round or had it in a holster, but I don't see a problem if he wants to carry that way.
  
  --
  "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
21. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 05:56 · Score: 0
  
  safeties aren't designed so you can pull the trigger without discharging, they are designed so allow pistols to be carried cocked and locked. Your booger hook should not be on the bang switch unless you want to fire the gun. Many guns don't have a safety switch because the gun is carried hammer down and a significant pull weight is required on the trigger to cock and release the hammer. Double action only guns cannot hold the hammer cocked. Double action / single action often have a decocker lever to safely drop the hammer before holstering.
  Also too a safety is typically a simple mechanical design (with 100+ years of development) that is less likely to fail than complex battery powered circuitry and algorithms.
22. Re:I won't be buying one... by cffrost · 2013-04-29 05:57 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  If a kid finds that gun on the piano, they should pay the price...
  Exactly the kind of situation I want to avoid, which is why I don't have any pianos in my house.
  
  --
  Thank you, Edward Snowden.
  
  "Arguments from authority are worthless." —Carl Sagan
23. Re:I won't be buying one... by jjjhs · 2013-04-29 05:57 · Score: 1
  
  Mine doesn't have a safety, not designed with one.
24. Re:I won't be buying one... by fahrbot-bot · 2013-04-29 05:58 · Score: 0, Troll
  
  a spring and a lever have a MTBF measured in millions of cycles
  You fire "millions" of rounds from a single weapon?
  [ Picturing you in a firing range, standing shoulder deep in spent shell casings... ]
  
  --
  It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
25. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 05:59 · Score: 1
  
  Precisely. If there is any chance at all that my gun will simply refuse to fire when I pull the trigger, I don't want anything to do with it.
  Do you remove the safety from your gun as well? After all, a defective safety can mean that your gun will refuse to fire when you pull the trigger.
  Not all guns have safeties.
26. Re:I won't be buying one... by Zcar · 2013-04-29 06:00 · Score: 2
  
  Many popular firearms don't have safeties, at least not manually operated safeties when the shooter needs to do something other than grip the firearm normally and pull the trigger. Glock, Springfield XD/HS2000, Sig Sauer, revolvers in general, etc. do not have such manual safeties. Some of the have a grip safety (XD) which must be depressed by gripping the pistol, or a multipart trigger safety (XD, Glock), but Sig Sauer and revolvers generally rely on a heavy trigger pull (at least for the first shot) as the safety.
  In this case, it's presumably adding this on top of any other safety mechanism(s). The concern is it's adding additional points of failure and, probably critically, one that isn't purely mechanical. Defensive firearms have less tolerance to a safety failure than, say, a purely competition one.
27. Re:I won't be buying one... by Hentes · 2013-04-29 06:00 · Score: 1
  
  Why does it have to be so reliable? The firing range isn't running anywhere. This is a civilian technology, I don't think it will be used in the military.
28. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 06:00 · Score: 0, Insightful
  
  But what about the safety feature that doesn't let your gun shoot at people or small animals? Try pointing it at a tin can or target. Guns kill people and we can't let that happen. Save the bunnies too! Smart guns will soon have a feature of A.I., it will talk an assailant into leaving you alone. Just point and click.Don't worry, your assailant is in no danger. It was programmed by master Democrat Campaign Managers, so it will be convincing without being insulting. Worked for the majority of suckers out there, so it's sure to work wonders on an attacker.
29. Re:I won't be buying one... by swb · 2013-04-29 06:01 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  The only safeties on most revolvers is between the ears of the person holding the gun and a heavy-ish double action trigger pull.
  Some gun makers have included an internal lock on their revolvers (S&W and some Taurus) which has been controversial, although I've never had a problem with it (I don't use it, either and have never put it in the lock position).
30. Re:I won't be buying one... by jsrjsr · 2013-04-29 06:02 · Score: 1
  
  I don't have to -- the only thing remotely resembling a safety on my Ruger Security Six is the transfer bar system. All that does is prevent the gun from firing if you drop it on the hammer.
31. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 06:02 · Score: 0
  
  That's what Hitler said ...
32. Re:I won't be buying one... by fahrbot-bot · 2013-04-29 06:02 · Score: 2
  
  "Our motto is ... if we save the life of one child, it's a miracle to that child and everyone that child touches."
  If they were true to their motto they should have dropped the project and donated their funding to a children's hospital 10 years ago.
  To be fair, prevention is better than treatment in any medical situation.
  
  --
  It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
33. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 06:03 · Score: 0
  
  However, this technology has one of the few cases where you don't need to block false positives or every possible attack angle. Using technology like this generally prevents an opponent from picking up your gun and shooting you with it. Yes, the chances it might work are above zero, but well below 100%. Using current technology, in this situation, the chances of the enemy firing are 100% (barring the gun not having any ammunition or breaking).
  Of course, once the enemy has the weapon in their hands for a few minutes, the chances of him getting it working go up exponentially. I won't hang around to see if he's successful. I'll be getting the heck away. Alive.
34. Re:I won't be buying one... by Zcar · 2013-04-29 06:04 · Score: 2
  
  Additionally, with some designs it is actually fairly common to remove safety features. For example, it's pretty common to remove the magazine disconnect (a safety which requires a magazine be inserted to fire) on the Browning Hi-Power to improve the trigger pull.
35. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 06:05 · Score: 1
  
  Glocks, Double action only pistol, or some type of revolver are generally the popular carry weapons in the USA as I understand it. All safeties are passive not active. A revolver's safety is 'the trigger pull is longer and stiffer than most single action pistols'.
36. Re:I won't be buying one... by mark-t · 2013-04-29 06:05 · Score: 1
  
  How do you figure the parents can't pass their genetics down? What if the child were adopted? Genetics would have nothing to do with it. I won't argue that leaving a gun around where a kid can grab it is definitely bad parenting, but what does that have to do with evolution versus creationism?
  
  --
  File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
37. Re:I won't be buying one... by CanHasDIY · 2013-04-29 06:08 · Score: 0
  
  a spring and a lever have a MTBF measured in millions of cycles
  You fire "millions" of rounds from a single weapon?
  [ Picturing you in a firing range, standing shoulder deep in spent shell casings... ]
  Wow, what better way to let the world know that your knowledge of firearms amounts to fuck-all.
  FYI, the safety doesn't cycle with each round fired.
  
  --
  An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
38. Re:I won't be buying one... by ByOhTek · 2013-04-29 06:08 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  As long as he only accidentally shoots himself. That's fine. However, he can't gurantee that.
  But it's irresponsible behavior like that that gives fuel to the anti-gun crowd.
  I agree with the concern about the biometric identification though, in TFS. It's too easy for it to fail, even if it's merely the battery going dead, though if it's low enough charge, the trigger action may be able to charge it up, enough so that firing actually doesn't need a battery. I can see cases where someone would want this on their guns, and it's a responsible thing in those cases. People shouldn't force their desire for irresponsibility onto others - if you don't want this, don't buy it. I know I won't. However, I don't have a situation where this would be relevant (my guns are only loaded at the range and when camping). Just because I wouldn't want this, and it doesn't add any safety benefit in my situation... doesn't mean it shouldn't be around, because it sure as hell isn't hard to think of reasons why people would want this and it would provide safety to themselves and/or others.
  
  --
  Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
39. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 06:10 · Score: 0
  
  It's not just the false rejection problem... I mean it is, but it's something far more fundamental than that. It's out-of-spec complexity and feature-creep causing needless risk of failure.
  But I have a pistol on a safe. It is locked, loaded, oiled, and should be completely, utterly safe for at least 70 years that way (I do check it far more frequently of course). Even were the safetys to fail, the safe itself is thick enough to stop what it's loaded with.
  Do these things have a battery that won't fail for at least a decade?
  When the battery fails, does the pistol fail 'safe' or 'deadly' ?
  In the case of a defensive firearm, my preferred failure mode is fail deadly.
  For many in Schumer/Feinstein states, legislation might be introduced that would demand fail-"safe".
  The needs of a parent with a child, myself, or a parent with a child they can trust may be wholly different.
  The bottom line though -- this mechanical device, while potentially reducing the risk of unauthorized discharge, increases risk of failure-to-fire.
  I hope that states permit individuals to make educated choices in this.
  Such a device is not only a non-trivial cost to devices that are otherwise routinely cheap.
  I'm sorry GC crowd -- I understand why you want these on pistols. I understand you want it to be capable of being shut down via remote control across an entire region. But nobody but a parent with a toddler who doesn't keep their pistol locked up will ever actually want this. It's a solution to a perceived problem that /does/ actually exist, but is widely acknowledged shouldn't.
  You can't fix negligence with technology. I know in IT we like to think we can.
  But how many of you have watched your manager click past antivirus update warnings for weeks? Or a presenting CEO?
  You can configure it not to let them do that -- but they'll demand you turn it off the first time it gets in the way.
  The military definitely won't want this. Police /might/ if they are uncomfortable with handgun retention -- but the first time a cop with greasy hands has a failure-to-fire, you'll see departments phase it in out in bulk. Some civilians might, but you'll never see it recommended for the average defensive use pistol.
  Worse, I'm not sure this technology can integrate with the most commonly recommended 'basic' defensive setup -- your standard small caliber revolver. Or even the biden double-barrel shotgun...
  On a hunting rifle -- this will have to work in hot and cold temperatures, across varying moisture/condensation points, etc. It's a solved problem (optics, ammunition etc) don't have the issue. Even laser sights don't. But the material failure of any of those components does not cause failure-to-fire.
  And lastly...
  Look... we're on slashdot. This technology is essentially "something-you-are" DRM.
  You all know why it's technologically doomed.
  In /this/ case it has a slight advantage in that many of the 'scariest' failure modes happen when there is not a lot of time and control (or competence in case of children) to defeat DRM.
  I wish this technology all luck, success and advantage and hope it's capable of succeeding for people that want it. But I don't think the average firearm owner will ever want it on even half of their collection
40. Re:I won't be buying one... by camperdave · 2013-04-29 06:10 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  a spring and a lever have a MTBF measured in millions of cycles. RoHS-compliant electronics made with commodity parts do not.
  And I buy guns with as few extraneous safeties as possible.
  Of course they do. Billions of cycles even. However, with a clock frequency measured in in megahertz, a billion cycles is only 17 minutes.
  
  --
  When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
41. Re:I won't be buying one... by gurps_npc · 2013-04-29 06:10 · Score: 0
  
  Wrong. It is EXACTLY the same.
  Because the gun does not have a soul, it is not thinking "hm, for safety's sake I better not fire." Nor by the way did the gun manufacture think that way either.
  Whether the gun fails to fire because of a poorly designed mechanical piece, or it fails to fire because of a poorly designed electronic chip, it makes no difference.
  Anyone that thinks otherwise is too uneducated, prejudiced and foolish to be trusted with a piece of technology more complex than a hammer.
  Technology fails. You should purchase the one that fails least, not the one that fails in a way you understand. Otherwise, we would never have put computer chips into cars.
  
  --
  excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
42. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 06:11 · Score: 0
  
  Revolvers don't have safeties. You just pull the trigger and they go bang.
  Glock has a safety built-in to the trigger, again you just pull the trigger for it to go bang. (the safety is designed to avoid drop fires)
43. Re:I won't be buying one... by CanHasDIY · 2013-04-29 06:11 · Score: 1
  
  They will.
  So will the dumbass who left a loaded, hot firearm where a child could access it, when he/she gets charged with felony negligence.
  
  --
  An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
44. Re:I won't be buying one... by module0000 · 2013-04-29 06:11 · Score: 1
  
  The user is the 'safety', an untrained user is a self correcting problem.
  Don't know how to use one? Take a class. Can't afford a class? Sell your gun, you have other more pressing problems.
  Note: you can always enlist as well, besides a job you also get *decent* firearm training.
  
  --
  Trackball users will be first against the wall.
45. Re:I won't be buying one... by Charliemopps · 2013-04-29 06:12 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, this is very old technology. No-one uses it because it fails... a lot. Any gun that has the potential to fail to fire will never sell. Ask anyone that re-loads. They may make their own rounds for practice and hunting, but they always put commercial rounds in their handguns for protection.
46. Re:I won't be buying one... by PoolOfThought · 2013-04-29 06:12 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Well, on the Glocks I've used it's that little thingy that points out on the front of your trigger. Without pressing that little item you can't squeeze the trigger. Basically it takes away almost all likelihood of an accidental trigger pull. Glocks are known and designed for safety (they have atleast "invisible safeties" built right in - the trigger safety and the drop safety) and reliability - so to insinuate that they don't have built in safety mechanisms (even if you don't consciously think about it) is a disservice to the engineers who actually come up with that stuff. Not to mention that doing so is also perpetuating the idea that guns in general are unsafe when they are actually quite safe as long as the user themselves isn't acting stupid.
  
  --
  My present is the activity I am currently engaged in with the purpose of turning the future into a better past.
47. Re:I won't be buying one... by CanHasDIY · 2013-04-29 06:13 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Why does it have to be so reliable?
  Because yelling "Excuse me, armed thugs who just broke down my door, I need you to hold up for a minute while my gun registers my fingerprint so I can shoot you" is a good way to get yourself killed.
  
  --
  An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
48. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 06:16 · Score: 1
  
  You sir are an idiot. You can haz reading comprehension? Reread the post.
  He never said he fired a million rounds.
  He said the MTBF (Mean Time Before Failure I think) is in the millions. Which means you should have to fire a weapon a million+ times before it fails. Just like a Hard Drive with a MTBF of 3 years means that on average, it'll take 3 years... some drives will last 10 years... some 3 months. The mean time will be 3 years.
  Which means that odds are, you'll never have have THAT issue.
  What's the MTBF for a computer system on a rifle? In the millions of uses? Doubtful.
49. Re:I won't be buying one... by Bugler412 · 2013-04-29 06:16 · Score: 1
  
  How would this be any different operationally from conventional mechanical safeties that users occasionally forget to turn off when they wish to fire?
50. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 06:17 · Score: 0
  
  RoHS have very little to do with it. RoHS is the big scapegoat for manufacturers and developers that didn't understand that the products and manufacturing process had to be updated. If you use the same PCB layout and solder temperature for RoHS as you used before then you have tons of failures. If you don't use proper substitutes you will have problems with tin pest and whiskers. (Only occurs in pure tin, using lead is just silly, you can add pretty much anything to prevent it.)
  Without the lead there is also no need for those large pads, in fact they only causes problems. The PCB layout have to be changed to shrink the pads to a suitable size.
  The high failure in RoHS-compliant electronics have very little to do with removal of lead and very much to do with incompetence.
51. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 06:17 · Score: 0
  
  My personal carry guns do not have safetys. I fulfill that role.
52. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 06:19 · Score: 0
  
  "Otherwise, we would never have put computer chips into cars."
  Totally false. We do not allow computers to steer the car when driving 70MPH. We allow computers to assist in nav, balance fuel-air mixture, set cruise control and other niceties. Digitally signed firearm safety mechanism is literally trusting your life to a logic circuit. These are very different things.
53. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 06:19 · Score: 0
  
  It doesn't need to "reliably" block unauthorized shooters. If it gives even a 50% chance that a kid who steals dad's gun won't be able to shoot up their school, or that a young child won't be able to accidentally shoot themselves, then surely that's worth something.
54. Re:I won't be buying one... by bobbied · 2013-04-29 06:19 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  As long as he only accidentally shoots himself. That's fine. However, he can't gurantee that.
  But it's irresponsible behavior like that that gives fuel to the anti-gun crowd.
  I don't see it as dangerous enough to arm the Anti Gun crowd. Personally, I'd be willing to sacrifice the one extra round for that extra measure of safety and I just don't sit near him. If it went off the way he carries it, he's only going to hit his backside and the floor behind him (or somebodies foot in the worst case). :)
  
  --
  "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
55. Re:I won't be buying one... by a1cypher · 2013-04-29 06:25 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Presumably because people buy guns for security, not just for entertainment at a range.
  If you're about to be attacked/killed by a burglar and you reach for your gun and pull the trigger you want to make sure as hell that the gun works. If it doesn't work, for whatever reason, you're in a worse position than you started because now the burglar has reason to incapacitate/kill you.
  I cant see this being useful for a security gun. If you reach for your gun you'll have to very consciously "unlock" it with your fingerprint. If your nervous, it's dark, or whatever, it might not recognize you. Even in the best case scenario, this unlocking will take time. Couple that with requiring a battery, and it could be trouble.
  However, if this is just being used to secure less crucial weapons such as hunting rifles, or the kind that you might only ever use at a range, I could see the fingerprint being scanner being useful. It would help to prevent children or thieves from using your weapon and when you're hunting or at the range, you presumably have the time to check the batteries and swipe your finger a second time if it fails to register you the first go.
56. Re:I won't be buying one... by LynnwoodRooster · 2013-04-29 06:25 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  My revolvers are safety free, and there is no safety on the semi-autos I own as well. NO safety is as effective as an engaged brain. Treat every firearm as loaded, keep your booger hook off the bang switch until you are ready to fire, and maintain proper muzzle control.
  
  --
  Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
57. Re:I won't be buying one... by Entropius · 2013-04-29 06:26 · Score: 1
  
  Why, out of curiosity, would you worry about lead solder in a thing that fires lead bullets?
58. Re:I won't be buying one... by PortHaven · 2013-04-29 06:26 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Except for all the accidental trigger pulls that have gotten Glock wielders shot. Like DEA agents. ;-)
  Sorry, a Glock is designed to be utilized in a holster. I do believe it is unprofessional and irresponsible to carry a Glock without using some sort of holster/trigger protection.
59. Re:I won't be buying one... by PortHaven · 2013-04-29 06:28 · Score: 1
  
  He was referencing the engineers who designed the firearm with said intent.
60. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 06:29 · Score: 0
  
  What a coincidence, so does the person who stole your gun.
61. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 06:29 · Score: 0
  
  Strawman arguments are lies.
62. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 06:29 · Score: 0
  
  The problem is that the kid takes the gun to school to show his friends.
  I guess this will promote genes that don't want their children to be in the same school as kid with gun-nut parents.
63. Re:I won't be buying one... by PortHaven · 2013-04-29 06:30 · Score: 0
  
  Also, I might point out that cars are first started than utilized. It is different when you need to immediately use a life or death tool.
  And truthfully, the computer in the automobile is more so about tuning, efficiency, and preventing catastrophic wear during issues. It's not about actually operating the basic functionality.
64. Re:I won't be buying one... by ByOhTek · 2013-04-29 06:32 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Or ricochet into spots higher than the person's foot? Or does he avoid walking on surfaces that would cause a ricochet?
  If you are carrying a gun in a way that it can go off without you intending it to, then you are being irresponsible, and the concerns of the anti-gun crowd are quite warranted.
  
  --
  Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
65. Re:I won't be buying one... by PortHaven · 2013-04-29 06:32 · Score: 1
  
  Basically, a safety prevents some random fluke pulling of the trigger. (I trip, bump into a fence, and a wire punctures your pants and catches the trigger. A good holster is supposed to prevent such. A safety is another protection.
66. Re:I won't be buying one... by PortHaven · 2013-04-29 06:34 · Score: 1
  
  Rash of gang bangers start wearing T-shirts with adorable bunnies on the front. ;-)
67. Re:I won't be buying one... by rohan972 · 2013-04-29 06:34 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  a spring and a lever have a MTBF measured in millions of cycles
  You fire "millions" of rounds from a single weapon?
  No, he doesn't, that's the point, the MTBF of a spring and lever is far higher than normal use making failure very unlikely which is not the case with consumer grade electronic components. They say there are no stupid questions but I think you've come pretty close. Do you have an emotional response to firearms that makes thinking difficult for you?
  
  --
  http://marriedmansexlife.com/
68. Re:I won't be buying one... by PortHaven · 2013-04-29 06:35 · Score: 2
  
  I agree...
  And I think it'd be "excellent" technology for non-defense weapons.
69. Re:I won't be buying one... by Entropius · 2013-04-29 06:35 · Score: 1
  
  Because:
  1) Anybody can turn off the safety on a pistol, but you need the right fingerprints to fire one of these things, and
  2) It is probably substantially more likely to not work as advertised, add to the cost of the weapon, or generally be a pain in the ass than a mechanical safety.
70. Re:I won't be buying one... by PortHaven · 2013-04-29 06:37 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  And if it fails, the first lawsuit will put the manufacturer out of business.
71. Re:I won't be buying one... by omnichad · 2013-04-29 06:40 · Score: 1
  
  Are you implying that adoptive parents are somehow able to pass down their genetics at all?
72. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 06:40 · Score: 0
  
  Not all guns have safeties.
  The best safety for a firearm is between your ears.
  It's simple, really:
  1) Don't point a gun at anything you don't want to put a hole in.
  2) Don't touch the trigger unless you want to put a hole in something.
73. Re:I won't be buying one... by Obfuscant · 2013-04-29 06:42 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Why, out of curiosity, would you worry about lead solder in a thing that fires lead bullets?
  I wouldn't. You probably wouldn't. But politicians and regulatorycrats in some parts of the world do. RoHS is big in the EU. If you manufacture something, it has to be RoHS, even if you are making it out of lead.
74. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 06:42 · Score: 0
  
  The first thing that I did when I bought my Smith and Wesson 686+ was to open it up and remove the lock. This double action revolver doesn't have a safety, it also doesn't need one. It doesn't need a lock either, but S&W added those due to political pressure. But it's easy to remove and makes the gun safer.
75. Re:I won't be buying one... by PortHaven · 2013-04-29 06:43 · Score: 1
  
  You mean like the sheriff's deputy who's gun was used by a 4 year old to kill a woman, scarring the poor kid for life.
  Mind you, this is far more common with law enforcement because they quit being gun shy. They handle them every day that they forget the basics. I fear some people would trust the technology to keep their family safe instead of themselves.
76. Re:I won't be buying one... by rohan972 · 2013-04-29 06:47 · Score: 1
  
  If you are carrying a gun in a way that it can go off without you intending it to, then you are being irresponsible, and the concerns of the anti-gun crowd are quite warranted.
  Hence the statement that such behaviour gives fuel to the anti-gun crowd.
  
  --
  http://marriedmansexlife.com/
77. Re:I won't be buying one... by swillden · 2013-04-29 06:47 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  I don't see a problem if he wants to carry that way.
  I do. I think a case could be made for reckless endangerment, and if it goes off and hurts someone I would definitely support criminal negligence charges.
  He should just get a holster. There's really no reason not to use a holster. If nothing else one of those ultra-minimalist holsters that covers nothing but the trigger guard.
  
  --
  Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
78. Re:I won't be buying one... by PortHaven · 2013-04-29 06:47 · Score: 1
  
  Because, if you fail to switch the mechanical safety on. You can de-activate it in approximately 1.5 seconds.
  If this fails, you have to change out a battery, and beyond that what do you do? You've turned your gun into a club. And if that is a newer gun made out of lightweight polymer; might not even be a decent club.
79. Re:I won't be buying one... by neonKow · 2013-04-29 06:51 · Score: 1
  
  You make other good points, but this isn't DRM any more than a password on my desktop so that someone can't randomly walk up and use it is DRM. It's a lock.
80. Re:I won't be buying one... by drainbramage · 2013-04-29 06:52 · Score: 1
  
  What safety?
  Most (if not all) revolvers I have seen have no safety.
  Many semi-automatic pistols have no safety.
  You may not be familiar with current firearms so, if you are curious; not all have a safety.
  Additionally there are many variations on what a gun safety is.
  Depending on model and manufacture there may be none, a lever that locks the trigger, a trigger actuated safety, and or a grip safety.
  These are also applied in various combination's and merely represent some of what I have seen recently.
  
  --
  No brain, no pain.
81. Re:I won't be buying one... by mark-t · 2013-04-29 06:54 · Score: 1
  
  I'm suggesting that somehow tying genetics into a discussion about parents who do stupid shit is silly.
  
  --
  File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
82. Re:I won't be buying one... by Bob+the+Super+Hamste · 2013-04-29 06:58 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  However, if this is just being used to secure less crucial weapons such as hunting rifles
  Fuck no I don't want that on my hunting guns. Most of the time when I am out hunting I am wearing gloves so it wouldn't work and coupled with the inevitably higher failure rate I wouldn't want to trust it especially with the number of large predators that are in the area I hunt.
  
  --
  Time to offend someone
83. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 06:58 · Score: 0
  
  Yes, this is very old technology. No-one uses it because it fails... a lot. Any gun that has the potential to fail to fire will never sell. Ask anyone that re-loads. They may make their own rounds for practice and hunting, but they always put commercial rounds in their handguns for protection.
  So this should be a good selling point for guns used for practice and hunting. Honestly, what are most guns used for? I don't know of anyone personally who's ever fired one for personal protection, while I can't imagine the thousands and thousands of round fired for practice and hunting. Oh, and the one fired for suicide, but not one round ever fired for protection.
84. Re:I won't be buying one... by interkin3tic · 2013-04-29 06:58 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  I'm guessing you mean any increased chance, since we live in the real world where everything always has a non-zero chance of not working as advertised. How much of an increased chance do these things have of failing? I'd be interested to see real data rather than conjecture. If this thing fails one out of every, I dunno, one thousand trigger pulls, that could be more reliable than your average Saturday night special.
  
  I think you'd also want to compare, if possible, the chances of you needing to shoot someone with the chances of someone shooting you with your own gun, before concluding you're worse off with this. Whether or not you're safer with a gun in the home is controversial and heavily written about, the risks of being shot by your gun vs the likelihood of you shooting a would-be-attacker. I don't have an opinion on the subject as I'm not prepared to wade into the literature, but it seems like this tech would avoid the chance of the former while still giving you the chance at the latter. That could be a net benefit even given the chance of the gun refusing to fire when you needed it.
  
  Either way, these are just hypotheses, we'd need hard data. I know its fun to not use data when discussing public policy and especially gun control, I certainly don't have any.
85. Re:I won't be buying one... by vux984 · 2013-04-29 07:00 · Score: 1
  
  When I pull the trigger, I want the gun to fire. I doubt this will be reliable enough to depend upon.
  A gun bought for hunting? For target shooting? A gun that you keep at home properly locked up in a safe with the ammo stored separately? Why not get a smart gun? Worst case if it fails, an old soup can lives an extra day.
  Its not like you were going to use it on criminals who bust into your bedroom in the middle of the night.
  For the gun you keep loaded under your pillow at night, fine, I can see why you want that one to fire without fail. Your Rambo self defense fantasy, while I think its deeply flawed, is not an entirely invalid concern.
  But not every gun is purchased for that purpose, and there's no reason for every gun to be as ideally suited for that purpose as possible.
  Because when I pull the trigger, I'm not worried if some tiny percentage of the time the paper target doesn't get an immediate hole put into it. That "risk" is worth the extra safety to me.
  And if I'm ever in a life or death situation where I must use that gun against a person... what of it? Would I rather have a gun without an extra safety? Sure. At that particular moment I'd also rather it be a standard issue M4 Carbine or some other purpose built tool for the job instead of a handgun I use for shooting targets. If wishes were horses, right?
  In reality, if that situation were to actually arise I guess I'd be grateful to have anything on me at all, because usually I'm not carrying anything much more lethal than a plastic fork.
86. Re:I won't be buying one... by ByOhTek · 2013-04-29 07:05 · Score: 1
  
  I'm well aware. That was my statement. I was responding to someone who said it wasn't sufficient to provide fuel for the anti gun crowd...
  
  --
  Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
87. Re:I won't be buying one... by fahrbot-bot · 2013-04-29 07:08 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Do you have an emotional response to firearms that makes thinking difficult for you?
  Nope, but the statistic is misleading. My consumer SCSI HD has a MTBF of 5 years (and my last drive lasted 10 years of 24/7 use before the drive started to even whine a bit). How many times does the read/write arm - which is basically a lever and spring - move during that time? Probably hundreds of millions.
  Guns are just simple mechanical machines. There's nothing magical about their parts, which will function in relation to the quality of their design and maintenance as well as their usage situations - like most things.
  
  --
  It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
88. Re:I won't be buying one... by gninnor · 2013-04-29 07:12 · Score: 1
  
  Sorry, I am going to be a bit pedantic with your first sentence.
  Yes and no. Ruger had a pistol that some yahoo was playing with loaded, hammer down. It was a single action revolver that while he was twirling it on his finger dropped it and shot his wife in the head. They recalled it and added an additional safety so that the only time it could discharge was when the hammer was pulled back. I believe that Smith and Wesson had a "Hammer the Hammer" campaign to prove their safety. Trigger guards and trigger pull are also part of the overall safety make up as are safeties to ensure a hammer doesn't fall on a round until a semi-auto's chamber is locked.
  So yes the trigger block acts that way, but many firearms have several redundancies that fall under the heading safties.
89. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 07:13 · Score: 0
  
  Because it's almost impossible to get non-ROHS electronics these days.
90. Re:I won't be buying one... by fahrbot-bot · 2013-04-29 07:14 · Score: 1, Flamebait
  
  I'll try to avoid assuming you think.
  Back at you.
  
  --
  It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
91. Re:I won't be buying one... by gninnor · 2013-04-29 07:16 · Score: 1
  
  The only safety I've seen arguably fail is the 1911 grip safety. Some hands just didn't seem to fit right, and some other oddball issues.
92. Re:I won't be buying one... by a1cypher · 2013-04-29 07:21 · Score: 1
  
  I was working under the assumption that once "unlocked", the gun would continue to fire until "locked" again.
  Not sure if this is the case, but I would imagine while hunting you would unlock it when you first enter the woods, and lock again when you're leaving for home.
93. Re:I won't be buying one... by IndustrialComplex · 2013-04-29 07:23 · Score: 2
  
  Even though you are really pushing an agenda with that wording, this tech is dangerous at a firing range as well.
  1. You will have people who get complacent about safety. They will leave loaded firearms on the bench with the expectation that it won't fire without 'authorization'.
  2. In the event of a misfire (the best way to describe a trigger pull without a discharge), you will have a moment of confusion, and the person is likely to try and diagnose the error. This may be adjusting their grip, pushing a button, tapping it, etc. However all of these actions will be occuring on a firearm that has a live round in the chamber. Anything that takes the persons attention away from keeping a loaded firearm pointed in a safe direction is dangerous.
  
  --
  Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
94. Re:I won't be buying one... by PopeRatzo · 2013-04-29 07:25 · Score: 1, Troll
  
  Do you remove the safety from your gun as well?
  
  You bet.
  And as a bonus, I accidentally blew my wife's head off. Since I live in a "right to kill" state, I was give a $25 fine and coupons for the Waffle House.
  Hell, man, safeties are for fags and democrats. Real men have artificial limbs and cirrhosis. And disability checks.
  
  --
  You are welcome on my lawn.
95. Re:I won't be buying one... by Runaway1956 · 2013-04-29 07:26 · Score: 1
  
  Your statement may be true - but it's far more likely that a defective safety will permit the weapon to fire while the safety is on. I've never heard of a defective safety preventing the weapon from firing when the trigger was pulled.
  
  --
  "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
96. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 07:28 · Score: 0
  
  How long is the battery life...? Guns can sit in a nightstand\closet\safe\glove compartment\etc... for months or even years... The one time someone needs it they should not have to replace a battery before using it as intended... I would never buy anything like this...
97. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 07:33 · Score: 0
  
  I just don't sit near him.
  Keep thinking about that for a while and maybe you'll understand something.
98. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 07:38 · Score: 0
  
  To counter your point, I grew up knowing where the guns and rounds in our house was stored. I had access.
  On the other hand, I was raised to respect the gun the same way I respect fire. I was cooking on stove top before I was 7.
99. Re:I won't be buying one... by Kozar_The_Malignant · 2013-04-29 07:44 · Score: 1
  
  My revolver doesn't have a safety. Pull the trigger, and it fires. Cock it and pull the trigger, and it fires much more easily.
  
  --
  Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
100. Re:I won't be buying one... by Joce640k · 2013-04-29 07:47 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  If it gives even a 50% chance that a kid who steals dad's gun won't be able to shoot up their school, or that a young child won't be able to accidentally shoot themselves, then surely that's worth something.
  If there's a 50% chance that parents think "It doesn't matter if I leave this on the table, the kids can't fire it..." then it's worth nothing.
  
  --
  No sig today...
101. Re:I won't be buying one... by davester666 · 2013-04-29 07:53 · Score: 1
  
  And of course, you leave the gun unlocked, loaded and cocked, ready to fire, because you might have trouble with the lock, or the bullets will be misplaced, or the mechanism might jam moving the hammer back.
  
  --
  Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
102. Re:I won't be buying one... by davester666 · 2013-04-29 07:55 · Score: 1
  
  And you carry it with you at all times, in your hand, because you never know when you might need it, and it might catch on a holster when you need to get it out. And not having it your hand just slows you down from firing it anyway.
  
  --
  Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
103. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 07:55 · Score: 0
  
  It has to do with the lack of lead in the solder (which is required for most electronics nowadays). For lead free solder allows things called whiskers tend to grow out of the metal. Look up tin whiskers if you are interested in more details.
104. Re:I won't be buying one... by rbgaynor · 2013-04-29 07:57 · Score: 1
  
  FYI, the safety doesn't cycle with each round fired.
  The firing pin or "drop" safety does.
  
  --
  "Good things don't end with eum, they end with mania or teria." - H. Simpson
105. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 08:05 · Score: 0
  
  A Glock is like root. It comes with the trigger finger safety. Some can handle it, some can not.
106. Re:I won't be buying one... by VAXcat · 2013-04-29 08:08 · Score: 1
  
  WIlliam S. Burroughs! Is that you?
  
  --
  There is no God, and Dirac is his prophet.
107. Re:I won't be buying one... by Synerg1y · 2013-04-29 08:13 · Score: 1
  
  You do realize everytime rednecks leave their guns out and their kids shoot themselves it makes front page on cnn adding fuel to the fire right?
  This... would effectively stop that piece of it, with an added bonus of knowing your own guns can't be used against you.
108. Re:I won't be buying one... by Synerg1y · 2013-04-29 08:16 · Score: 2
  
  There is never enough safety to stop an idiot from doing something dumb... source? history.
109. Re: I won't be buying one... by MikeBoeckeler · 2013-04-29 08:18 · Score: 1
  
  I really want an electronic gun so if the USA is hit with an EMP my gun is useless. Give me a break.
110. Re:I won't be buying one... by bobbied · 2013-04-29 08:18 · Score: 1
  
  You do realize everytime rednecks leave their guns out and their kids shoot themselves it makes front page on cnn adding fuel to the fire right?
  This... would effectively stop that piece of it, with an added bonus of knowing your own guns can't be used against you.
  For most of the "Anti Gun Crowd" just a picture of an unloaded gun is enough to inflame.. So I will concede the point.
  
  --
  "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
111. Re:I won't be buying one... by bobbied · 2013-04-29 08:20 · Score: 1
  
  I'll give you your point.
  In my experience, even a picture of an unloaded gun is enough to inflame the standard "Anti Gun Crowd" so I get your point.
  
  --
  "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
112. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 08:26 · Score: 0
  
  The guy who will approach an armed homeowner almost certainly has a gun of his own already.
113. Re:I won't be buying one... by vux984 · 2013-04-29 08:32 · Score: 2
  
  1. You will have people who get complacent about safety. They will leave loaded firearms on the bench with the expectation that it won't fire without 'authorization'.
  No. You won't. Because anyone who does that will be ejected from the range the same as they do now.
  And besides, putting seat belts and airbags in cars hasn't prompted people to drive more recklessly.
  2. In the event of a misfire (the best way to describe a trigger pull without a discharge), you will have a moment of confusion, and the person is likely to try and diagnose the error. This may be adjusting their grip, pushing a button, tapping it, etc. However all of these actions will be occuring on a firearm that has a live round in the chamber. Anything that takes the persons attention away from keeping a loaded firearm pointed in a safe direction is dangerous.
  I'm not really seeing this a major source of death.
  Even if this were true, its basically the seatbelt and airbag arguments all over again. Some people have died because they were trapped in a vehicle by them, but the number of lives they save so far outweighs the harm that its an absurd reason not to wear a seat belt.
  Its grasping at straws.
114. Re:I won't be buying one... by NoNonAlphaCharsHere · 2013-04-29 08:32 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  [ Picturing you in a firing range, standing shoulder deep in spent shell casings... ]
  
  I've got wood. Anybody else?
115. Re:I won't be buying one... by robot256 · 2013-04-29 08:33 · Score: 1, Troll
  
  Actually, statistics work in these guys' favor. It's the old defense vs. offense saying: sure, you want it to fire at that one particular second every 5 years, but the other 157679999 seconds you're sure as hell don't want it going off. It makes sense to put more effort into stopping false positives than false negatives. You might then ask, "Why have a gun if its only purpose is to be NOT fired", and then I ask, "Why indeed"? But that is a different conversation.
  Guns kept in the home for "self protection" are alarmingly likely to be used against their owners, either by burglars who find them first, children by accident, or the owner himself for suicide (not that this tech would prevent that). Even the latest James Bond movie made this point, where the first time anyone pulled the trigger on his smart gun it was the (very disappointed) bad guy pointing it at Bond's head. Yes, not firing when you want it to is bad, but it is just as bad if not worse to have it fired against your will, especially in situations where it is the only firearm in the fight.
  Their example of using the tech in a war zone is both good and bad, since it prevents you from being ambushed and shot with your own weapons, or stolen supplies arming the enemy. But you couldn't use them with gloves on, burned fingers or a number of other situations. A way to temporarily disable the fingerprint recognition would be a step toward your "false positive rather than false negative" idea.
  That said, don't compare the reliability of this electronic gun with the reliability of a PC or cell phone. They had better be using military grade components and have a battery that lasts for years of use. And the user had better stick to whatever maintenance schedule required by the manufacturer, in which the battery would need replacing every few years. If they can't be bothered to do that then they have no business owning any kind of gun, smart or otherwise.
116. Re:I won't be buying one... by cc1984_ · 2013-04-29 08:34 · Score: 1
  
  If a kid finds that gun on the piano, they should pay the price...
  Exactly the kind of situation I want to avoid, which is why I don't have any pianos in my house.
  You monster.
117. Re:I won't be buying one... by nospam007 · 2013-04-29 08:35 · Score: 0
  
  "If there is any chance at all that my gun will simply refuse to fire when I pull the trigger, I don't want anything to do with it."
  You also don't buy a microwave that's incapable of functioning while the door is open?
  Or a drug bottle with a children's stopper?
  Or a car with an airbag?
  But anyway, the gun might also not fire if the firing pin is broken or the ejector fails to do its job or the ammo is wet or ...
  So be sure not to buy one with those potential failing parts.
118. Re:I won't be buying one... by jimbolauski · 2013-04-29 08:37 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Do you have an emotional response to firearms that makes thinking difficult for you?
  Nope, but the statistic is misleading. My consumer SCSI HD has a MTBF of 5 years (and my last drive lasted 10 years of 24/7 use before the drive started to even whine a bit). How many times does the read/write arm - which is basically a lever and spring - move during that time? Probably hundreds of millions.
  Guns are just simple mechanical machines. There's nothing magical about their parts, which will function in relation to the quality of their design and maintenance as well as their usage situations - like most things.
  So how is your quote "You fire "millions" of rounds from a single weapon?" any more relevant. An electronic finger print reader will not verify a print with something as simple as a smudge over the sensor or the shooter wearing gloves. It would fail any military acceptance test which requires the weapon to be burred in sand, drug through water and mud and fired immediately after that.
  
  --
  Knowledge = Power
  P= W/t
  t=Money
  Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
119. Re:I won't be buying one... by bluefoxlucid · 2013-04-29 08:38 · Score: 1
  
  A mechanical safety has much less entropy. In the simplest design, you would push a little button. On the right side, you push it in and it pops out the left; the pin has now slid out of the way of the trigger/firing mechanism. On the left side, you push it back and it now blocks the firing mechanism. There isn't much entropy in a sliding piece of metal with a groove in it or whatnot. Two lunks of metal, one acting as a ward, with a chunk cut out of it so when you slide it into position it un-wards and lets the other piece move.
  Start adding levers and pivots and you have things to jam up, with more stresses because of the energy lost in conversion (on pivots, you lose a little energy to heat from the energy needed to reverse direction, including any friction in bearings). More entropy: more places for stuff to break. There are many places where things can change.
  Moving to electronic systems, data analysis, etc, you've now got mathematical processes run on integrated circuitry that can experience any number of faults. Circuit failure, battery failure, sensors not picking up quite the right information--due to sensor faults or just material or spatial issues (big chunk of metal in the way, your hand is oriented weird, etc.). Failure isn't just "it done broke," but "At this point in time, the specific collection of conditions required for the computerized arbiter to authorize a firing condition were not met within tolerance." It may not be broken; it may just be cold outside. Your hands are too clammy. You're sweating.
  
  --
  Support my political activism on Patreon.
120. Re:I won't be buying one... by Synerg1y · 2013-04-29 08:38 · Score: 1
  
  If the safety is properly designed, that's not really a problem. Holsters are a comfort feature then.
121. Re:I won't be buying one... by quax · 2013-04-29 08:45 · Score: 1
  
  You apparently live in a very dangerous place, to be that anxious.
122. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 08:47 · Score: 0
  
  If wishes were horses, right?
  
  I don't know — is there a "then" statement that follows? As it stands, I suppose that if wishes were horses, the resulting environmental disaster would likely bring about the end of human civilization.
123. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 08:48 · Score: 0
  
  My Ruger GP-100 has a safety in the form of a transfer bar. In order for the gun to fire without pulling the trigger, you would have to accelerate it enough that the weight of the firing pin alone was enough to overcome the spring resistance and hit the primer at critical velocity... This means the gun has probably just been shot out of a cannon and you have bigger things to worry about.
124. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 08:51 · Score: 0
  
  Glocks are known and designed for safety (they have atleast "invisible safeties" built right in
  As an owner of two Glocks myself, I think this is *mostly* true and that they're rather cleverly designed in a lot of ways. You can take a loaded Glock with a round the chamber and throw it on the ground all day long and the gun won't go off. However, the design of the gun requires that the trigger be pulled in order to remove the slide from the frame, and that has resulted in a *lot* of negligent discharges from careless people that apparently forget that removing the magazine doesn't remove the round in the chamber.
125. Re:I won't be buying one... by jimbolauski · 2013-04-29 08:54 · Score: 1
  
  Why does it have to be so reliable? The firing range isn't running anywhere. This is a civilian technology, I don't think it will be used in the military.
  If all you intend to use the gun for is in the firing range then yes you are correct, if the gun is used for sport shooting, hunting, or self defense then a gun with false negatives is not a desired feature.
  
  --
  Knowledge = Power
  P= W/t
  t=Money
  Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
126. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 08:56 · Score: 0
  
  "Our motto is ... if we save the life of one child, it's a miracle to that child and everyone that child touches."
  If they were true to their motto they should have dropped the project and donated their funding to a children's hospital 10 years ago.
  To be fair, prevention is better than treatment in any medical situation.
  So they should donate to childhood vaccination awareness, then? The point stands.
127. Re:I won't be buying one... by Ironhandx · 2013-04-29 09:00 · Score: 1
  
  This is much more likely to fail than any of those simply due to hand positioning... do you always grab the gun exactly the same way?
  I'm sure they've got something built in to deal with it but often it takes a gen or two for these types of techs to mature to real usability.
  Safety is a safety, as long as its not broken you hit the same switch thats always in the same place. Ensuring every finger on your hand is in the exact right place on a grip is a bit trickier. Same comparison for the rest of the items mentioned.
128. Re:I won't be buying one... by sycodon · 2013-04-29 09:01 · Score: 1
  
  if you don't want this, don't buy it. I know I won't
  If I had money, I'd bet it all on some moron congresscritter pulling a Bill out of his ass that requires all weapons sold have this feature starting x years from now.
  
  --
  When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
129. Re:I won't be buying one... by VortexCortex · 2013-04-29 09:02 · Score: 1
  
  "Our motto is ... if we save the life of one child, it's a miracle to that child and everyone that child touches."
  If they were true to their motto they should have dropped the project and donated their funding to a children's hospital 10 years ago.
  To be fair, prevention is better than treatment in any medical situation.
  Depends on how many people you grow up to kill.
130. Re:I won't be buying one... by Viewsonic · 2013-04-29 09:03 · Score: 1
  
  Goal posts. Lets just move them waaaaaaaaay over there. See? Now you win! Yay!
131. Re:I won't be buying one... by schlachter · 2013-04-29 09:05 · Score: 1
  
  It's not about Pianos. You're missing the point. A gun could be lying on anything. That is why I don't keep anything in my house.
  
  --
  My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
132. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 09:21 · Score: 0
  
  Ask anyone that re-loads. They may make their own rounds for practice and hunting, but they always put commercial rounds in their handguns for protection.
  For liability reasons. Prosecutors tend to play the "made their own bullets to be more deadly" card if they find out reloads were used. Even the experts, like Masaad Ayoob, give the advice to use commercially loaded ammo for protection for that reason.
133. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 09:22 · Score: 0
  
  Speaking as a member of the anti gun crowd, I can say that irresponsible gun use isn't my main concern. My main concern is intentional, harmful use of guns. Injury from accidents is just one more reason to detest the things.
134. Re:I won't be buying one... by AmiMoJo · 2013-04-29 09:24 · Score: 1
  
  You know not to sit near him because you know him, but to most people he is a stranger. Are you saying people should not sit anywhere near strangers in case they have a possibly concealed weapon with a chambered round in it?
  Even if you do background checks it doesn't stop people doing stupid stuff like this.
  
  --
  const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
  SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
135. Re:I won't be buying one... by Patch86 · 2013-04-29 09:32 · Score: 1
  
  If someone shoots one of my toes off, I'd be quite cross. Quite cross indeed. I don't want to sustain a permanent injury just because your friend likes walking around "gangsta style". Or thinks that one extra round in a concealed handgun is really going to be the difference between life and death for him at some point. If firing 6 rounds at an assailant isn't enough to save you, odds are the 7th won't either...
136. Re:I won't be buying one... by GlobalEcho · 2013-04-29 09:33 · Score: 1
  
  It won't be long now until these two are shooting at each other!
  (Goes to make popcorn)
137. Re:I won't be buying one... by JumpSuit+Boy · 2013-04-29 09:33 · Score: 2
  
  Pistols and most other firearms are made to function for tens of thousands rounds with out parts wearing out. Here is an example of a pistol being fired 50,000 times with cleanings at every 7,000 rounds and a few springs at each 10,000 proactively. Nothing was broken during that time. This an extreme case but he has done this with a number of other models and has gotten similar (but not quite as good) results.
  http://pistol-training.com/archives/4027
  Firearms that have been used for generations and that are still functioning fine are the norm and not the exception.
  As to ammunition contamination we are a 100 years since getting your powder wet was an issue. Modern brass cased cartridges are pretty well sealed up solid with crimping of both the primers and actual bullet. In the case of defensive and military ammunition they add extra sealant sometimes for an extra measure. For an example of how little effect even things like penetrating oil has read the following.
  http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot39.htm
  
  --
  Oh really?
138. Re:I won't be buying one... by danomac · 2013-04-29 09:33 · Score: 1
  
  Well, it's possible the gun could malfunction in such a way that anyone could fire it anyway. So it could fire when it's not supposed to or not fire when it should. Failures are rarely one-sided.
139. Re:I won't be buying one... by RevDisk · 2013-04-29 09:33 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  I've fired hundreds of thousands of rounds through various belt fed MGs, when I was doing instructing duties with NATO militaries. It's not unrealistic as an edge case. Barrels are a consumable part with a well designed automatic weapon. If they're not, it's a bad design or not intended for serious usage. Will the average firearm see hundreds of thousands? Na.
  
  Will some poor firearm be the range beater? Ayep. Also, you have to take life shortening factors into account. Firearms should be built to tolerate environmental concerns (heat, water, etc), abrasion, etc.
  
  I don't trust many electronics to handle that. I've seen plenty of vehicle electronics fail under those circumstances, despite being generally covered or theoretically sealed. Make police carry it for two decades, and I'll start to consider testing it. That's not unusual. M16 is near 50 years old. M1911 is over a century and very popular.
140. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 09:37 · Score: 0
  
  How about the hidden programming that disables all such devices on a preprogrammed date? I don't want to give some unknown programmer the ability to disable my weapons.
141. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 09:42 · Score: 0
  
  Just because I wouldn't want this, and it doesn't add any safety benefit in my situation... doesn't mean it shouldn't be around,
  You fail at capitalism.
  1. Invent vaguely working new biometric identification "safety" for guns.
  2. patent it.
  3. Scare the public into demanding it be applied to all guns.
  4. Contribute to the campaigns of politicians
  5. Write law for grateful politicians.
  6. profit.
  There is no ???
142. Re:I won't be buying one... by sentientbeing · 2013-04-29 09:45 · Score: 1
  
  Trigger event detected. Updating hardware...33%...66%...99%. Installing please wait,
  
  --
  
  ------
  beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his mind he dreams himself your master
143. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 09:47 · Score: 0
  
  Pulling the trigger as you draw the gun from the hoslter is... not the gun's problem.
  I agree with all of your assessment though. The one amazing thing about glocks is that they pretty much fire when the trigger is pulled, every time -- to not protect the trigger is foolishness.
  I think any detractor of glocks has seen the picture of the guy with a worn out leather holster who sat down in his car and blew a hole through the back of his ass and the car seat.
  I admit that a gun with a fire safety selector would likely not have had that problem. But it could have. If you carry in something that let's a control on your firearm be actuated, that's your fault -- same as if you pocket dial 911 with a cell phone.
144. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 09:48 · Score: 0
  
  Guns are simple mechanical machines which have been around for more than a century. Their design has been continuously refined over that time, and it's common for a gun to last several generations. Manufacturers also know that if their gun fails at a crucial time (e.g. a hunter about to fire on a deer), that their reputation will be destroyed, along with their sales. Electronics are obsolete in about 5 years, so reliability isn't even comparable because there's no financial incentive for it.
145. Re:I won't be buying one... by mhajicek · 2013-04-29 09:49 · Score: 1
  
  It also has to be fast. If it takes half a second to activate the weapon that could be too long. Plus you'd have to take off any gloves you're wearing. Then there's that slim but non-zero chance of hidden programming to disable all such weapons on a predetermined date, or by wireless command. Or vulnerability to EM interference, static discharge, or a taser hit. Or as mentioned before, low battery at an inopportune moment.
146. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 09:49 · Score: 0
  
  And truthfully, the computer in the automobile is more so about tuning, efficiency, and preventing catastrophic wear during issues. It's not about actually operating the basic functionality.
  *Except for signaling fuel injectors and spark plugs. But these are minor functions.
147. Re:I won't be buying one... by interkin3tic · 2013-04-29 09:57 · Score: 2
  
  Again, numbers make all the difference in the world. Any number of scenarios are possible, what matters is probability. How often do these things give permission to fire incorrectly? If it's 10% of the time, then still, nine out of ten times an attacker wrestles your gun away from you and tries to shoot you with it, you're saved. And that's assuming the device doesn't deter him from trying it.
148. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 09:59 · Score: 0
  
  It's not about stuff inside houses. It's the house itself. That's why I'm a homeless gunslinger.
149. Re:I won't be buying one... by Cinder6 · 2013-04-29 10:03 · Score: 1
  
  It would effectively stop that situation...assuming rednecks buy guns with this technology. This assumes it's in the price range of said rednecks (I'd imagine such guns would be quite a bit more expensive than non-computerized guns, and rednecks aren't exactly renowned for having lots of money) and that the rednecks will want the guns.
  While the safety argument does have some merit, I'm reminded somewhat of magazine disconnects. For those unfamiliar, magazine disconnects make it so the gun won't fire if there's no magazine inserted. A lot of people dislike them because some implementations cause accuracy problems, it makes the gun effectively useless except as a poor club without a magazine, and it's "One Other Thing to Go Wrong". Proponents, of course, say it makes guns safer.
  An interesting anti-disconnect argument I read stated that it encourages people to disregard rule #1 of firearm safety: the gun is always loaded. Treating a gun with no magazine in it as harmless can create some bad, potentially disastrous, habits, especially if a person accustomed to a gun with a disconnect handles a gun without one. I could see a similar argument for guns with fingerprint ID chips.
  In the end, the ultimate responsibility of gun safety belongs to the operator of the gun. This is true whether the gun has no external safeties or fifty of them. Children accidentally killing themselves with guns is tragic, but no more so than a toddler that drinks bleach because the cupboard wasn't secured properly. People put baby locks on kitchen cabinets as a matter of course; make sure your guns are out-of-reach, too.
  
  --
  If you can't convince them, convict them.
150. Re:I won't be buying one... by mypalmike · 2013-04-29 10:09 · Score: 1
  
  I fear some people would trust the technology to keep their family safe instead of themselves.
  Why fear? People are going to die of avoidable accidents in their homes. Just try not to be be one of them. That's the extent of the power you have over this "problem".
  
  --
  There are 0x40000000 types of people: those who understand 32-bit IEEE 754 floating point, and those who don't.
151. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 10:14 · Score: 0
  
  If a kid is authorized to be in the house and they find a gun on the piano then whoever left it there should be charged with criminal negligence. If the kid is breaking in they deserve to shoot themselves.
  I have several guns loaded in various places in my home, however no one but me is authorized to be in there so it is not an issue. We have taught my girlfriends daughter about gun safety and she doesn't really like the noise and recoil of even the .22 when we go to the range, but when I go over and am carrying any gun I have is put safely away. If when we get married or I move in we will be getting a full sized safe for most of the firearms and a smaller one for a couple of pistols by the bed.
152. Re:I won't be buying one... by ducomputergeek · 2013-04-29 10:19 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Tale of two guns I own, both purchased with the goal of being conceal carry pieces: Walther PPS #1 - 2300 rounds fired. Error: failure to eject last round properly: 1. No other jams and I've fed good ammo and cheap ammo through it. Had so much success a year ago I bought another as a spare. 1400 rounds through it, no failures to fire or eject. Maybe I'm just lucky, but I'll trust my life with either of those weapons. I am confident that if/when I need them to go boom they will.
  Also last year I bought a Ruger SR40c because I wanted something in .40S&W. Excellent sights, great trigger, very accurate and manageable recoil for me. But it had problems with double feeds, failure to eject, and light strikes. Put 600 rounds through it to "break it in" and still had problems through the 1000 round mark. Sent the gun back to Ruger and they replaced some parts and replaced the barrel. 500 rounds through the gun since I've got it back and other than it still hates winchester ammo (hard primer) seems to be okay if I'm shooting Hornaday Critical Duty or Defense ammo. I still refuse to carry it. It will probably take another 1000 rounds before I will even consider it again.
  
  --
  "The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
153. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 10:22 · Score: 0
  
  It's not 10,000 rounds. It's 10,000 grips. If it recognizes the authorized user, then it would not re-run the check until the user changes grip.
154. Re:I won't be buying one... by FlyHelicopters · 2013-04-29 10:24 · Score: 1
  
  99.99% isn't good enough... Not to me anyway, which is why I don't care for the AR-15/M-16/M-4 line, unless you keep them clean and buy a high quality rifle, they just have too many jams.
  I own an AK-47 that I purchased almost 20 years ago, in that time I've put well over 10,000 rounds though it, cleaned it twice in all that time.
  I've used Wolf ammo, Eastern European Mil-Surplus ammo, and every other junk ammo you can imagine.
  Never a failure to feed, never a failure to fire, ever. Damm reliable gun. Not very accurate, but it does go bang every time and if you're shooting at something less than 100 yards away, it is accurate enough. Beyond that, it is more spray and pray, or covering fire.
  BTW, a family friend served in Vietnam in the Marines. He once told me about finding an AK-47 burred in the mud, looked like it had been there forever, was rusted shut. Took several really strong boot kicks to the bolt handle to bust the rust loose. Dunked it in to water, slapped a new mag in, fired the whole mag without failure.
  Amazing weapon...
155. Re:I won't be buying one... by kaatochacha · 2013-04-29 10:30 · Score: 1
  
  Nope. What this will do is give those who stridently despise firearms a way to force you to spend an additional $1K on them, by pointing at the tech and saying "but it works!".
  California's already trying to push this nonsense as a ballot measure.
  And this STILL won't keep the "rednecks" from letting their kids die in futile ways. It just won't be with firearms.
156. Re:I won't be buying one... by FuegoFuerte · 2013-04-29 10:37 · Score: 1
  
  It really depends on the gun. I have a few different carry guns, depending on the situation. I have a couple of single-action autos* that I carry "cocked and locked" with a round chambered, and the gun holstered. There's not a chance I'd carry a 1911 un-holstered in that condition, even though it has enough safety features it would be highly unlikely to have an AD.
  That said, the gun I've most frequently carried over the past 8 years or so is a Kel-Tec P3AT, which has no safety. I carry it with a belt clip only, no holster, and I carry it chambered. It's not a safety concern to me, because it's a DAO pistol. the trigger pull is about 1" long and very heavy, and is small enough that my jeans act as an effective holster (keeping something from accidentally catching and pulling the trigger).
  The most important things to consider are: 1) Keep your finger off the trigger until ready to fire and 2) Carry in such a way that nothing else can accidentally pull the trigger.
  To do #2 effectively, you must know the firearm you carry inside and out. Know its safe modes of carry, and its unsafe modes of carry, and only carry it using safe modes of carry. Even beyond that, only carry in a manner you feel comfortable with - For some people, this means don't carry a 1911 cocked and locked, carry it un-chambered, even though C&L is considered a safe mode of carry for that firearm. For a DAO pistol, chambered and holstered is fine, and they usually don't have a safety. If that makes you nervous, don't chamber a round.
  Finally, even though open carry is perfectly legal in many places, it's usually a good idea to conceal just to avoid freaking people out who aren't familiar with guns. I support the right to open carry, but I think a lot of people who do it are idiots looking for a fight, and that I don't like. If you do open carry and someone complains to you, be polite and encourage them to call police if they're concerned. Let the dispatcher be the one to tell them that what you're doing is perfectly legal and they should ignore you and move on with their lives. Don't be an ass about it, or you'll just give the rest of us a bad name.
  *Side Note: "Autos" in this context means an auto-loading pistol, as opposed to something like a revolver. It does not, in this context, mean it lets off a string of shots every time I pull the trigger.
157. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 10:55 · Score: 0
  
  Of course they do. Billions of cycles even. However, with a clock frequency measured in in megahertz, a billion cycles is only 17 minutes.
  I don't think a clock line successfully rising and falling one time is the same as one fingerprint scan, processing, and match/reject comparison.
  Based on my crappy laptop, a fingerprint scan succeeds about 70% of the time (which is why I disabled it). But hey, feel free to buy as many of them installed in your gun, computer, microwave, steering wheel, cell phone, and refrigerator as you want.
158. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 11:03 · Score: 0
  
  Not having a round chambered..
  I know a guy who carries his fully loaded with a round chambered and doesn't use a holster. I would prefer he didn't chamber that final round or had it in a holster, but I don't see a problem if he wants to carry that way.
  The chance to state factually that someone is so stupid that they are a danger to themselves and to others does not arise often.
159. Re:I won't be buying one... by Areyoukiddingme · 2013-04-29 11:03 · Score: 1
  
  It would fail any military acceptance test which requires the weapon to be burred in sand, drug through water and mud and fired immediately after that.
  Hold on a minute. Since when could you drag an M16 through mud and expect it to fire? Last I checked those things were notoriously picky, requiring exhaustive maintenance after not all that many rounds fired (and even without firing rounds at all). The reason the AK-47 is preferred around the world is its ability to tolerate much harsher conditions and still function. The M16 has an accuracy requirement far higher than the AK-47, making it a much more finicky beast.
  I suspect the maintenance a Marine is trained to perform would be more than sufficient to keep an electronic fingerprint system operational.
  Your typical policeman... not so much.
160. Re:I won't be buying one... by kaatochacha · 2013-04-29 11:07 · Score: 1
  
  So did the founder of planned parenthood.
161. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 11:16 · Score: 0
  
  Let me know how your hard drive is doing in 2116 my Swedish Mauser or Springfield 03A3 will be doing just fine even then. Of course they will just be a curiosity piece by then as I will be 3d printing or generating from the replicator the latest energy weapons as the technology advances.
162. Re:I won't be buying one... by Charcharodon · 2013-04-29 11:24 · Score: 1
  
  No but I buy Glocks, no safety no problem. As far as everything else. I train to deactivate the safety before pulling the trigger. It has become an ingrained habit and is no longer and issue.
  An electronic lock that could override my wishes is another thing all together. I would refuse to buy a firearm that would refuse to do what I want it to do 100% of the time.
163. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 11:37 · Score: 0
  
  Dear Americans...... You'll get to keep your guns but they will be restricted with this sort of tech.
  No this won't be for Military use, But it will be MANDATED for ALL CIVILIAN firearms.
  How else can your pollies deal with your retarded views of gun ownership in US?
164. Re:I won't be buying one... by EuclideanSilence · 2013-04-29 11:42 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  I'm guessing you mean any increased chance, since we live in the real world where everything always has a non-zero chance of not working as advertised. How much of an increased chance do these things have of failing? I'd be interested to see real data rather than conjecture. If this thing fails one out of every, I dunno, one thousand trigger pulls, that could be more reliable than your average Saturday night special.
  
  I agree that actual statistics would be better, but this is a different type of failure. If a pistol fails to fire then you just pull the trigger again; you might have to cycle a round. If a fingerprint gun fails to fire, then it will probably fail to fire in all subsequent attempts.
165. Re:I won't be buying one... by I'm+New+Around+Here · 2013-04-29 11:47 · Score: 1
  
  That's OK, it will be a short demonstration of which one can't figure out where the Safety actually is. Then this thread will have one less bot in it.
  
  --
  If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
166. Re:I won't be buying one... by schlachter · 2013-04-29 12:04 · Score: 1
  
  Ha..."cause freedom is another word for nothing left to lose"
  
  --
  My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
167. Re:I won't be buying one... by kwiqsilver · 2013-04-29 12:08 · Score: 2
  
  The possibility of a mechanical failure is far more remote than the possibility of a fingerprint scanner failure. Have you ever tried scanning your fingerprints while bleeding, sweating, covered in mud, wearing gloves, or otherwise obscured?
  Clearly you know very little of firearms, or you wouldn't have used the terms "bullets" (ammunition) or "mechanism" (action). Also you'd know that the vast majority of those of us who have self-defense firearms keep them loaded and would never put a lock on a gun, because trigger locks violate one of the primary safety rules ("don't put anything in the trigger guard, until you're on target and ready to shoot").
  I stopped carrying a 1911, because there were a few times in IDPA, where I drew the gun and went to shoot, but forgot to hit the thumb safety. Now I either carry an XD (grip safety--hard to screw up) or CZ (decocker--even harder to screw up). So I'm in total agreement with the OP, reduce the number of things that can go wrong under stress.
168. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 12:09 · Score: 0
  
  Well, on the Glocks I've used it's that little thingy that points out on the front of your trigger. Without pressing that little item you can't squeeze the trigger. Basically it takes away almost all likelihood of an accidental trigger pull.
  Revolver: Has no safety; if a round is in the next cylinder and you pull the trigger, it goes bang.
  Glock: Has a trigger safety; if a round is chambered and you pull the trigger, it goes bang.
  
  Forgive me if I'm not impressed. I think the CZ-75 gets this right - there is a nice big thumb safety that is easy to engage/disengage while drawing and holstering the weapon; practicing with it for a few dozen hours will make actuating the thumb safety second nature. Even then, the first trigger pull is still stiff, like a Glock. And if someone grabs your weapon from your holster, a thumb safety just might confuse the hell out of them and save your life. IIRC there are CZ-75 variants with drop safeties now, too.
169. Re:I won't be buying one... by CanadianMacFan · 2013-04-29 12:09 · Score: 1
  
  A MTBF measured in millions of cycles does not mean it will last millions of cycles. It can break on the first use, just not likely. Light bulbs have MTBF measured in thousands of hours. Can you think of one (or more) that you know did not last a thousand?
170. Re:I won't be buying one... by kwiqsilver · 2013-04-29 12:16 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Can I sweep up all the 9mm and 5.56mm?
171. Re:I won't be buying one... by kwiqsilver · 2013-04-29 12:24 · Score: 1
  
  That annoying thing in the middle of your trigger.
  
  ^^^ Glock haters respond ;-)
172. Re:I won't be buying one... by kwiqsilver · 2013-04-29 12:28 · Score: 1
  
  I don't see it as dangerous enough to arm the Anti Gun crowd. Personally, I'd be willing to sacrifice the one extra round for that extra measure of safety and I just don't sit near him. If it went off the way he carries it, he's only going to hit his backside and the floor behind him (or somebodies foot in the worst case). :)
  It's better to have to do as little as possible under stress. People forget to do things like deactivate safety levers, cock hammers, rack slides, etc. when the crazy meth addict with the machete is running at them.
173. Re:I won't be buying one... by kwiqsilver · 2013-04-29 12:32 · Score: 1
  
  You do realize everytime rednecks leave their guns out and their kids shoot themselves it makes front page on cnn adding fuel to the fire right?
  This... would effectively stop that piece of it, with an added bonus of knowing your own guns can't be used against you.
  So would banning and confiscating all guns, or ending all human life. Stopping one bad thing (that doesn't happen much to begin with) with a worse thing isn't a good solution.
174. Re:I won't be buying one... by kwiqsilver · 2013-04-29 12:45 · Score: 1
  
  1) Put a defective ambidextrous safety on a 1911.
  2) Flip it back and forth until the connection between the two halves breaks.
  
  I had that happen once. Fortunately I discovered it in a competition, not a gunfight.
175. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 13:01 · Score: 0
  
  I'd say that a high false positive rate is perfectly acceptable in this application. Usually, when folks are talking about false matches of fingerprints, they're talking about screening a population. If you're screening 10,000,000 people, then a false positive rate of 1 in 10,000 sucks.
  You use a trigger interlock to make sure that a bad guy doesn't take your gun and shoot you with it. You're (hopefully) not going to be disarmed by millions of people. If I've gotten myself into the already bad situation where Bad Guy has my gun, I'd be ecstatic for a 99% chance that he couldn't fire it. Hell, I'd be pretty damn happy for a 90% chance that he couldn't fire it.
176. Re:I won't be buying one... by The+Snowman · 2013-04-29 13:03 · Score: 1
  
  Do you remove the safety from your gun as well? After all, a defective safety can mean that your gun will refuse to fire when you pull the trigger.
  My Glock was manufactured without an active safety mechanism. This means there are mechanisms to prevent accidental discharge, but there is no safety switch. Glocks are reliable enough that a large number of police departments use them.
  
  --
  24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not!
177. Re:I won't be buying one... by kwiqsilver · 2013-04-29 13:15 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Whether or not you're safer with a gun in the home is controversial and heavily written about, the risks of being shot by your gun vs the likelihood of you shooting a would-be-attacker. I don't have an opinion on the subject as I'm not prepared to wade into the literature, but it seems like this tech would avoid the chance of the former while still giving you the chance at the latter.
  I'm not disagreeing with your post, quite the opposite. I just want to point out that the Kellerman study (which you allude to) that claimed a gun was 2.7 times more likely to be used against a resident of the house than against a non resident was horribly flawed.
  
  The claim of the paper was that people who have a firearm in the home are more likely to die from their own guns. Don Kates proved that most of the victims in the study were shot by guns from outside the home, which makes the presence of the homeowner's gun independent of the death.
  Kellerman also "proved" X -> Y, using data that actually proves Y -> X, by introducing a selection bias. Most of the victims in the study regularly engaged in criminal behavior. Criminals have a much higher probability of meeting a violent death, so murder victims are predominantly criminals, or their friends, family, or other associates. Criminals are also more likely to have guns in the home (which is strange given that it's illegal...).
  What the study actually showed was a high correlation between being a murder victim and having a gun in the home. It did not sample gun owning households at random and determine how many suffered a shooting with a gun from that household.
  Some Data
178. Re:I won't be buying one... by Jane+Q.+Public · 2013-04-29 13:17 · Score: 0
  
  "Guns kept in the home for "self protection" are alarmingly likely to be used against their owners, either by burglars who find them first, children by accident, or the owner himself for suicide (not that this tech would prevent that)."
  I was going to argue with you -- your first paragraph about false positives and negatives just doesn't apply in this case; the statistical problems are pretty well known and those ain't them.
  
  But this second paragraph made me stop. I'm not going to argue with you because you're just arguing nonsense. The statistics do NOT show anything of this sort. I know because I have studied this very subject for years.
  
  But I'm not going to argue or try to persuade, or go out of my way to present evidence. I just don't have time for this kind of nonsense.
179. Re:I won't be buying one... by Jane+Q.+Public · 2013-04-29 13:21 · Score: 1
  
  Excuse me? Please explain how I "moved the goalposts".
  
  The problem -- as I already explained -- is that if you make these accurate enough to reliably allow the authorized (true positive), then you have to keep the parameters so loose as to also allow some of the unauthorized. At least with today's technology.
  
  How is that "moving the goalposts"? The stated PURPOSE of these things is to prevent unauthorized access, while allowing reliable authorized access. If they can't do that (and I argue that they can't, at least reliably) then the whole thing is a waste of time.
  
  It's fairly simple math. If they have a technology that is so far advanced that it can actually do this, then I would be very surprised and maybe actually pleased. But I am far from convinced, because it would have to involve a technology I've never even heard of. Not impossible but not very likely.
180. Re:I won't be buying one... by cold+fjord · 2013-04-29 13:21 · Score: 1
  
  Since I live in a "right to kill" state, I was give a $25 fine and coupons for the Waffle House.
  Just a minor correction - that "right" really only applies to criminal thugs and others with protection in the Land of Lincoln. Ordinary citizens are left at the mercy of thugs at the moment, but that is coming to an end in June.
  Dozens Pack Illinois Concealed Carry Classes
  
  Illinois is the only state in the country that doesn't allow concealed carry, but a federal mandate came down in December requiring a concealed carry law.
  As lawmakers race against the clock to comply, dozens are taking classes in preparation.
  Classes like the ones hosted by State Representative Mike Smiddy (D-Hillsdale) in Port Byron and Morrison Sunday offer residents a non-resident concealed carry permit through states like Utah or Florida.
  Those permits are recognized in over 31 states, including all those that border Illinois, but are not recognized in Illinois yet.
  Illinois lawmakers have until June 9th to comply with a federal ruling to pass a concealed carry law, so residents are rushing to get permits in anticipation of this federal mandate taking effect soon.
  "This has pretty much exploded and everyone wants to get their permit," Craig Celia of Safe Gun Permits says.
  Celia's gun permit business opened only this past January, and already many of his classes are full. . . . more
  
  --
  much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
181. Re:I won't be buying one... by Jane+Q.+Public · 2013-04-29 13:24 · Score: 1
  
  "It's not 10,000 rounds. It's 10,000 grips. If it recognizes the authorized user, then it would not re-run the check until the user changes grip."
  That's actually a good point. I stated it wrong. Let's say 10,000 TIMES. I'm good with that.
182. Re:I won't be buying one... by Jane+Q.+Public · 2013-04-29 13:29 · Score: 1
  
  "Never a failure to feed, never a failure to fire, ever. Damm reliable gun."
  I don't dispute that. But there are trade-offs. The Stoner design (at least today) though have an accuracy goal that the AK just doesn't match. You noted that yourself.
  
  On the other hand, you can at least to some degree get the best of both worlds. Some of the newer piston-operated variations are way less prone to fouling and jamming. Not all of them, but some. Since there are so many companies making them now, there has been a lot of experimentation and a lot of improvements.
183. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 13:30 · Score: 0
  
  Makes sense. If you are hyper anxious enough about the tiny chance that you will be a victim of a type of crime, that you could protect yourself from with a gun, then you also would probably be also worried about the tiny chance the electronics might prevent you from firing.
184. Re:I won't be buying one... by Jane+Q.+Public · 2013-04-29 13:36 · Score: 1
  
  "Gun manufacturers are not responsible for the safety of their devices. They convinced / paid off congress to pass laws that allows them to be immune to even gun safety lawsuits. Take your red herring anti-tort arguments elsewhere."
  It's not a red-herring argument. You just thought he meant something else. I think.
  
  "The first lawsuit" would be by somebody who tried to use it for self-defense, and it didn't work.
  
  Gun manufacturers may not be responsible for misuse of their product, but they sure as hell ARE responsible for products that don't actually perform their primary function, i.e., shoot when you want them to shoot.
  
  All manufacturer's disclaimers aside, most states today have "implied warranty" laws, and there have been some successful suits over that in the past.
185. Re:I won't be buying one... by Jane+Q.+Public · 2013-04-29 13:40 · Score: 1
  
  "It doesn't need to "reliably" block unauthorized shooters. If it gives even a 50% chance that a kid who steals dad's gun won't be able to shoot up their school, or that a young child won't be able to accidentally shoot themselves, then surely that's worth something."
  Yes, of course. But you also have to weigh that against whether it DOES work, when it's supposed to. If you're a police officer or military, for example, and your buddies get killed because your gun wouldn't go off, they're just as dead as that young child you mention.
  
  As I wrote above: it would take an awful lot of convincing to get me to believe this thing has the right mix of reliability. I'm not about to say it's impossible, but so far I haven't seen technology that even comes close.
186. Re:I won't be buying one... by Jane+Q.+Public · 2013-04-29 13:42 · Score: 1
  
  Wow. I hadn't thought about that angle, but it's a very good point.
187. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 13:46 · Score: 0
  
  And thats the problem...you have no clue about what you are talking about. There are plenty of studies done and the AR platform - DI or Piston - have proven to be utterly reliable. The myth of the jam o matic M16 comes from the early Vietnam days where no one had a clue how to A) make them B) make clean ammo and c) maintain them. AK-47 was not preferred around the world...it was the AK-74 and AKM....and only then because they could be had for about 7-8 bucks and the ammo was plentiful. These 'safety' features crop up every decade or so and so far have all been a disaster.
188. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 13:58 · Score: 0
  
  Maybe you need a stronger door.
189. Re:I won't be buying one... by kwbauer · 2013-04-29 14:20 · Score: 1
  
  My guess is that he is using a pocket holster that covers the trigger but not much else. That is a perfectly valid way of doing it. Practiced by many an undercover officer.
190. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 14:22 · Score: 0
  
  Of course they do. Billions of cycles even. However, with a clock frequency measured in in megahertz, a billion cycles is only 17 minutes.
  I don't think a clock line successfully rising and falling one time is the same as one fingerprint scan, processing, and match/reject comparison.
  It's called humour. Look it up sometime.
191. Re:I won't be buying one... by kwbauer · 2013-04-29 14:23 · Score: 1
  
  " if you don't want this, don't buy it."
  The only people asking for this are the gun banning crowd. In other words, this manufacturer will soon find that it is producing a weapon to the exact specifications of the consumer who has already stated that they do not want to own guns.
  All this biometric safety crap is simply a ploy to make guns too expensive for the common man.
192. Re:I won't be buying one... by kwbauer · 2013-04-29 14:34 · Score: 1
  
  Regardless of how innovative, nobody wants it. Politicians have convinced some of the less rational folks that such technology is desirable and must be required but the only people they've convinced are the ones that are so irrational that they believe all that fiction that Tolkien wrote about chunks of metal assuming magical powers when formed into certain shapes under certain circumstances.
  The problem of a gun being taken from a victim by an assailant and then used by the assailant on the victim accounts for maybe a percent of a percent of firearms misuses. They are trying to solve a non-existent problem and will have no customers except possibly some large city police forces because the decision makers make political decisions to further a political agenda rather than rational decisions to promote safety.
193. Re:I won't be buying one... by kwbauer · 2013-04-29 14:38 · Score: 1
  
  It will only be used by the big city police force in cities run by Democrats and possibly all those countries that have irrational fears of certain inanimate objects.
  No actual gun owner or gun owner wannabe is asking for this.
194. Re:I won't be buying one... by kwbauer · 2013-04-29 14:43 · Score: 1
  
  That is not surprising since out of the 2 million or more defensive uses a year, maybe a thousand involve actually firing the weapon. Most of the time just letting it be seen sends the perp fleeing.
  The question remains. If no one actually willing to purchase a firearm actually wants this technology, what is their intended market?
195. Re:I won't be buying one... by edibobb · 2013-04-29 14:45 · Score: 1
  
  I agree. And I don't want to take my gloves off if it's cold. It would be devastating if the pesky rabbit escaped.
  When I read the headline, I thought "smart" meant automatic targeting, not automatically disabling.
196. Re:I won't be buying one... by sd4f · 2013-04-29 14:47 · Score: 1
  
  Exactly right. I'll pay attention to this when police forces and militaries use them. Beyond that, people don't realise how simple firearms are, so this is just trying to pacify public health departments who think this is an ingenious solution. It won't get adopted anywhere.
197. Re:I won't be buying one... by kwbauer · 2013-04-29 14:55 · Score: 1
  
  Who are you to tell me that my gun has to be locked in a safe with the ammo somewhere else to be properly stored. Proper storage of a firearm only involves keeping it from rusting and being misused. I have no one in my home who would misuse my guns so I don't see the need to lock them up.
  "Rambo self defense strategy"... Take ten minutes to do some actual research and you will find plenty of incidents where keeping a loaded gun handy has prevented rape, maiming and death.
  "some other purpose built tool for the job instead of a handgun I use for shooting targets" In most of the US, you are able to have exactly that. Keep a short-barrelled shotgun (as short as is legal) or a handgun or an AR-15 or some other rifle. Shotguns and handguns are generally considered better "close-quarters" weapons for defensive situations. Shotguns because they require less accurate aiming. Handguns because they are easier to aim over short distances. Rifles like AR-15s are easy to configure with sights that allow very quick short range "target acquisition" so they work fairly well also. That being said, you should probably use whatever you keep handy for defense for shooting targets as well. Practice makes perfect applies to pretty much every aspect of life, especially those aspects that involve muscle control and hand-eye coordination.
  As for all this being worth the risk for you, you probably are closer to Michael Bloomberg than Thomas Jefferson in the safety versus liberty argument and that crowd is generally willing to accept almost any risk to be free of the imaginary risk my guns are causing them.
198. Re:I won't be buying one... by cusco · 2013-04-29 15:00 · Score: 2
  
  I work with biometric readers in access control systems, and the only thing less reliable than fingerprint readers are hand scanners. If the thing is calibrated to work correctly then when your hand is cold, dirty, sweaty, or swelled up for some reason (poison ivy, injury, gardening, whatever) the reader will deny you access. I really dislike bio-readers, they're a pain in the ass to work with for very little gain.
  
  More reasonable (if they really want to insist on this foolishness) would be an RFID or prox reader, so that the user would have to be in possession of the access token. That technology is 20+ years mature, and I know of readers out in the field that have been functioning without a single failure for over a decade.
  
  --
  "Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
199. Re:I won't be buying one... by Myopic · 2013-04-29 15:11 · Score: 1
  
  Log lady?
200. Re:I won't be buying one... by Broken+scope · 2013-04-29 15:20 · Score: 1
  
  No, the AK is preferred around the world is because it's stupidly cheap and if you can't find some of the millions in existence, you make one mostly out of sheet metal and rivets. On top of that
  
  --
  You mad
201. Re:I won't be buying one... by Sabriel · 2013-04-29 15:29 · Score: 1
  
  (1) If your training in a weapon chosen for self-defence is such that you have to make a conscious attempt to remember how to operate it in an emergency, your training is insufficient.
  (2) If your training is insufficient, you do not compensate for this by taking deliberate actions that reduce the safety of those around you without their consent.
202. Re:I won't be buying one... by Zcar · 2013-04-29 15:46 · Score: 1
  
  Or the negligent discharges from failing to clear a Glock properly before disassembly. The, IMO, major unsafe part of the Glock is pulling the trigger on a (presumably) empty chamber to disassemble it for cleaning.
203. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 16:04 · Score: 0
  
  Birdshot is made from bismuth these days due to lead's toxicity.
204. Re:I won't be buying one... by Agripa · 2013-04-29 16:34 · Score: 1
  
  *I* am the safety on the firearm I am holding.
205. Re:I won't be buying one... by Agripa · 2013-04-29 16:53 · Score: 1
  
  There are no accidental trigger pulls. There are only negligent trigger pulls.
  Do not put your finger on the trigger until you are ready to shoot.
  All of my holsters cover the trigger guard.
206. Re:I won't be buying one... by Agripa · 2013-04-29 17:00 · Score: 1
  
  Glocks do not quite fit into the single action or double action categories. During the slide operation cycle, the striker is cocked about half way which presumably leaves it with insufficient energy to fire the primer. Pulling the trigger cocks the striker the rest of the way before releasing it.
  Double action pistols generally have the same kind of trigger pull as a revolver.
207. Re:I won't be buying one... by Agripa · 2013-04-29 17:02 · Score: 1
  
  Practice in forming and maintaining the proper habits like *not* placing ones finger on the trigger before being ready to shoot is required in addition to training.
208. Re:I won't be buying one... by Agripa · 2013-04-29 17:14 · Score: 1
  
  Law enforcement are usually (always?) exempted from civilian firearm restrictions. New Jersey's current smart-gun law exempts law enforcement.
209. Re:I won't be buying one... by vux984 · 2013-04-29 17:19 · Score: 1
  
  I have no one in my home who would misuse my guns so I don't see the need to lock them up.
  Until some punk breaks in when you aren't home looking for some quick cash for his next hit, and finds a gun lying around ready and helps himself.
  Until your kids bring their friends home, your have some friends over who bring their kids.
  Spend a few minutes thinking about it, and all kinds possibilities present themselves.
  Take ten minutes to do some actual research and you will find plenty of incidents where keeping a loaded gun handy has prevented rape, maiming and death.
  I'll also find plenty of incidents where that handy loaded gun leads to an armed fatal confrontation where no confrontation would otherwise have occurred at all.
  I'll also find plenty of incidents where that handy loaded gun was accidentally discharged and someone got hurt or killed.
  And yes I'll find some self-defense scenarios where it worked out for the best too, where having the gun really was the ideal situation.
  But I can find scenarios where people burned to death in a car or drowned because they couldn't get their seat belts off too; but the overwhelming evidence is still that seat belts save far more lives.
  you probably are closer to Michael Bloomberg than Thomas Jefferson in the safety versus liberty argument
  You would be utterly wrong on that score. I'm the guy who'd rather have the option to fly on non-TSA screened flights. The guy who'd give the gauntanamo bay prisoners civilian trials, or outright release them if we don't have enough evidence to make a likely conviction. The guy who'd live in a world where the occasional building is destroyed by terrorists rather than give the police any sort of additional surveillance or warrant-less search capabilities. And the guy who fully supports your right to own and operate as many guns as you like.
  But I'm also not paranoid that the government is going to take the guns away either. I'm not worried about background checks, or registrations. My house is registered, my car is registered, my boat is registered, even my dog is registered... why would I be worried about the guns? We can take cars away from drunks and idiots, but we can't take away their guns. I disagree with that.
  and that crowd is generally willing to accept almost any risk to be free of the imaginary risk my guns are causing them.
  To look at the American gun injury and fatality rates compared to the rest of the civilized world and call them an 'imaginary risk' is ridiculous. You are in some sort of bizarre denial of reality.
210. Re:I won't be buying one... by rohan972 · 2013-04-29 17:59 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah, I noticed that after I posted. Water was boiling for my first cup of coffee, I should have waited.
  
  --
  http://marriedmansexlife.com/
211. Re:I won't be buying one... by rohan972 · 2013-04-29 18:15 · Score: 1
  
  Your previous post is still nonsense. If it had been deliberate nonsense, we might have called it humor. There is probably a word to describe nonsense that was intended to serious.
  
  --
  http://marriedmansexlife.com/
212. Re:I won't be buying one... by deimtee · 2013-04-29 18:42 · Score: 1
  
  revolvers generally rely on a heavy trigger pull (at least for the first shot) as the safety.
  I've seen this in a couple of comments. What constitutes a first shot for these pistols? Or more exactly, what resets the heavy trigger pull for the first shot?
  Because if it is something like reloading, I can see somebody having to use it (probably a stressful situation) and then putting it down or away leaving a semi-loaded gun in an easy to fire condition.
  
  --
  I'm guessing that wasn't on their radar screen...
213. Re:I won't be buying one... by im_thatoneguy · 2013-04-29 18:48 · Score: 2
  
  Something like 1/4 of all police officer homicides are shot by their own firearms. I don't know that it needs to handle hundreds of thousands of rounds. How many times does a police officer shoot and kill someone to save his life while in service? Even if this trigger control had a 1% failure I still imagine the risk of it being used against them is higher than the risk of it failing to stop an assailant. Especially if there are two police officers in which case you're looking at a fraction of a % for a simultaneous failure of two weapons.
214. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 19:07 · Score: 0
  
  Then even a 10% failure to fire rate would only be an issue in 1 in 20,000 cases of self-defense use.
215. Re:I won't be buying one... by Will.Woodhull · 2013-04-29 19:10 · Score: 1
  
  Some guns are designed to be carried with the hammer at half cock and a round in the chamber. There is an internal safety (for example, check out "falling block safety" on google) and the gun cannot fire until the hammer is brought back to full cock. If there is a risk of foreign crud getting into the action, carrying with the chamber loaded removes the danger of a misfire when a round is jacked into the chamber.
  So the behavior might be appropriate for the gun. It might not be irresponsible at all. There is no way of knowing from the information presented here.
  So far, all I have seen mentioned here is that a biometric safety might prevent the gun from working when the shooter wants it to fire. However that is just one of three modes of safety failures. Another is that the safety can fail so that the gun is ready to fire although it looks like the safety is on. This is rare with today's active mechanical safeties, but it does sometimes happen. With an electronic system, it would be a much bigger worry. The third mode of failure is that even when the safety is on and functioning correctly, a gun might still fire if a round with a defective primer is chambered, or some foreign object has gotten into the action and functions as a surrogate firing pin, etc. With a biometric safety, there is the potential additional risk of electrically igniting the primer.
  
  --
  Will
216. Re:I won't be buying one... by inking · 2013-04-29 19:36 · Score: 1
  
  Do you have armed thugs breaking down your doors that often? Let's face it, most people own firearms for the same reason most sword owners, like myself, own swords: collecting, recreational purposes, a false sense of security or because they were given to them as a gift. The whole "only I can defend my own health" argument is really just tacked on as a justification. Sure, I could cut down any attacker when I come back home from practice, given a chance to draw it (which statistically speaking I'm guaranteed not to have), but that's hardly the reason why I have it with me to begin with. I know some other guys who say that it gives them a sense of security, but, again, that's not why they own them. I wouldn't have any problems owning a weapon that had this system, provided that it works to some degree, although I do imagine it would be a little hard to implement on a traditional sword.
217. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 19:40 · Score: 0
  
  Do you realize how deeply sad it is that you feel you need a firearm to protect yourself against armed thugs?
  I live in the United States. I believe that our laws should follow the Constitution, including the Second Amendment. I support your right as a law-abiding citizen to own arms for lawful purposes, whether that is target practice or hunting or personal defense or to defend against a tyrannical state.
  But here's the problem I have with owning a gun for personal defense: do you really live in a situation where your safety is in such imminent danger that you need deadly force to protect yourself (or others), and if so, why would you tolerate that?
  Using a gun for hunting is one thing. You keep the weapon unloaded and locked up when you are not hunting, so the risk of accidents or foul play is low. Using a gun for self defense means that you need to keep it ready, and it means that you need to make split-second decisions about whether your target is a threat, potentially in situations where judgement is more challenging (such as being startled awake). It is easy to believe that you are too responsible to make a mistake, but experience shows that no one is infallible.
  I don't want to live in a world where I need to be armed to defend myself. I don't want to live in a world where my safety depends on being able to make split-second decisions on whether a particular individual should live or die. To me, the fact that anyone would even have to make such a decision represents an abject failure of civil society.
  I am glad that I don't live in such a world. I live in a suburb that has a very low crime rate. I realize that not all of the United States is so fortunate, and certainly not all of the world. But to expect those who live in more dangerous areas to arm themselves is to surrender ourselves to the misguided belief that nothing can be done about crime.
218. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 20:19 · Score: 0
  
  I can't speak for others, but a CZ75 is quite safe to carry with hammer down on a loaded chamber, safety disengaged (The reason for this is that the firing pin is shorter than its shroud, depending on momentum to protrude far enough to strike the bullet's primer). The only way I can think of to accidentally discharge that, is by dropping it muzzle first onto the ground - hard - which might still be problematic, but at least the bullet would be headed down-ish. The first shot is just a double-action pull on the trigger away - a bit stiff, but no problem under emergency circumstances. Probably safer than cocked and locked with the safety up. Then again, newer designs like the Glock have spent some time improving safety features even further with its semi-cocked striker ("glocked-and-locked").
  I do carry it concealed, thank you for asking, in line with legal requirements. Although when I'm sleeping, it is close at hand and not inside some safe or holster (and has already once proven useful that way). But thanks for the suggestions.
219. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 20:38 · Score: 0
  
  No wonder you have a huge anti-gun crowd over there. We have plenty of guns around here as well, but i've never heard anyone being that moronic. Usually our gun-owners are handling their guns as they should. Only loaded where they are needed, and otherwise kept behind locks. ( Yeah, no need to carry a gun for personal protection around here, gunpoint roberies are pretty much nonexistant, what would you rob anyways? nobody carries cash around )
220. Re:I won't be buying one... by krygny · 2013-04-29 23:00 · Score: 1
  
  The whole idea is not to get you to buy one. It's to get the Government to mandate that you buy one. Or no gun at all.
  
  --
  Research shows that 67% of those who use the term "research shows", are just making shit up.
221. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 23:02 · Score: 0
  
  As a matter of interest, how many times have you used it other than at the firing range? How often have you ever actually drawn and/or used a gun in real life to protect yourself?
  I'm not from the US, and just wonder how often guns are genuinely used for self defense purposes.
222. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 23:06 · Score: 0
  
  My immediate emotional response to firearms is that anyone who is interested in them shouldn't be allowed anywhere near them. I don't mind highly trained soldiers or cops being given tools, I just don't see why psychotic fantasists should be allowed them.
  Posted AC for obvious reasons.
223. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 23:25 · Score: 0
  
  Note: you can always enlist as well, besides a job you also get *decent* firearm training.
  So not only do you get the chance to kill people with no comeback, you also get useless training for toys which you have no need for in civilian life. Excellent in every way.
224. Re:I won't be buying one... by tehcyder · 2013-04-29 23:36 · Score: 1
  
  Children accidentally killing themselves with guns is tragic, but no more so than a toddler that drinks bleach because the cupboard wasn't secured properly. People put baby locks on kitchen cabinets as a matter of course; make sure your guns are out-of-reach, too.
  People have already posted in this thread that this negates the purpose of having a gun for home defence. Whether it's locked in a safe or wrapped up in a bag on the top of a wardrobe, you're not going to be able to ask a home invading burglar to hold on while you find your gun.
  Basically, unless the gun is on your person or within arm's reach at all times, it's pointless.
  Personally, I would say this is an argument for the futility of having guns for home defence, but most rugged individualistic slashdotters will just say that toddlers will just have to learn the hard way not to play with daddy's toys.
  
  --
  To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
225. Re:I won't be buying one... by tehcyder · 2013-04-29 23:45 · Score: 1
  
  Presumably because people buy guns for security, not just for entertainment at a range.
  I think the GP was indirectly pointing out how pathetic that is as a reason for having guns. Why do Americans persist in the Wild West fantasy that being quick on the draw is what makes you a real man?
  It is genuinely baffling to the rest of us.
  
  --
  To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
226. Re:I won't be buying one... by tehcyder · 2013-04-29 23:48 · Score: 1
  
  For the gun you keep loaded under your pillow at night, fine, I can see why you want that one to fire without fail. Your Rambo self defense fantasy, while I think its deeply flawed, is not an entirely invalid concern.
  Why do so many Americans persist in the fantasy that they live in Somalia or Iraq or somewhere and must be armed 24/7? I know the US has a high murder rate, but surely it's not that bad. And if it is, try moving somewhere a bit safer.
  
  --
  To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
227. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 23:56 · Score: 0
  
  I wish I could mod you straight to a 5. Spot on.
228. Re:I won't be buying one... by MachineShedFred · 2013-04-30 01:18 · Score: 1
  
  A police officer's duty weapon still sees plenty of rounds passed through it, as they go to the range often for training and qualification. This introduces wear and tear to the inside mechanicals (and in this weapon's case, electronics), as well as lots of smoke, grime, etc.
  How are these electronic bits going to hold up to cleaning solvents? People do use solvents to get the lead and carbon deposits out of the mechanics of the weapon...
  
  --
  Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
229. Re:I won't be buying one... by MachineShedFred · 2013-04-30 01:27 · Score: 1
  
  Here in gun-loving Ohio, that would get his concealed carry permit revoked if he was caught by law enforcement.
  In Ohio, you must always carry in a holster. Even if it's just wedged in the door pocket in your car.
  
  --
  Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
230. Re:I won't be buying one... by MachineShedFred · 2013-04-30 01:29 · Score: 1
  
  My biggest issue is that if the technology exists, it's only a short hop to the technology being required.
  The most irrational creature in the world is the one that runs for public office.
  
  --
  Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
231. Re:I won't be buying one... by RevDisk · 2013-04-30 01:32 · Score: 1
  
  Bet you a dollar that only a fraction of police officers would want one. Even if it was statistically safer with a 1% failure rate.
  
  And the 25% sounds incorrect. Thus far for 2013, Detective Eric Smith (Jackson Police Department, Mississippi) is the only officer killed by gunfire with his own weapon.
  
  http://www.odmp.org/search?cause=Gunfire&from=2013&to=2013
232. Re:I won't be buying one... by ConfusedVorlon · 2013-04-30 01:39 · Score: 1
  
  It's good enough for James Bond.
  Still - I don't understand why they put a big LED on it. It seems to me that when stealth is important, this would be a really bad feature for a spy's gun.
  Perhaps I should patent the idea of a smart gun without any giveaway LED indicators.
  
  --
  VLC Remote for iPhone and Android
233. Re:I won't be buying one... by MachineShedFred · 2013-04-30 01:39 · Score: 1
  
  My Sig Sauer P229 has an integrated safety that immobilizes the firing pin unless the trigger is being pulled. This protects from accidental discharge in the case of a dropped weapon. In addition, it features a decocking lever so you don't have to unsafely "thumb" the hammer up.
  
  --
  Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
234. Re:I won't be buying one... by MachineShedFred · 2013-04-30 01:46 · Score: 1
  
  If your microwave doesn't turn on because the door is open, you just eat 5 seconds later than you otherwise would have.
  If your gun fails to fire when you need it to, you may not eat ever again.
  Comparing the two is ridiculous.
  
  --
  Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
235. Re:I won't be buying one... by IndustrialComplex · 2013-04-30 02:07 · Score: 1
  
  Its grasping at straws.
  It is an added complication into a system which already has solutions. This isn't car seatbelts. Car seatbelts actually IMPROVE your ability to drive a car in difficult situations by keeping the driver in front of the wheel during moments of high acceleration. Everything about seatbelts either improves your capability to drive a vehicle, or is neutral with respect to your ability to drive a vehicle.
  
  --
  Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
236. Re:I won't be buying one... by interkin3tic · 2013-04-30 03:24 · Score: 1
  
  I did indeed come across a study refuting it, but it looked complicated, so I went with the cop out and just said it was controversial. I felt a little bad about that, but I didn't want to get off topic when my point was we'd need data for the smart guns specifically if we're going to make such statements.
237. Re:I won't be buying one... by bkcallahan · 2013-04-30 04:06 · Score: 1
  
  "Please restart your Uzi to finish installing updates..."
238. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-30 04:07 · Score: 0
  
  Cars are meant to start failing after 5 or 10 years so you want to buy another.
  Most quality firearms are built to become family heirlooms.
239. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-30 04:12 · Score: 0
  
  The "Shooting you with your own gun" meme is very important. In Hollywood.
  I won't be buying one.
240. Re:I won't be buying one... by Synerg1y · 2013-04-30 04:14 · Score: 1
  
  Am I understanding you correctly? You think that you having to scan your finger on a gun to use it isn't worth human lives?
241. Re:I won't be buying one... by CanHasDIY · 2013-04-30 04:15 · Score: 1
  
  Do you have armed thugs breaking down your doors that often?
  Only has to happen once to matter.
  As the saying goes, "Better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it."
  
  --
  An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
242. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-30 04:15 · Score: 0
  
  Please search for how often an attacker "wrestles your gun away from you."
  Take your time.
  Take a lot of time.
  Take even more time.
  Then get back to us.
  And if you let an attacker get that close without shooting, you probably shouldn't have a gun in the first place.
  This also assumes that their gun design is of interest, and that said interest isn't offset by a stupid fucking gadget that doesn't improve reliability. Which it is.
243. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-30 04:20 · Score: 0
  
  That's because cops get sued for "brutality" or "murder" if they gap some punk taking a late night stroll in my living room. They're required to show excessive restraint to appease the girly-men this society has produced.
  I am under no such restraints. Intruder gets shot, the end. Though I supposed urinating on his corpse might be excessive.
  The point is, police are attempting to apprehend. A citizen is attempting to defend.
  Also, I question your figure, and I wonder if you've kept in mind that very, very few cops actually die in line of duty.
244. Re:I won't be buying one... by CanHasDIY · 2013-04-30 04:22 · Score: 1
  
  Do you realize how deeply sad it is that you feel you need a firearm to protect yourself against armed thugs?
  I live in the United States. I believe that our laws should follow the Constitution, including the Second Amendment. I support your right as a law-abiding citizen to own arms for lawful purposes, whether that is target practice or hunting or personal defense or to defend against a tyrannical state.
  Yes, those are the primary reasons for the Second Amendment.
  
  But here's the problem I have with owning a gun for personal defense: do you really live in a situation where your safety is in such imminent danger that you need deadly force to protect yourself (or others),
  You'd have to be pretty naive to think that nobody has a need for a personal-protection firearm. Ever read a crime-rate statistic? Here's a hint: If you live around a significant number of other humans, you have a non-zero chance that one of those humans very well may try to harm you or those you care about. Do I like it? Hell no, I wish people would learn to respect one another and their property, but that's not the world we live in, and to not prepare for knowable possibilities is just plain stupid in my eyes.
  
  why would you tolerate that?
  Because contrary to popular speculation, relocation is not a cheap or easy thing to do, not to mention the fact that there are very few places on this Earth that you can live and not be subjected to the perils of mankind/society.
  
  --
  An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
245. Re:I won't be buying one... by nessman · 2013-04-30 04:26 · Score: 1
  
  I carry my SIG P239 hammer down. No safety on the gun other than a decocker and a firing pin block to keep it from going "bang" if I drop it. Bottom line is I don't want to be futzing with any controls when the shit hits the fan. Draw, pull trigger and kill bad guy. As all guns should do.
  I'd never buy a smart gun and reject the concept on principal. Last thing I need to do is have my gun throw a BSOD when I'm trying to fire the damn thing. My guns are kept locked up or strapped to my waist and carry concealed. No need for biometric security. If someone is dumb enough to try and grab my gun while I'm wearing it - they'll likely end up very dead.
  CZ75 - nice gun - want one. Fired it at a rental range in FL... if I can only find one with a 10-round mag to satisfy NY's stupid gun laws.
246. Re:I won't be buying one... by rpstrong · 2013-04-30 05:24 · Score: 1
  
  That would depend on the safety. My Colt .45 Commander is a Mark II, Series 80, with three safeties:
  - the manual safety, which cycles every time I pull the gun from the holster;
  - the butt grip safety, which cycles every time I grab the gun;
  - the firing pin safety which cycles every time I pull the trigger.
  (The last of the three is also known as a "drop safety", as it prevents the gun from going off if it is dropped.)
247. Re:I won't be buying one... by RevDisk · 2013-04-30 05:26 · Score: 1
  
  Sir, you are at least honest. My hats off to you.
248. Re:I won't be buying one... by RevDisk · 2013-04-30 05:29 · Score: 1
  
  They are not immune from regular consumer law suits.
  
  They are immune from being sued for usage of their products. If you get shot, it is the responsibility of the person using it. Ford isn't responsible for every DUI involving one of their products.
249. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-30 05:40 · Score: 0
  
  it's beyond stupid, probably beyond totally retarded.
250. Re:I won't be buying one... by rpstrong · 2013-04-30 05:45 · Score: 1
  
  Have you got cites for that? According to this site - http://tinyurl.com/83eqste (PoliceOne.com);
  "There are no national statistics on how many times officers' guns are taken away. But the FBI says that of the 616 law enforcement officers killed on duty by criminals from 1994 through 2003, 52 were killed with their own weapon, amounting to 8 percent."
  When the media reports any statistics on gun deaths, it is very common for suicides to be lumped in with homicides. Perhaps your numbers do the same - that is, it may be the case that 25% of officers who die from gun shots (including suicides) are killed by their own guns. Obviously, the electronic safeties wouldn't affect the suicide rate.
251. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-30 05:45 · Score: 0
  
  Besides, if I have to charge it or put batteries in it, I want it to fire a lazer beam!
252. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-30 05:58 · Score: 0
  
  I think it is the same reason so many people prefer stick-shift to automatic transmissions in vehicles...
253. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-30 06:02 · Score: 0
  
  In addition to the (mostly spot on) responses of the other posters, you're aware that the M-16 has a "winter trigger guard", right? It's a cross-member below the trigger that is held in place by a spring-loaded pin. Mostly, it's not used and remains in the closed position, but when moved to the open position, it allows troops in ECWCS gear to be able to fire the weapon properly while wearing the trigger-finger mittens in extreme cold environments. It's difficult to see how a fingerprint recognition system could be made to work reliably through those mittens. And if the fingerprint system could be disabled for specific uses, then sooner or later a way will be found to disable it generally, rendering it moot.
  That's only one uncommon, yet quite necessary, use case that the uninformed (meaning you) would not consider before misguidedly blathering on about how wonderful this technology would be for well-trained Marines. You don't even know what you don't know about the topic.
  - T
254. Re:I won't be buying one... by RockDoctor · 2013-04-30 06:31 · Score: 1
  
  in your hand,
  Surely you've had the weapon surgically built into your forearm so that it can't be taken out except by using a neck tie (connecting your neck to a concrete pillar) and a hospital MRI scanner to rip the metal clean out of your limbs?
  What could possibly go wrong? A home-made version of this worked wonderfully well for the "Travis" guy in that Taxi film, after all?
  
  --
  Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
255. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-30 07:07 · Score: 0
  
  I'm guessing you mean any increased chance, since we live in the real world where everything always has a non-zero chance of not working as advertised. How much of an increased chance do these things have of failing? I'd be interested to see real data rather than conjecture. If this thing fails one out of every, I dunno, one thousand trigger pulls, that could be more reliable than your average Saturday night special. //snip//
  Either way, these are just hypotheses, we'd need hard data. I know its fun to not use data when discussing public policy and especially gun control, I certainly don't have any.
  How about this: adding complexity to a firearm beyond what is mechanically necessary is philosophically inelegant from the standpoint of the most basic principles of engineering. Why, if I had physical security (i.e., exclusive access to the firearm) would I want to carry a weapon for self-defense, or even for target-shooting, that in order to provide the extra security, would have to refuse to operate if I forgot to change or charge the thing's battery? That is the only way this could work, otherwise, removing the battery would defeat the weapon's safety mechanism. Why, aside from making people around me happy, would I ever consider carrying a weapon like that if I didn't have to?
  This doesn't require "diving into any literature" on the subject, just thought. Thought calls this a bad idea.
256. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-30 07:26 · Score: 0
  
  All my guns have a minimum of 2 safeties, in the case of my 1911 the nut behind the pistol and the manual safety, in case of my Glock the nut behind the pistol and the the internal safeties , in the case if my AR15 etc... in case if my LM1 and FN-FAL.......... Damn you should see the pattern here, sorry forgot about the bolt action rifles........ Never mind the pattern stays the same, there is only one reliable safety, and that is the operator, anything beyond that should not be considered a safety. all guns in my humble opinion should have only 3 conditions, unloaded, unsafe and useless - bad guys kill you, loaded, safe until nut puts finger on trigger and kills bad guys, unsafe, empty after firing at bad guys and bad guys kill you. I know two seems the same but that stresses the importance of having spare mags at all times. Having an unloaded firearm is the same as taking the edge of all of your kitchen knifes - stooooopid isn't it
  Regards
  Not Anonymous
  I will reply to sensible comment
257. Re:I won't be buying one... by hyattdj · 2013-04-30 09:10 · Score: 1
  
  And if its so smart how many cops and soldiers do you think will use this?
258. Re:I won't be buying one... by kwbauer · 2013-04-30 09:24 · Score: 1
  
  My guns have never harmed anyone and are not causing risk to anyone. Maybe your guns are. Maybe somebody else's guns are. But leave mine alone.
259. Re:I won't be buying one... by CanHasDIY · 2013-04-30 09:29 · Score: 1
  
  I just picked up an AT Titan Commander model myself, and noted that it, too, has redundant safeties:
  - a half-cock safety (you never see those anymore! Love it!)
  - a 'beaver-tail' (grip) safety
  - a slide-lock safety (physical bar that locks the slide in place)
  But they don't cycle with each round fired, as OP suggests.
  I am curious:
  
  the manual safety, which cycles every time I pull the gun from the holster
  How does that work? Or is "pull the gun from the holster" to imply that you manually release the safety at the same time?
  
  --
  An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
260. Re:I won't be buying one... by vux984 · 2013-04-30 09:50 · Score: 1
  
  Everything about seatbelts either improves your capability to drive a vehicle, or is neutral with respect to your ability to drive a vehicle.
  And yet when they were introduced a lot of people who didn't want to wear them cited cases where the driver had been unable to release the seatbelt and was trapped trying to escape a burning car, or a a car that was sinking. They also cited cases where the driver was thrown from a vehicle to safety during an accident where the drivers compartment was subsequently crushed. They also cited cases where seatbelts delayed getting passengers (children in particular) out of a car in hypothetically dangerous situations... stalled on railroad tracks with a train coming, on fire, sinking... etc.
  There are all sorts of very real risks to wearing a seatbelt, and detractors found all of them.
  That didn't change that wearing seatbelts were still far and away safer than not.
  A smart gun system doesn't really impact operating a firearm any more than a trigger lock would -- if the lock jams, you can't fire it. If you panic and twist and break the key off in the lock your screwed... oh noes trigger locks are going to get people killed.
  I concede the reliability of the smart gun system needs to be assessed and proven, but it needs to be assessed not knee-jerk rejected.
261. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-30 11:05 · Score: 0
  
  Interestingly Data can be skewed to prove almost anything you want it to, to prove either side of an issue. Smooth words and skewed data can make slow death by many cuts sound palatable by some. LOL
262. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-30 11:11 · Score: 0
  
  who you shootin at..?
263. Re:I won't be buying one... by Inspgad · 2013-04-30 11:38 · Score: 1
  
  Interestingly Data can be skewed to prove almost anything you want it to, to prove either side of an issue. Smooth words and skewed data can make slow death by many cuts sound palatable by some. LOL
264. Re:I won't be buying one... by ebvwfbw · 2013-04-30 11:57 · Score: 1
  
  Do you remove the safety from your gun as well? After all, a defective safety can mean that your gun will refuse to fire when you pull the trigger.
  I'll point out that if you find a real Olympic gun there is no safety. I know, surprised me too. The one time I set a safety it didn't work. The rifle was pointed in a safe direction and nothing bad happened.
265. Re:I won't be buying one... by beltsbear · 2013-04-30 12:28 · Score: 1
  
  When the guy who broke into my house steals it from me, I don't want it to fire. In a confrontation where my gun is taken from me, I don't want it to fire. If the mechanism was 99% reliable and reasonably durable I would want it.
266. Re:I won't be buying one... by Gen_Music · 2013-04-30 12:32 · Score: 1
  
  Realistically, this would be a modification to an existing weapon, so a thieer could just reverse the modification or replace the parts of the gun that were modified. I can't see you getting this ting permanently on any production handgun in a way that couldn't just be removed.
267. Re: I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-30 13:58 · Score: 0
  
  Also multiple identical guns in raid 1 in case one fails.
268. Re:I won't be buying one... by Jane+Q.+Public · 2013-04-30 14:47 · Score: 1
  
  Dear Mystery Modder: Please learn what "troll" means. Then maybe you'll understand why it applies more to the comment I was replying to than it does to me.
269. Re:I won't be buying one... by grumpyman · 2013-04-30 16:32 · Score: 1
  
  Honestly if most people buy guns for security not just entertainment I'm not sure why I'm reading people here saying "1000 rounds", "2500 rounds"....etc. If it is PURE security the gun should be designed and engineered to fire extreme reliably N number of shots, and N shouldn't be in thousands range.
270. Re:I won't be buying one... by LostMyBeaver · 2013-04-30 17:26 · Score: 1
  
  Sad you would choose to live somewhere you'd actually feel the need to depend on a gun. :(
  
  BTW... I recently experimented a bit with guns. I can see it to be enjoyable to spend a day at the range... well if I could do something about the noise at least. I just could never see actually being intelligent enough to tie my own shoe laces, but being dumb enough to live somewhere I would actually need to use a gun for any purpose other than recreation or worst case, getting food... just gutting it sounds quite awful. But in either of those cases, while I might use the gun as a tool or toy, I can't see ever needing it to be so reliable I couldn't get a second chance to sort things out.
  
  Well... I guess some people voluntarily prefer to put themselves into circumstances where they might get lucky and get a chance to kill another person.
271. Re:I won't be buying one... by rohan972 · 2013-04-30 22:38 · Score: 1
  
  My immediate emotional response to firearms is that anyone who is interested in them shouldn't be allowed anywhere near them. I don't mind highly trained soldiers or cops being given tools, I just don't see why psychotic fantasists should be allowed them.
  Posted AC for obvious reasons.
  The obvious reason being that you are ashamed of such stupidity. It is obvious to most people that the world isn't divided into soldiers, cops and psychotic fantasists, nor is there any reason to think that anyone who is interested in firearms is psychotic. Firearms are many times been used for self defense, you are quite right to acknowledge that classifying such people as psychotic fantasists is an emotional response because it certainly isn't a logical one. Perhaps you should consider counseling.
  
  --
  http://marriedmansexlife.com/
272. Re:I won't be buying one... by inking · 2013-04-30 23:48 · Score: 1
  
  I think if you applied that saying consistently your apartment/house would be filled with all sorts of useless junk by now, to say nothing of the fact that it works just as well for this whole fingerprint scanner thing.
273. Re:I won't be buying one... by rhalstead · 2013-05-01 00:13 · Score: 1
  
  We may not be able to purchase a new one without it eventually. It actually has some good possibilities, but they could potentially be misused by the government so I'm against the idea. As to reliability, I used to shoot trap competitively and had one dud shell in over 300,000 factory shells and none in nearly as many reloads. When I started competing I quit reloading and shot factory shells only. In rifles I also had one failure. It was a broken firing pin in a Marlin lever action in 35 Remington caliber. No misfires in center fire hand guns and none in hundreds of thousands of 22 rim fire handguns or rifles. I used to go through a carton (500 shells) per week, but that was years ago When I take them all with only 2 misfires, one due to the firearm and one due to the ammunition that works out to roughly less than 1 in 400,000 shots. It could be over 1 tn a half million, but I really don't know how many 22 rim fire I've gone through. I do realize I probably have fired a lot more rounds than the average shooter. At-any-rate, 1 in a thousand would be far too many and they'd have to prove a MTBF of over a million for police and military under some pretty adverse conditions and I doubt our anti gun politicians would be above lying about the success rate. It has some good aspects, but there is just too much room for failure, or government misuse.
274. Re:I won't be buying one... by rhalstead · 2013-05-01 00:18 · Score: 1
  
  In Trap shooting we even remove the safeties. DAO handguns might as well not have one, but you don't put your finger on the trigger unless you're ready to use it.
275. Re:I won't be buying one... by rhalstead · 2013-05-01 00:21 · Score: 1
  
  I would have written it off well before now! If it's not good enough to use out-of-the-box, I don't want it. I would have gone with the Glock in 40.
276. Re:I won't be buying one... by Agent0013 · 2013-05-01 02:49 · Score: 1
  
  I don't trust many electronics to handle that. I've seen plenty of vehicle electronics fail under those circumstances, despite being generally covered or theoretically sealed. Make police carry it for two decades, and I'll start to consider testing it. That's not unusual. M16 is near 50 years old. M1911 is over a century and very popular.
  With the lead-free RoHS solder the electronics will start growing whiskers far before 50 years are up. Then you have a nice expensive paper weight. I guess it could still kill someone if you threw it at them and got a good hit in the head.
  
  --
  
  -- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
277. Re:I won't be buying one... by Agent0013 · 2013-05-01 03:03 · Score: 1
  
  I was working under the assumption that once "unlocked", the gun would continue to fire until "locked" again. Not sure if this is the case, but I would imagine while hunting you would unlock it when you first enter the woods, and lock again when you're leaving for home.
  Then why not just use a trigger guard or one of those cables that go through the chamber? Much cheaper and more reliable.
  
  --
  
  -- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
278. Re:I won't be buying one... by eyegor · 2013-05-01 04:33 · Score: 1
  
  And they're going to retrofit all of our guns how?
  Geez, comrade. What should we do until then? Surrender them for 'safekeeping' while they figure out how to retrofit an old M38 Mauser or Finnish Mosin-Nagant? How long will they keep my WWI era Luger, my 1952 Russian SKS or the AR15 I use to shoot in Service Rifle competitions? What about black powder rifles and handguns? What about knives? What about blunt instruments, broken glass or even gasoline?
  One of the biggest mass killings in US history was committed with a gallon of gasoline. How are they going to track that? With GPS trackers and fingerprint locks on gas containers? Perhaps they should put rubber bumpers on all the sharp corners of the world so it's impossible to get hurt. Then we'll all be safe, sound and secure, right?
  Oh wait. The criminals will be the ones that have the guns without the fingerprint readers.
  How about you butt out of our countries business and tend to your own feeble socialistic existence, jackass!
  
  --
  
  Don't anthropomorphize computers, they don't like it.
279. Re:I won't be buying one... by a1cypher · 2013-05-01 05:48 · Score: 1
  
  Yup.. the more I think about it, the more gimicky and stupid this "invention" seems. They just want people to buy it so that they can say to friends they have a high tech sci-fi gun.
  Better yet, why not make it so that there is an iris scanner in the barrel... just point the gun at your eye and it will disable the safety.
280. Re:I won't be buying one... by rpstrong · 2013-05-01 06:05 · Score: 1
  
  I just picked up an AT Titan Commander model myself, and noted that it, too, has redundant safeties:
  - a half-cock safety (you never see those anymore! Love it!)
  The half-cock position is pretty common, but is apparently intended to guard against an accidental discharge while cocking the hammer. But it is not necessarily intended to carried that way - in fact, Kimber (for one) strongly warns against. Does the Titan manual address the issue? If not, I'd suggest you Google it. I just went through a handful of forums, and could not find a single person advocating it - but numerous warnings against it.
  
  - a 'beaver-tail' (grip) safety
  - a slide-lock safety (physical bar that locks the slide in place)
  But they don't cycle with each round fired, as OP suggests.
  The Colts mechanism does - here is a diagram of it: http://www.sightm1911.com/lib/tech/s80fpb.htm. Essentially, a vertical plunger on the right side of the firing pin engages with a groove in the pin. The initial trigger pull presses the plunger up, allowing the pin to slide by a groove cut in the plunger. Some (many) serious shooters deride it for interfering with the trigger feel. I do not, but nor am I in their league.
  
  I am curious:
  the manual safety, which cycles every time I pull the gun from the holster
  How does that work? Or is "pull the gun from the holster" to imply that you manually release the safety at the same time?
  The latter. I've taught myself the habit of habit of thumbing the safety on and off every time I holster or draw the gun. If I don't intend to fire it, I'll still thumb it off as I draw, then set it back on while the gun is still pointing down. That keeps the "muscle memory" intact, and the deliberate re-setting ensures that it is on when I want it to be that way.
281. Re:I won't be buying one... by Bob+the+Super+Hamste · 2013-05-01 08:07 · Score: 1
  
  My thoughts exactly. Then again I am not the correct audience for this as I keep my firearms locked up in a nice heavy fireproof safe the is bolted to the concrete floor in my basement and have a trigger lock or cable lock on them when out of the safe but not in use. I also don't feel the need to carry one around for protection with exception for the large predators in the woods that I have had run ins with.
  
  --
  Time to offend someone
282. Re:I won't be buying one... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-05-01 11:39 · Score: 0
  
  Actually, I think something like 2% of police officers killed in the line of duty are killed with their own gun. Nowhere near 25%.
  It took 20 years for police to largely trust the use of plastic in pistols. It will take equally long for police to trust the use of any "smart gun" tech.
283. Re:I won't be buying one... by Phoghat · 2013-05-01 21:06 · Score: 1
  
  Precisely. If there is any chance at all that my gun will simply refuse to fire when I pull the trigger, I don't want anything to do with it.
  Then I would guess you've never fired any kind of semi-auto gun because they're so totally reliable
  
  --
  Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
284. Re:I won't be buying one... by jimbolauski · 2013-05-02 03:34 · Score: 1
  
  It would fail any military acceptance test which requires the weapon to be burred in sand, drug through water and mud and fired immediately after that.
  Hold on a minute. Since when could you drag an M16 through mud and expect it to fire? Last I checked those things were notoriously picky, requiring exhaustive maintenance after not all that many rounds fired (and even without firing rounds at all). The reason the AK-47 is preferred around the world is its ability to tolerate much harsher conditions and still function. The M16 has an accuracy requirement far higher than the AK-47, making it a much more finicky beast.
  I suspect the maintenance a Marine is trained to perform would be more than sufficient to keep an electronic fingerprint system operational.
  Your typical policeman... not so much.
  There are a lot of ignorance in this so I'll try to correct it all, yes M16's and all military firearms are put through a battery of tests before they are accepted those tests include a grit test which the M16 has been reported to do better then the M14, those tests are not made public so I can't cite them. As for maintenance keeping an electronic fingerprint reader operational, do you expect the marine to do a field service on the gun while taking fire because the reader got some dirt on it?
  
  --
  Knowledge = Power
  P= W/t
  t=Money
  Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
285. Re:I won't be buying one... by tutufan · 2013-05-02 06:29 · Score: 1
  
  Usually this doesn't happen. But it should, because having said dumbass charged with a crime totally solves the problem. In fact, I think most parents, given the choice, would rather have a charged felon than a live child. In fact, make it *two* charges and it's a totally done deal.
286. Re:I won't be buying one... by CanHasDIY · 2013-05-02 06:39 · Score: 1
  
  I'm sorry, could you re-write this post in something resembling common English sentence structure? Namely the first and third sentences; I can't parse what you're trying to say.
  
  --
  An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
287. Re:I won't be buying one... by gurps_npc · 2013-05-03 04:59 · Score: 1
  
  Same principle applies. Mechanical mistakes are no different than programming/electrical. But that is beside the point, the designer did NOT think "this won't fire to be safe", anymore than the guy that put in a safety on the gun.
  
  --
  excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
How about gloves? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 05:30 · Score: 4, Insightful

People often wear gloves when shooting pistols. And in combat situations, fingers may get dirty, or even partially damaged or burnt. This strikes me as a REALLY bad idea. Lives will be lost to this.
1. Re:How about gloves? by gl4ss · 2013-04-29 05:36 · Score: 1
  
  People often wear gloves when shooting pistols. And in combat situations, fingers may get dirty, or even partially damaged or burnt. This strikes me as a REALLY bad idea. Lives will be lost to this.
  colt&etc have been down this road for over a decade now, with wearable tags and other means. 100% accuracy is what they're worried about.
  technically it's a good idea if you're napping with the gun in a bad neighborhood and someone else might take it and use it against you. but that's not a good idea in the first place. it's not a bad idea as such, for a target shooting gun it's a great idea actually, so your wife doesn't shoot you in a moment of anger. it's just not a good idea to have in a versatile weapon.
  
  --
  world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
2. Re:How about gloves? by TrentTheThief · 2013-04-29 05:36 · Score: 2
  
  Probably not.
  Unless a person is willing to become a Darwin Contestant, they won't use it. I sure as hell won't. Fingerprint biometrics are barely reliable in a lab situation. I can't imagine anyone putting up for this sort of crap going out to do some work. It's just more feel-good bullshit from someone who's never pulled the trigger for real.
3. Re:How about gloves? by Shotgun · 2013-04-29 05:39 · Score: 1
  
  I think the real issue in the combat situation is that the WRONG lives will be lost. You generally want some lives to be lost in a combat situation.
  
  --
  Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
  Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
4. Re:How about gloves? by linear+a · 2013-04-29 05:45 · Score: 1
  
  Gun doesn't fire. Move finger around trying to authenticate the print ... shake gun a bit ... wiggle finger more ... look at business end of gun to see if finger is in the right spot ... wiggle finger again ........
5. Re:How about gloves? by j-stroy · 2013-04-29 05:47 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  I am sure that duct taping an authorized finger to the scan pad would hack the system. The rest of the authorized individual is redundant.
6. Re:How about gloves? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 05:50 · Score: 0
  
  Maybe we'd have guns that are smarter than the owners.
7. Re:How about gloves? by RobertNotBob · 2013-04-29 06:06 · Score: 1
  
  Not even that. - You forgot about the ribbon-switch. - You Duct-tape the ribbon, and then you only need the finger for a second. (1/3 of a second, actually)
  
  --
  ___ I don't respond to Anonymous Cowards, and I Never Mod them UP.
8. Re:How about gloves? by CanHasDIY · 2013-04-29 06:15 · Score: 1
  
  Maybe we'd have guns that are smarter than the owners.
  Careful what you wish for.
  
  --
  An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
9. Re:How about gloves? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 06:15 · Score: 0
  
  If I read the article correctly, the fingerprinting is only necessary during initial UNLOCK and as long as you have your grip on the firearm. If you lose that grip, the gun automatically locks, and you have to swipe (or whatever method of fingerprinting) to unlock it again.
  As for the rest of the /. gun nuts naysayers here, you're not the demographic. This isn't created by the Obama administration to curtail your gun rights. It's developed by a gun manufacturer. It unlocks 1/3 of a second according to TFA. If you need to shoot faster than that, you have greater things to worry about.
10. Re:How about gloves? by GreenTom · 2013-04-29 06:17 · Score: 1
  
  I have no idea about millitary or law enforcement use of this, but in the civilian world this something like this doesn't have to work very well at all to save lives.
  
  In 2011, 32,163 people were shot to death in the United States. 260 of those were justifiable homicides by private citizens (e.g., self-defense). Even if this technology failed and locked out the owner 100% of the time, and 100% of those failures lead to the death of the owner, it would only have to block less than 1% of the other uses to be a net positive. I can't find any stats on what percent of non-self-defense gun killings are done by people using a gun they weren't supposed to use, but even if it's a pretty small percent, this will save a lot of lives.
11. Re:How about gloves? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 06:20 · Score: 0
  
  DNRTFA, but I could see it as having potential to use a fingerprint to "unlock" the gun much like a manual safety/decocker works on a Beretta or a Ruger P95. So at the time you load the gun and holster it for potential use, have a one time unlock required to free the mechanical workings at which point the gun would function without any electronics required, then be able to relock it when it's not in use. I guess at that point a well-designed fingerprint enabled trigger lock would be more practical.
12. Re:How about gloves? by chispito · 2013-04-29 06:33 · Score: 1
  
  And in combat situations, fingers may get dirty, or even partially damaged or burnt. This strikes me as a REALLY bad idea. Lives will be lost to this.
  No military would ever purchase this tech. The summary is full of it.
  
  --
  The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
13. Re:How about gloves? by Bartles · 2013-04-29 06:39 · Score: 2
  
  In 2011, 32,163 people were shot to death in the United States.
  You seem to have the ability to break that number down, separating out 260 justifiable homicides. Did you happen to see that almost 20,000 of those deaths were suicides? This system would not have prevented those. How many of those 32,000 deaths were justified non-private citizen shootings, e.g. cops shooting criminals? This systems would not have prevented those either. Can you even find out how many of those shootings were committed with a stolen firearm that this system would have prevented?
14. Re:How about gloves? by GreenTom · 2013-04-29 06:45 · Score: 1
  
  There were also 393 shootings by cops; I don't know enough about law enforcement to have any opinion if this is a good idea there. I wasn't able to find the needed stats about how many of the shooters were unauthorized. I am aware that ~20k were suicides, and think this does apply to suicides as well as homicides, as the person committing suicide is not necessarily the authorized user of the gun.
  
  I have a vague memory of reading that the most likely lethal use of a privately owned gun is for a family member to kill him/herself. Grim statistic, if true.
15. Re:How about gloves? by omnichad · 2013-04-29 06:45 · Score: 1
  
  On the other hand, if you can manage get close with a knife to cut off the finger, why even use the gun?
16. Re:How about gloves? by PoolOfThought · 2013-04-29 06:49 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  I agree with what I think you meant to say. But the words you chose were just too wrong (all by themselves) to leave there...
  
  You generally want some lives to be lost in a combat situation.
  No... you want to get your way. You don't WANT some lives to be lost.
  
  Even for a home invasion situation you don't WANT a life to be lost. You WANT that creep OUT and you will do whatever it takes INCLUDING ending a life, but killing is not what you WANT to do. In an ideal situation you could just spot the invader and say "go away" and they'd turn and leave. But since that's highly unlikely and since there's a good chance there will be a struggle then the safest bet for you is to end the conflict as immediately as possible and in such a way that minimizes your own chances of being harmed. Therefore, you shoot 'em with an intent to kill (so they don't shoot back).
  
  For general political WARS, your statement still goes too far. In a combat situation the goal is almost never "to end lives". The goal is to end a dispute (in neutralize the opponent) and to get your way. Lives being taken is more of a by product of the process than the goal itself. Total annihilation / beating them to nothing is often the simplest route to achieving the end of the war, but make no mistake. It's not that you WANT lives to be lost or resources to be destroyed... you just want break your opponent and get your way.
  
  Then there's the extremist viewpoint. It's the viewpoint that anyone who disagrees must be the devil and should be killed. That attitude certainly breeds a type of combat, but it's not combat in general. And really, the defender (the "not extreme party") still only wants to stay alive through the combat... they're not necessarily interested in killing.
  
  --
  My present is the activity I am currently engaged in with the purpose of turning the future into a better past.
17. Re:How about gloves? by PortHaven · 2013-04-29 06:56 · Score: 1
  
  Like some strange 6ft dude in the middle of my living room trying to help me dismount my new TV from the wall? Or his bro who is in my daughter's room muffling her screams?
  0.0001 seconds is still too long.
  And I think you're missing us /.gun nuts issue. It's not on the time it takes to unlock and arm the gun. It's the question that it will. The latter is too much of a question.
  ***
  There is an actual possible solution....
  Drop the battery and use thorium power. Like we do for long life satellites.
18. Re:How about gloves? by PortHaven · 2013-04-29 06:58 · Score: 1
  
  First off all, half of those were suicides.
  So already half your statistics failed to be saved. Because, guess what.....their own bloody finger unlocked it. (Oh check that, those with bloody fingers probably failed to commit suicide. As I wager a bloody finger would cause the biometric unit to fail to recognize authorized user.)
19. Re:How about gloves? by vux984 · 2013-04-29 07:12 · Score: 1
  
  And in combat situations...REALLY bad idea... Lives will be lost to this.
  A lot of people buy guns for sporting situations, not combat situations, and complaints about the guns effectiveness in a combat situation is about as relevant as complaints about a fencing rapier in a combat situation.
  For some people, buying the gun to use in combat, yes, there are a lot of legitimate questions to be asked.
  For a lot of people, buying the gun for other purposes, its a REALLY good idea.
20. Re:How about gloves? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 07:13 · Score: 0
  
  And of those 32,163, almost two thirds of them (19,392) were *suicides* by firearms, so if the guns fail 100% of the time then we can eliminate 2/3 of all gun related deaths! Let's all hope these guns never even come close to being accurate, think of the lives we will save!
21. Re:How about gloves? by GreenTom · 2013-04-29 07:22 · Score: 1
  
  For whatever reason, the suicide stats that I can find use 15-24 years old as an age rage, so I couldn't' easily see how many minors used guns to commit suicide. From a quick google ~4000 people in that age range commit suicide per year, and about half use guns. So, guesstimate that around 1000 underage people use guns to kill themselves per year. Even if the only effect of this system was to reduce that number, it would be more than all the justifiable homicides by both police and civilians.
  
  Couldn't find anything on how often the person who commits suicide is the gun owner, but even the common-sense step of taking family members who have recently expressed suicidal thoughts off the 'gun access list' would probably save hundreds or thousands of lives per year.
22. Re:How about gloves? by IndustrialComplex · 2013-04-29 07:31 · Score: 1
  
  Forget combat situations.
  A facility where I worked required fingerprint authorization as part of a lab entry requirement. That morning I burned my fingers while cooking my breakfast. I thought nothing of it until about 5 hours later when I needed to go into the lab. No entry. It just wouldn't recognize my print even through a barely first degree burn. (Just the pads of my fingertips were burned, and not deep enough for blisters).
  I had completely forgotten that my fingers were burned by the time I went to use the scanner. In my case, it meant an extra 10 minutes to get security to walk me in. I'd hate for it to happen in a time critical situation.
  
  --
  Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
23. Re:How about gloves? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 08:25 · Score: 0
  
  You generally want some lives to be lost in a combat situation.
  A wounded soldier means 2 others on average have to look after him (in effect eliminating 2 others for the price of 1). In the most nasty of conflicts sometimes it is better to maim than to kill. Snipers in WW2, Korea, and Vietnam would use this to lure soldiers in so they could kill the others. Or at best hobble the group down with someone who can not move very well anymore. It also reduces moral.
24. Re:How about gloves? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 08:36 · Score: 0
  
  Gun suicide is popular because it works and it's much less painful than hanging, which is a truly gruesome way to die. There are much better ways to kill yourself, though: cleaner, painless, and guaranteed to succeed if you know you will be left undisturbed for about ten to fifteen minutes. Hook a nitrogen source flowing at a good rate - say 6 liters/minute - to a dry cleaning bag you have tied around your head.
25. Re:How about gloves? by Viewsonic · 2013-04-29 09:05 · Score: 1
  
  Hyperbole! Guess what, don't wear gloves. No more lives lost.
26. Re:How about gloves? by jimbolauski · 2013-04-29 09:17 · Score: 1
  
  I am aware that ~20k were suicides, and think this does apply to suicides as well as homicides, as the person committing suicide is not necessarily the authorized user of the gun.
  
  So because you can't differentiate between people that kill themselves with their gun as opposed to people killing them selves with a gun they are not authorized to use the gun it's OK to keep them all. Around 2,000 suicides are carried out by minors with a gun, those are the only ones you can say for sure are not authorized to use a gun.
  
  --
  Knowledge = Power
  P= W/t
  t=Money
  Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
27. Re:How about gloves? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 09:30 · Score: 0
  
  Unfortunately, the vast majority of the rest of that statistic were, well, murders. Intentional murders, unintentional murders (where perp missed target and hit someone else), and other murders. Accidental deaths were less than 1000 of that number.
  The challenge comes when trying to figure out what this would stop - one specific use case. The use case where a gun is used against its owner during an altercation. Guns that are stolen to be resold with this feature will be thrown away and others without this feature would be provided, hence no dent in murders. Until, of course, this reaches a massive market penetration. Accidents may or may not be reduced depending on the nature of said accident. We've seen the stupidity of Prohibition, and the effectiveness of the war on drugs here in the US. If this were to be deployed en masse, it would have to be world wide, and those with "classic" guns (about 250 million in the US as of last count) will see values skyrocket.
  What we really need to do is to develop a malicious intent detector. That might reduce the gun violence a bit.
28. Re:How about gloves? by GreenTom · 2013-04-29 09:36 · Score: 1
  
  Are minors ever authorized to use guns unsupervised? Honest question--I thought in most states you had to be over 18 or 21 to own a gun, and that minors have to be supervised. For example, even Utah, a pretty gun-friendly state, has pretty strict restrictions on when kids can be alone with guns. So, shouldn't someone under 18 always be under some sort of temporary use permission? i.e., "Junior and I are going to the range/hunting/whatever, he's good for 6 hours" sort of thing.
29. Re:How about gloves? by lister+king+of+smeg · 2013-04-29 09:43 · Score: 1
  
  so if they are at home whats to prevent them flashing the guns chip, or simply using another means of committing suicide. suicide is a form of killing that is independent of the means used to achieve it.
  
  --
  ---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
30. Re:How about gloves? by Chrontius · 2013-04-29 10:04 · Score: 1
  
  You do realize you just said (or at least very strongly implied) that the lives of anyone trying to protect themselves in a bad situation are quite expendable, right? That's actually really offensive. And a little horrifying.
  Let us also consider that if all the good guys modded their guns on the first day, and all the bad guys didn't, people will still get shot by bad guys. Let us further consider the possibility that bad guys also modify their firearms; they'll be the authorized user of the weapon even as they use it to mug people.
31. Re:How about gloves? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 12:03 · Score: 0
  
  It's developed by a gun manufacturer.
  No it isn't.
  
  If I read the article correctly
  No you didn't. See above.
32. Re:How about gloves? by GreenTom · 2013-04-29 12:46 · Score: 1
  
  Well, if the thing can be easily flashed, the whole concept is pretty pointless. As far as simply using another means of suicide, people who try to commit suicide with guns are far more successful than those who use other means. This article has data on suicide success rates, and guns are much more lethal than other suicide methods. Personally, I've known people who attempted suicide with guns, and now they're dead, and I know people who tried with other means, and they've recovered and gone on to live full lives.
33. Re:How about gloves? by GreenTom · 2013-04-29 12:53 · Score: 1
  
  No, just the sometimes harsh math of the policy wonk...I have no idea how to weigh saving one person's life against costing another's, so I settle for second best and try to accurately count them. The OP's point was that this (or really any safety lock) will cost lives, my reply was that under even unreasonable assumptions, it will save more lives than it costs. That in no way devalues the lives lost. Since any gun policy (including no change from current laws) is going to involve some trade off of innocent lives, I don't see how we can be squeemish about counting deaths.
  
  To your second point, I agree, safety locks do nothing to prevent premeditated murder. It's the unknown number of unplanned killings that may be reduced. And, of course, there's no real chance that something like this goes into wide enough use to really make any difference.
34. Re:How about gloves? by kwbauer · 2013-04-29 15:10 · Score: 1
  
  Completely wrong. Obviously you've never talked to a professional instructor about using weapons defensively. Any time a firearm is fired at another person in the US, the law says that deadly force has been used. It does not matter whether the intent was to kill or not. Now, just how stupid is it to use deadly force for any purpose other than to kill. I would not want to sit in front of a jury and explain how I could possibly justify the use of deadly force without feeling threatened enough to need to permanently stop my assailant. Maybe the assailant is killed, maybe not. Many people survive gunshot wounds. But the only justification for using deadly force is if you feel that you or someone around you are/is in imminent danger of death or serious bodily harm*. If you really do feel that way, why would you not do everything in your power to permanently stop that threat. Purposely maiming someone with the intent to let them live seems the same as torture to me.
  As for wars... The strategic goal may be to end the dispute by neutralizing your opponent and get your way but strategy not backed by some tactics is only a thought exercise. Those tactics could be embargoes and such but once you get into a shooting war, then the only successful tactic is killing. The reason for that is that a wounded soldier can still fight. A dead one cannot. Only barbaric people form as their goal maiming enough enemy soldiers that they might as well be dead and overload the enemy that way. Yes. I am very conservative and the US political leadership that implemented that failed tactic in Vietnam were barbaric.
  *Many states recognize that ordinary citizens are justified feeling that death or great bodily harm are imminent as soon as someone has unlawfully entered their home or car, etc. (generally referred to as "The Castle Doctrine") This is because nearly every burglar or thief brazen enough to enter a home or car when occupied does have that intent.
35. Re:How about gloves? by Broken+scope · 2013-04-29 15:57 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, I'm sure this system is going to wonders for my abysmal split times.
  
  --
  You mad
36. Re:How about gloves? by WGFCrafty · 2013-04-29 16:31 · Score: 1
  
  I agree with what I think you meant to say. But the words you chose were just too wrong (all by themselves) to leave there...
  
  You generally want some lives to be lost in a combat situation.
  No... you want to get your way. You don't WANT some lives to be lost.
  Even for a home invasion situation you don't WANT a life to be lost. You WANT that creep OUT and you will do whatever it takes INCLUDING ending a life, but killing is not what you WANT to do. In an ideal situation you could just spot the invader and say "go away" and they'd turn and leave. But since that's highly unlikely and since there's a good chance there will be a struggle then the safest bet for you is to end the conflict as immediately as possible and in such a way that minimizes your own chances of being harmed. Therefore, you shoot 'em with an intent to kill (so they don't shoot back).
  For general political WARS, your statement still goes too far. In a combat situation the goal is almost never "to end lives". The goal is to end a dispute (in neutralize the opponent) and to get your way. Lives being taken is more of a by product of the process than the goal itself. Total annihilation / beating them to nothing is often the simplest route to achieving the end of the war, but make no mistake. It's not that you WANT lives to be lost or resources to be destroyed... you just want break your opponent and get your way.
  Then there's the extremist viewpoint. It's the viewpoint that anyone who disagrees must be the devil and should be killed. That attitude certainly breeds a type of combat, but it's not combat in general. And really, the defender (the "not extreme party") still only wants to stay alive through the combat... they're not necessarily interested in killing.
  It's also generally a war crime.
37. Re:How about gloves? by WGFCrafty · 2013-04-29 16:37 · Score: 1
  
  In 2011, 32,163 people were shot to death in the United States.
  You seem to have the ability to break that number down, separating out 260 justifiable homicides. Did you happen to see that almost 20,000 of those deaths were suicides? This system would not have prevented those. How many of those 32,000 deaths were justified non-private citizen shootings, e.g. cops shooting criminals? This systems would not have prevented those either. Can you even find out how many of those shootings were committed with a stolen firearm that this system would have prevented?
  How many suicides were with someone else's gun? How many were cops shot with their own gun? How many guns are stolen and used in a robbery which shooting didn't happen, but if it did it would be thwarted?
  This type of system is a poor choice for military/leo definitely, and most others kind of. There could be other useful systems which accomplish the aim with higher reliability. Your cynicism is unfounded, no one is making this mandatory.
38. Re:How about gloves? by PoolOfThought · 2013-04-29 18:14 · Score: 1
  
  Nothing I said is any different than what you said. I simply set out to make clear that its not the goal of conflict that people die. The goal is to resolve the issue without dying yourself.
  
  Read what I said again and tell me where I said not to kill the home invader if you have a chance. You can't show me because I said the exact opposite. I even explained why you don't have a choice. Read carefully - you'll see we said the same thing, but the words actually matter.
  
  I didn't say shoot to maim ANYWHERE! Again, you cant show me where i did say it because it didn't happen. Slow down and read the words instead of jumping to conclusions - everything you need is right there in black and white. You don't maim in war (or so they say) and you for damn sure don't do it it the dark alley. I've had training and am a proud carry permit holder. Odds are real good that if someone attacks me or my family anywhere at all that they will be met with deadly force meant to neutralize the threat (a nice way of saying attempt to kill them). I'm not WANTING to kill them, even though we're are in conflict, but once they open that door there ain't no closing it... I will be TRYING to kill them. But again that doesn't mean I want to. Again, words matter and all I was doing was addressing the OPs "want" comment.
  
  Take it a bit further. attacker whacks me on the head and runs away. If they manage to flee (disengage) then I'm certainly not putting a bullet in them when they are no longer a threat. I'm not going to be upset that I didn't kill them because all I wanted was resolution (safety). But again, nowhere did I say before or have I said here that maiming with deadly force is proper.
  
  --
  My present is the activity I am currently engaged in with the purpose of turning the future into a better past.
39. Re:How about gloves? by PoolOfThought · 2013-04-29 18:18 · Score: 1
  
  Read my response to the other guy if you actually care. I can't tell what you're saying. If you think I said anything about maiming you're wrong. If you we're simply responding to the other guys comment (he was wrong) then that's up to you. But you should have responded to him if that was the case... Not to me.
  
  --
  My present is the activity I am currently engaged in with the purpose of turning the future into a better past.
40. Re:How about gloves? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 19:48 · Score: 0
  
  This...
  I was taught in the Army to incompacitate the enemy to not fire against you. Not only do you take him off the battle field, but also two other buddies getting him (her now) to safety. If you simply kill them, the buddies move on.
  -T
41. Re:How about gloves? by tehcyder · 2013-04-29 23:58 · Score: 1
  
  Around 2,000 suicides are carried out by minors with a gun, those are the only ones you can say for sure are not authorized to use a gun.
  That would still be 2000 lives saved. Doesn't seem bad to me against the 260 self defence ones potentially lost.
  It's a utilitarian calculation: the greatest good of the greatest number of people. But I know for many slashdotters their individual freedom trumps everything.
  
  --
  To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
42. Re:How about gloves? by tehcyder · 2013-04-30 00:04 · Score: 1
  
  so if they are at home whats to prevent them flashing the guns chip, or simply using another means of committing suicide. suicide is a form of killing that is independent of the means used to achieve it.
  Not really, suicide is a lot more likely when it's easy. And picking up a gun and pulling the trigger is pretty easy compared with hanging yourself, or whatever. It is actually quite disturbing how spur of the moment many suicides are.
  This is apart from the question of whether suicidal/depressed people should be permitted access to guns anyway.
  
  --
  To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
43. Re:How about gloves? by tehcyder · 2013-04-30 00:07 · Score: 1
  
  Ah yes, the ever-popular slashdot debating technique: "I can think of a theoretical way this is flawed, therefore it is perfectly useless". AKA "but I might get trapped in a burning car with two broken arms by my seatbelt".
  
  --
  To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
44. Re:How about gloves? by IndustrialComplex · 2013-04-30 02:00 · Score: 1
  
  Did you read my post? It wasn't theoretical, it was a literal example where a slightly burned finger caused a fingerprint scanner to fail to recognize my fingerprint and therefore refused me access to the lab.
  Situations where you would be firing a gun are almost always 'less than ideal'. So when a simple 1st degree burn results in false-negatives for modern scanning technology, there is no way in hell that this would work for firearms.
  I'd be pretty freaking surprised if this group designed a fingerprint scanner that not only worked in less than ideal situations, but had sufficiently small false-negative ID rate. If they did, this wouldn't just be a 'gun' thing, this would be a revolutionize the entire biometric industry thing.
  
  --
  Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
45. Re:How about gloves? by TripleE78 · 2013-04-30 03:41 · Score: 1
  
  Maybe that's the point. Perhaps the whole idea is that they want anyone who'd legally own a gun to simply be pulled out of the gene pool or too scared to buy a gun.
  Just wait until the govt. mandates that all new guns are smartguns.
46. Re:How about gloves? by Bartles · 2013-05-01 05:24 · Score: 1
  
  It's a utilitarian calculation: the greatest good of the greatest number of people. But I know for many slashdotters their individual freedom trumps everything.
  Actually it's a totalitarian calculation and solution. Anyone who calls themselves a liberal should understand this.
Authenticating Identity by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 05:30 · Score: 0

Please Wait...... you may now commence firing. Thank you.
But will it blow your hand of like the Lawgiver if you aren't authorized to fire it?
Batteries In A Gun by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 05:31 · Score: 0

Better hope that the battery in your smart gun never runs out of juice.
1. Re:Batteries In A Gun by dadelbunts · 2013-04-29 05:35 · Score: 1
  
  They should make it rechargable. Can use the same energy used to operate the slide but just build a little mechanism to recharge a battery. Still a horrible and stupid idea tho.
2. Re:Batteries In A Gun by zwarte+piet · 2013-04-29 09:16 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah, first squeeze the trigger 10 times to charge an ultracap. Not Eleven! BAM!
Is this thing battery powered? by larry+bagina · 2013-04-29 05:31 · Score: 4, Insightful

I'd prefer a fool-proof gun over a smart gun.

--
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
1. Re:Is this thing battery powered? by Shotgun · 2013-04-29 05:37 · Score: 2
  
  Those that would deign to create a fool-proof $anything, underestimate the creativity and ingenuity of fools.
  
  --
  Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
  Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Access management nightmare? by AchilleTalon · 2013-04-29 05:31 · Score: 1, Insightful

I cannot imagine what a nightmare it will be to manage weapons access thru fingerprints into a large military unit.

--
Achille Talon
Hop!
1. Re:Access management nightmare? by aristotle-dude · 2013-04-29 05:41 · Score: 1
  
  I cannot imagine what a nightmare it will be to manage weapons access thru fingerprints into a large military unit.
  Slashdot has hit a new low, you did not even bother reading the summary. I quote:
  
  "The controller chip can save from 15,000 to 20,000 fingerprints. If a large military unit wanted to program thousands of finger prints into a single weapon, it would be possible."
  Even so, would you really want to have each gun accessible by every person in the unit? What if there was a friendly fire incident? Wouldn't you want to know that the only person capable of firing a weapon was the person it was allocated to? If it could only be fired by one person then an investigation into a friendly fire or non-combatant death could be investigated rather quickly.
  
  --
  Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
2. Re:Access management nightmare? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 05:50 · Score: 0
  
  You should wonder what a nightmare it is to manage weapons access in a large military unit regardless.
3. Re:Access management nightmare? by Pr0xY · 2013-04-29 05:56 · Score: 1
  
  Even so, would you really want to have each gun accessible by every person in the unit? What if there was a friendly fire incident? Wouldn't you want to know that the only person capable of firing a weapon was the person it was allocated to? If it could only be fired by one person then an investigation into a friendly fire or non-combatant death could be investigated rather quickly.
  That's a good point, but there is a fairly simple solution. You could have the gun record which finger print was approved when it was fired. if storage is a concern, then you could have it only store the newest 1000 rounds or something to that effect.
  That way, you can approve the gun for many finger prints, but still know which individual fired recently if there is an incident which requires investigation.
  I suppose the major caveat with that, is that you need to store the information properly encrypted to avoid people covering there tracks or worse yet, framing someone. But once again, that's doable.
4. Re:Access management nightmare? by HaZardman27 · 2013-04-29 05:57 · Score: 2
  
  From my experience, unless you are in a career field that requires you to have a weapon every single day, you may never get the same weapon twice from the armory, even if you are being armed multiple days in a row.
  
  --
  Apparently wizard is not a legitimate career path, so I chose programmer instead.
5. Re:Access management nightmare? by h4rr4r · 2013-04-29 06:06 · Score: 2
  
  So when your one assigned gun breaks, you want to be totally disarmed during combat?
  Sounds risky.
6. Re:Access management nightmare? by gandhi_2 · 2013-04-29 06:09 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  you've never been on a battlefield before, have you?
  or had to think about:
  being overrun
  swapping weapons when they break
  manning the most casualty-producing weapon when the crew became casualties
  or any of the other stuff you have no business pontificating about.
  
  --
  THL phish sticks
7. Re:Access management nightmare? by eth1 · 2013-04-29 06:14 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  I cannot imagine what a nightmare it will be to manage weapons access thru fingerprints into a large military unit.
  Nowhere near the nightmare caused by all the soldiers that would die when their weapons refuse to fire. Or when an enemy figures out that a relatively cheap EMP generator will disarm an entire unit.
8. Re:Access management nightmare? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 06:26 · Score: 0
  
  "You could have the gun record which finger print was approved when it was fired"
  The sheer stupidity around here is beyond belief.
  And I'll bet the majority of you morons would vote to repeal the 2nd amendment huh? Am I right?
  Douchebags.
9. Re:Access management nightmare? by camperdave · 2013-04-29 06:43 · Score: 1
  
  I can't see these being used in combat units. However, at a military academy, this would be all sorts of reasonable.
  
  --
  When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
10. Re:Access management nightmare? by omnichad · 2013-04-29 06:49 · Score: 1
  
  That's why it has to fail-through to a working state.
11. Re:Access management nightmare? by Obfuscant · 2013-04-29 07:29 · Score: 1
  
  That's why it has to fail-through to a working state.
  What exactly does that mean for a biometric trigger lock?
  What is a "fail"? It's when the authorized user attempts to use the weapon and the CPU doesn't recognize his biometrics. The "fail through working" mode means that the CPU doesn't recognize the authorized user's prints and lets him fire anyway.
  So, how does the CPU know that it has failed to allow the authorized user and not succeeded in preventing an unauthorized user? It can't. "I read this data from the sensor, it doesn't match what I have on record for authorized users, I don't fire." That data won't match for an unauthorized user just like it doesn't match when an authorized user has a bandaid on his finger or whatever. Or if the CPU just fails to match it.
  I.e., "fail through to working" is saying "no lock at all."
12. Re:Access management nightmare? by IndustrialComplex · 2013-04-29 07:44 · Score: 1
  
  I cannot imagine what a nightmare it will be to manage weapons access thru fingerprints into a large military unit.
  Slashdot has hit a new low, you did not even bother reading the summary
  That's kind of his point. Every time I get my CAC reissued, there is a 'ghost' me floating around where some people fat-fingered in my details. Needless to say, it's usually a multi-day process of calls between helpdesks getting bounced back and forth just to get my damned email account working correctly.
  It's hard for the military to PHYSICALLY account for firearms right now. Tack on an electronic registry that links individuals (or groups) and physical items and you are going to get a hell of a lot of mixups and confusions until you reach the point where they get so fed up with the 'safeguards' that the safeguards are manually disabled.
  Think that won't happen? Ever see a door with the lock taped, or a brick in the entry way? That's someone getting fed up with having to keep opening the door and disabling the control system. It happens all the time when the access control system gets in the way with someone doing their job. To slightly misapply a quote: "Life finds a way"
  
  --
  Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
13. Re:Access management nightmare? by omnichad · 2013-04-29 07:54 · Score: 1
  
  That's not a failure. That's a negative match. Failure means the CPU isn't responding. In the case of an EMP, the CPU won't function and therefore it has "no lock at all."
14. Re:Access management nightmare? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 08:06 · Score: 0
  
  Even so, would you really want to have each gun accessible by every person in the unit? What if there was a friendly fire incident? Wouldn't you want to know that the only person capable of firing a weapon was the person it was allocated to? If it could only be fired by one person then an investigation into a friendly fire or non-combatant death could be investigated rather quickly.
  A military gun must work for everybody in the unit. Consider this: The unit suffer a surprise attack with bombs and artillery. People get tossed around by explosions, some survive but loose their weapons in the process. To make the best of a nasty situation, they grab weapons from the dead and badly wounded. Those weapons had better work as intended as the enemy rush in. No time to look for "my gun" and "your gun".
  Now, if you can make a gun that works for all our men and fails for the enemy? But that would take "uniform recognition", not "fingerprint matching".
15. Re:Access management nightmare? by swillden · 2013-04-29 08:15 · Score: 2
  
  Luckily, given the distinguishing capabilities of modern fingerprint scanners, once you've loaded a few thousand fingerprints into the unit you'll have a high degree of assurance that any random person who picks up the gun will be considered authorized to shoot it.
  
  --
  Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
16. Re:Access management nightmare? by Obfuscant · 2013-04-29 09:11 · Score: 2
  
  That's not a failure. That's a negative match.
  Failing to match the authorized user is a failure. Failing to match an unauthorized user is success. Both cases of "failing to match" are indistinguishable.
  
  Failure means the CPU isn't responding.
  That's another kind of failure.
  
  In the case of an EMP, the CPU won't function and therefore it has "no lock at all."
  An EMP is a minor consideration when talking about failure modes and how the weapon deals with them. ESD or EMP may cause the memory to fail and create a "failure to match" kind of failure, as well.
  But, let's assume the only failure we care about is an EMP that takes the CPU out. If this failure results in function, then what electronics detects that the CPU isn't working and allows the gun to function, and then, what good will the trigger lock be when a criminal who steals the gun knows all he has to do is fry the CPU to get the gun to work? "Hey, Bob, look a whole case full of them smart guns we can't shoot, and a rack display of stun guns we can use to make them work fine..."
  Now the tricky question: is it a Good Thing if a husband is physically abusing his wife and she picks up his handgun to defend herself, and all it does is enrage the husband into demonstrating the kewl trigger lock that means she can't shoot him but he can shoot her?
  The danger of this kind of development is that anti-gun zealots will point at this product and say "why can't they all be that way", and then a tragedy that this system didn't prevent will come along and the emotional strings will be played so that this kind of lock will be mandatory. Worst of all worlds. Guns that fail to function as they are intended but criminals can get to work just fine for them.
17. Re:Access management nightmare? by omnichad · 2013-04-29 09:27 · Score: 1
  
  I'll admit to it being complicated, but you wouldn't have electronics detect that the CPU isn't working. The CPU prevents the gun from being fired but if CPU fails, then there is no mechanism locking it. EMP's aren't exactly portable or convenient. Just think about power steering in a vehicle. Of course cars aren't steer-by-wire, but the power steering assist fails gracefully back to full manual control. I won't do the work of inventing it just to explain my logic, but let's just say the CPU could engage with in a few nanoseconds of the trigger starting to move (to save battery). And can actively lock the trigger until the user is authorized. If the CPU failed, then the trigger would automatically release because it's an active lock. Let's also assume there's a failsafe for a failing CPU's short circuit directly powering the active lock. Maybe an EM-sensitive fuse.
  Failure to match is unlikely. It's far more likely that the CPU just won't function. So if there was a 1 in 100 chance that a shooter would have an auth failure (high, just for the purposes of illustration), then using an EMP could reduce that chance of failure even further.
18. Re:Access management nightmare? by spook+brat · 2013-04-29 09:48 · Score: 1
  
  That's the exact opposite of my experience; when my U.S. Army armorer issued my weapon it was always the same one. I had a card I'd hand him with the weapon buttstock number and serial number printed on it; we'd both verify that the weapon issued matched my card at check-in and check-out. I also had my serial number memorized, so the card was somewhat redundant.
  I rather appreciated being the only one to handle, fire, and care for it; I don't think I'd have the same confidence in a weapon that was subject to the tragedy of the commons. When I'm issued a weapon I'd like to be sure that it's well-maintained and ready to function immediately, not spend the next hour or so cleaning and inspecting it for deficiencies. This is definitely one of those times when if you want something done right you really ought to do it yourself.
  Furthermore, rifles ought to be sighted in to the user; you can't pick up a random M-16 and expect to hit a target at 300 yards. I had my own sighting numbers written down as well, should the case arise that I would need to pick up a random rifle and use it; however, changing the front sight on an M16 or M4 is cumbersome without a specialized key, and the person a rifle is assigned to can get huffy if you return it with the sights changed.
  tl;dr:
  I don't know where you served, but if you were not always issued the same weapon then your armorer was lazy and didn't care enough about your welfare. Please tell me what organization that was so I can make sure I never join it.
  
  --
  Travel the Galaxy! Meet fascinating life forms... ...and kill them - http://schlockmercenary.com
19. Re:Access management nightmare? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 09:55 · Score: 0
  
  But you know there will be a soldier that jailbreaks their gun to listen to MP3's who saves the day.
20. Re:Access management nightmare? by spook+brat · 2013-04-29 10:06 · Score: 1
  
  I cannot imagine what a nightmare it will be to manage weapons access thru fingerprints into a large military unit.
  I don't know; with the right equipment (arduino board with a memory card?) all the armorer would have to do is walk down the rack with his interface deck and upload the relevant files. I'd assume that either the entire unit would be authorized for all weapons or that each unit would be keyed to its assigned bearer. The Admin branch has all of the fingerprints on file, and the armorer should have a list matching arms to soldiers. The work to make this job suitable for a private would be fairly minimal, especially if the programming equipment can query the weapon for its serial number - plug in, wait while the program checks the serial and uploads the appropriate print profiles, unplug; lather, rinse, repeat.
  
  --
  Travel the Galaxy! Meet fascinating life forms... ...and kill them - http://schlockmercenary.com
21. Re:Access management nightmare? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 10:17 · Score: 0
  
  EMP generator? Fuck that, I'm gonna order them some catered extra-juicy barbeque ten minutes before we charge their trenches....
22. Re:Access management nightmare? by Obfuscant · 2013-04-29 10:50 · Score: 1
  
  The CPU prevents the gun from being fired but if CPU fails, then there is no mechanism locking it.
  
  The gun is locked by default. If the CPU fails when the gun is in default locked mode, something has to UNlock it.
  
  EMP's aren't exactly portable or convenient.
  That's why assuming the only failure mode is an EMP frying the CPU is silly and dangerous. It is more likely that the CPU fails to match a valid user. How do you implement "failover to function mode" in that case?
  
  Just think about power steering in a vehicle.
  
  Oh God, a car analogy. Useless car analogy. In a vehicle, there is a physical connection between the steering wheel and the turning mechanism. It is more correctly called "power assist steering". So, is our new magic gun going to fire no matter who pulls the trigger as long as he pulls on it hard enough? Is that what you call "failover to functioning"?
  
  but let's just say the CPU could engage with in a few nanoseconds of the trigger starting to move (to save battery). And can actively lock the trigger until the user is authorized.
  Remove CPU battery, bang, you're dead with your own gun in my hands. Thanks for playing.
  A few nanoseconds? Are you serious? A physical locking mechanism is going to pull in in nanoseconds? What happens when the inertial dampener you've created to remove inertia from the locking system fails, Dr. Cochran? Move on to warp drive anyway?
  And, keep in mind, this system is designed to function when there is failure. It didn't match an authorized user, it FAILED. It didn't match an unauthorized user, it SUCCEEDED. Those two paths are indistinguishable, so when it fails to match the authorized user and fails, but failovers into a functional mode, it will failover when it is successful in trying to keep an unauthorized user out, thus letting him in.
  
  Failure to match is unlikely.
  No, failure to match is the most likely, and most deadly, mode. EMPs are unlikely for the reason you already gave. Any obstruction to the fingerprint will cause a failure to match, as will simple algorithmic and data errors. You're the new guy in a 100 person platoon. We haven't yet been able to get all the guns programmed with your fingerprint -- fail.
  Simple example? My buddy has been shot, I've put on my BSI to deal with first aid for him and some bad guy pops his head over the wall we're hiding behind. I pick up my gun, pull the trigger, wait 1/3 of a second to be recognized, then realize that my glove is keeping my gun from working. In the meantime the bad guy has gotten off ten rounds and we're dead. The CPU is quite happily working, running fine, waiting for the next finger to come along for it to recognize.
  
  So if there was a 1 in 100 chance that a shooter would have an auth failure (high, just for the purposes of illustration),
  There is a 1% chance that your car will go into autoaccelerate mode on your drive home tonight and you'll wind up as tomato paste on a bridge support column. Are you making the drive? There's a 1% chance that the weapon you depend on to keep you alive is not going to work because of a NEW added feature that is intended to keep you safe. It's not a feature that is intended to make the weapon function better. It's not easier to shoot, it's not more accurate, it doesn't add any range, it's not a better sight. It just might not fire when you need it to. You want to carry this weapon? You want to risk that you pick up a weapon with this "feature" in the heat of battle and find out you aren't authorized for that guy's gun as you point it at the bad guys and pull the trigger and nothing happens?
23. Re:Access management nightmare? by Obfuscant · 2013-04-29 11:37 · Score: 1
  
  I don't know; with the right equipment (arduino board with a memory card?)
  That's right, you don't know. An Arduino? For a military data system? Handled by PFCs and below? On a daily basis?
  
  I'd assume that either the entire unit would be authorized for all weapons ...
  "Hey Bob, we just got five new guys transferring in. Go program all the guns." "Hey Bob, Bravo squad was out on a patrol when you did all the guns yesterday for the new guys. Go make sure all the guns are programmed." "Hey Bob, two guys transferred out. Go program all the guns again." "Hey Bob, ..." "If you say go program the guns again one more time, I'm going to smack you..."
  
  and the armorer should have a list matching arms to soldiers.
  In the days when I was issued an M16 on a regular basis, I was handed a weapons card with my name, weapon ID, and signature on it. When I drew my weapon from the armory, I handed the E1 behind the door my card, he went to the rack, picked up the weapon, put my card in its place, and handed me the M16. When I turned it in, the process went in reverse. The armorer had no idea who belonged to what weapon. The company admin did, maybe. Has that system changed in 25 years? Maybe. Maybe not. It worked and was simple.
  
  plug in, wait while the program checks the serial and uploads the appropriate print profiles,
  Plug in, system doesn't communicate. Look at gun, realize that is it a model 2 trigger lock and go back to the office to find the model 2 programmer that came in yesterday. What do you mean the shipment with the model 2 programmer isn't here yet? We got model 2s on the rack we need to program. Radar, get me General Hammond on the phone.
  If the US military adopts this kind of "feature", then we know the game is over and we might as well all learn Korean or Chinese.
24. Re:Access management nightmare? by omnichad · 2013-04-29 11:47 · Score: 1
  
  The gun is locked by default.
  
  Ok. If that's true, that makes things harder to be failsafe. If there isn't a failover to allow it to be unlocked on CPU failure/non-response, then it should never be released. Just before the battery dies, the switch is automatically released.
  I said the trigger pull would be detected in nanoseconds, not that it would lock. The lock doesn't have to finish engaging until the trigger is almost completely pulled. That takes at least what - 1/4 second?
  If an attacker has time to remove an embedded rechargeable battery from the gun, that's more time than this device is meant to delay the attacker. One would hope that it wouldn't just pop out with a button press. The attacker would probably just hit you over the head with the gun and forget firing it before you become a risk.
  If you want to protect against EMP's, you use two different CPU's each running independently coded software, but with the same print matching algorithm. If the CPU's agree, then trust the results. If they do not agree, then failsafe into unlock. Again, a completely fried CPU would need a different sort of failsafe. It would be much more unlikely for both CPU's to produce an answer AND match.
  This is all assuming that they have an absolutely foolproof recognition system. What does foolproof mean? It allows more false positives. Lots more. Is that a problem? No. You improved survival odds against a stolen weapon. It decreases false negatives maybe even to the point of not being an issue at all. Unless you're stupid enough to wear gloves. Again, I'm saying that they have to reach a certain level of before they should ever try to release this to the public.
  So what you're saying is that a fried CPU is going to continue to run the OS?
  It doesn't matter if you don't like it. You don't have to buy it. I don't want it. But you can't say that it's impossible to account for these problems to a reasonable degree. People said the same about autopilot overriding human decisions (Airbus), but overall it saves lives.
  I'm not going to argue every point with you ad infinitum. You were saying it was impossible, I'm saying it doesn't have to be. End of story. All the "What if's" are to be solved by this maker.
25. Re:Access management nightmare? by spook+brat · 2013-04-29 16:40 · Score: 1
  
  An Arduino? For a military data system? Handled by PFCs and below? On a daily basis?
  Fine, a hardened arduino. Standards exist for this. Military enclosures are a solved problem.
  
  "Hey Bob, we just got five new guys transferring in. Go program all the guns." "Hey Bob, Bravo squad was out on a patrol when you did all the guns yesterday for the new guys. Go make sure all the guns are programmed." "Hey Bob, two guys transferred out. Go program all the guns again." "Hey Bob, ..." "If you say go program the guns again one more time, I'm going to smack you..."
  Yep, that job's gonna suck, I'm not going to deny it. That's why the Sergeant will set up the program, then hand the (hardened!) programmer to the <= E3 for doing the rounds. Possibly multiple times daily. I expect the programmer to get thrown across the room more than once out of frustration and boredom.
  
  In the days when I was issued an M16 on a regular basis, I was handed a weapons card with my name, weapon ID, and signature on it. When I drew my weapon from the armory, I handed the E1 behind the door my card, he went to the rack, picked up the weapon, put my card in its place, and handed me the M16. When I turned it in, the process went in reverse. The armorer had no idea who belonged to what weapon. The company admin did, maybe. Has that system changed in 25 years? Maybe. Maybe not. It worked and was simple.
  Nope, that system hasn't changed, thank $diety. I don't think you gave your armorer enough credit, though; he probably had a list of every weapon and whose card it was matched to, I know mine did. Today, if he's good, it's both on paper and in the computer.
  
  Plug in, system doesn't communicate. Look at gun, realize that is it a model 2 trigger lock and go back to the office to find the model 2 programmer that came in yesterday. What do you mean the shipment with the model 2 programmer isn't here yet? We got model 2s on the rack we need to program. Radar, get me General Hammond on the phone.
  If the US military adopts this kind of "feature", then we know the game is over and we might as well all learn Korean or Chinese.
  And this is where the two of us agree completely. The day the U.S. Army adds something like this to the arsenal I'll know we finally stopped taking combat seriously. There's no way Combat Arms would get talked into adding another point of failure to the M16, it's bad enough already. And fielding a rifle that requires both a clean connector and fresh batteries to operate is a non-starter. My point wasn't that this system would be a good idea.
  All I was trying to say is that the logistics of data management isn't as bad as it seems at first glance. Most of the data should already be in place in the Armory; add a fingerprint scanner to the armorer's laptop (Admin's laptop already has one, so the supply chain is in place) and you've got everything you need even if Admin doesn't want to share their toys. A flat file, a folder of data, and a small script give you the data load. All that's missing is a documented procedure and I can easily see this system being logistically manageable. A useless, potentially deadly, worse-than-worthless pain in the third point of contact, but totally manageable.
  
  --
  Travel the Galaxy! Meet fascinating life forms... ...and kill them - http://schlockmercenary.com
26. Re:Access management nightmare? by WGFCrafty · 2013-04-29 16:43 · Score: 1
  
  So you put the 20,000 fingerprints into every gun in the armory. This could be useful for training weapons at a base, they could all sit in a rack that charges and updates fingerprint access, hit could tell how many rounds have been fired without the slide being removed (for cleaning) and other information like who fired how many rounds when for training certification and accident investigation. It wouldn't even have to check the fingerprint every time, a gyroscope could just make it reauthorize after movement stops.
  There are many uses which don't require defensive readiness/reliability.
27. Re:Access management nightmare? by WGFCrafty · 2013-04-29 16:48 · Score: 1
  
  Now that i think about it, for training you could connect them in an ad hoc wireless network and record times for actual training with blanks and see reaction times an a whole assortment of things. Triangulation of the signal, a gyroscope and compass would tell direction of fire, time, location. Could be quite useful.
28. Re:Access management nightmare? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 20:58 · Score: 0
  
  Rreally? Seems kinda stupid as all weapons are a bit different. That has to lower accuracy considerably. I'd wager this only applies for range practising though, and when you actually have to use the gun in combat situation it's your personal gun you have cleaned and put together yourself.
29. Re:Access management nightmare? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-30 03:32 · Score: 0
  
  Obviously the trick to this is getting your host file set up correctly.
Will it... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 05:32 · Score: 0

Will it prevent firing if pointed at a three year old?
Hmmm....
1. Re:Will it... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 05:42 · Score: 0
  
  how the hell is it supposed to do that? hell it takes a google a huge computational cluster just to tell whether or not a picture has a cat in and it only has what 80% accuracy how is a gun supposed to tell what it is pointed at with a chip for a brain about the size of usb drive?
2. Re:Will it... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 06:03 · Score: 0
  
  Will it prevent firing if pointed at a three year old?
  Hmmm....
  No, but it might prevent it from firing when being held BY a 3 year old.
  Of course, a trigger lock and locking the ammunition separately from the weapon in two safes would likely do that too... Even in the face of a software bug.
3. Re:Will it... by gandhi_2 · 2013-04-29 06:14 · Score: 1
  
  More children are killed by their parents bare hands every year than by firearms.
  Optimize for the big n=O( ) first.
  
  --
  THL phish sticks
Speed/accuracy/reliability: pick two by mcelrath · 2013-04-29 05:33 · Score: 4, Funny

If this fingerprint scanner works as poorly and as slowly as the fingerprint scanner on my Thinkpad, there's no way in hell anyone would want this on a gun.
If on the other hand you want to make sure no one can ever fire the gun, this sounds great.

--
1^2=1; (-1)^2=1; 1^2=(-1)^2; 1=-1; 1=0.
Gloves? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 05:33 · Score: 0

So these are for warm-weather only conflicts? (Ignoring the many other issues with this idea.)
1. Re:Gloves? by JumpSuit+Boy · 2013-04-29 05:45 · Score: 2
  
  It's cold where I live for most of the year. I wear gloves a lot.
  
  --
  Oh really?
ty now i have by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 05:33 · Score: 0

all your fingerprints are belong to us....
Gun Toters VS Smartphone by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 05:34 · Score: 0

Considering many American's can't figure out their smartphones; I wonder how they are going to figure out how to program their firearm.
People I know like their guns to be simple. Fire only when the trigger is pulled and every time the trigger is pulled.
To much to fail and any military will be dumb to u by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 05:35 · Score: 0

To much to fail and any military will be dumb to use it.
Test it out by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 05:35 · Score: 0

Let the cops and the military be the first to use this technology.
No thanks...I can see the headline now... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 05:36 · Score: 0

"Virus causes gun to fire"
I would have serious reservations... by MAXOMENOS · 2013-04-29 05:37 · Score: 5, Insightful

..about buying this equipment for my guns.
I don't care much about the false positive rate, because I keep my guns locked up. What I need to know before I buy is, what's the false negative rate and the response time? I own some guns for sporting purposes, and a couple of big clunky rifles for hunting. A false negative or a laggy response time on those isn't necessarily a big deal. OTOH my wife and I also have guns for self defense and home defense. A false negative or laggy response time on those could get us killed.

--
Finding God in a Dog
1. Re:I would have serious reservations... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 05:48 · Score: 0
  
  or it could keep your wife from being shot by you or you by your wife.
2. Re:I would have serious reservations... by DeanT · 2013-04-29 06:08 · Score: 1
  
  what's the false negative rate and the response time?
  From the article:
  
  Once an authorized user places his or her finger on the scanner, which is located in a natural position on the gun's grip, it activates the gun's enabling mechanisms in about one-third of a second, he said.
  I'll only consider such a technology if/when law enforcement has been exclusively using such devices for years and data on false negative/positives is available. If such technology is too burdensome for someone who KNOWS they're going into a situation where their weapon can mean the difference between life and death, it's too burdensome for me in defense of myself and family.
3. Re:I would have serious reservations... by CanHasDIY · 2013-04-29 06:18 · Score: 1
  
  or it could keep your wife from being shot by you or you by your wife.
  Not being an abusive piece of shit is far more effective, you know.
  
  --
  An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
4. Re:I would have serious reservations... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 06:34 · Score: 0
  
  If you don't care about the false positive rate than why the fuck would you even consider buying a gun with this feature?
5. Re:I would have serious reservations... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 06:39 · Score: 0
  
  You and your stupid wife sound like a real pair of nutjob gun freaks.
  No, they don't. You just want them to be.
  
  Do you find it difficult to get respect when you are not carrying your "self defense" guns? Or are they actually penis magnification devices, primarily used for the "look at me, I'm scary, don't mess with me" factor?
  Stereotypes are an excuse to avoid thinking.
6. Re:I would have serious reservations... by Entropius · 2013-04-29 06:51 · Score: 1
  
  I know people who own guns and use them as penis magnification devices.
  I know people who own guns and who are kind, considerate, humble people.
  I know people who don't own guns and who are giant arrogant dicks.
  I know people who don't own guns and who are kind people.
  The guns really don't have much to do with it.
7. Re:I would have serious reservations... by Obfuscant · 2013-04-29 07:02 · Score: 1
  
  That's 1/3 of a second every time you put your finger on the trigger. If you're holding the weapon correctly, you don't walk around with your finger on the trigger. That's a 1/3 second advantage to anyone trying to shoot you with a good old dumb gun. That's an eternity, and that's where you'll be.
  The second largest issue will be the technology use. What will happen the first time someone takes a friend to the range and the gun he's showing off won't fire? He'll add the friend to the authorized list of fingers. Then he's supposed to remove him. And put him back. And then add someone else.
  The natural reaction will be "I'll just shut this damn system off, it's too hard to deal with..." and the gun will be open to anyone.
  
  I'll only consider such a technology if/when law enforcement has been exclusively using such devices for years and data on false negative/positives is available.
  
  No sane cop is going to give anyone an automatic 1/3 second firing advantage voluntarily. If they are forced to carry these weapons, you can expect the rates of officer involved shootings to go way up. Either officers will break training and keep their fingers on the trigger when holding their weapon, or they'll try to make firing decisions 1/3 or more second sooner than they ought to.
  Now, since I didn't RTFA, I don't know how the weapon reacts to a trigger pull, but if the trigger won't pull until the computer says ok you've just ruined any smooth pull of a trigger, turning a smooth pull into a pull/jerk action -- taking you off taget. Or the trigger will pull smoothly and the firing pin won't fire until the computer says ok. That leaves you holding a gun with a pulled trigger on target for 1/3 second or more waiting for the bang. And you're going to look pretty dead if your CPU fails and you're left standing with an otherwise functional gun pointing at a bad guy while you hope it actually fires.
8. Re:I would have serious reservations... by PortHaven · 2013-04-29 07:04 · Score: 1
  
  How would it do that. Oh, Hi Bob, I recognize your finger. You are now free to shoot your wife. !@#$%
  Fingerprint technology will not prevent the shooting of your wife.
  Heck, the article touts Newtown shooter, and how this technology could have prevented Newtown. *cough* BS *cough*
  Lanza would have been an authorized user. Realize, Lanza's mom received $24,000/month in alimony. That is no small chunk of change. In just over two months she made more being a divorcee than I did. She could have easily afforded a huge safe with a biometric lock.
  The issue is she was foolish, new there were issues with her son. But didn't want to recognize how serious they really really were.
9. Re:I would have serious reservations... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 07:26 · Score: 0
  
  Yea, must be scary and dangerous living in Portland. I hope you and the wife are armed to the teeth to fight off the hipsters.... Being a white suburbanite is just terrifying.
10. Re:I would have serious reservations... by archer,+the · 2013-04-29 07:34 · Score: 1
  
  Is it enough to keep one's guns locked up? Can one be sure he/she is the only one with access to the key and/or combination? Can one be sure anyone to whom a key/combo is given is sane and going to stay that way?
  
  I don't know if this would have prevented the Newtown shooting. If I understand correctly, the owner of the weapons used in the Newtown shooting kept her weapons locked up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Hook_Elementary_School_shooting . If the owner purposefully gave the shooter access to the safe, she would've also programmed the weapons to recognize him. Or, if the shooter stole the key/combo from her, Newtown may not have happened.
  
  An owner could get distracted or be outright careless, temporarily leaving it where an unauthorized party could access it: http://www.independentmail.com/news/2013/jan/25/lawsuit-accuses-anderson-county-sheriffs-office/?partner=RSS
  
  On the other hand, if one gets dirt/blood on one's hand before the fight is settled, does one's weapon become useless?
11. Re:I would have serious reservations... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 07:41 · Score: 0
  
  Right. Only women that have been abused or somehow harmed by men in some way are the only ones that murder men.
  CanHasDIY is the smartest poster on this site! Everyone else can fuck off.
12. Re:I would have serious reservations... by Solandri · 2013-04-29 09:33 · Score: 1
  
  I own some guns for sporting purposes, and a couple of big clunky rifles for hunting. A false negative or a laggy response time on those isn't necessarily a big deal. OTOH my wife and I also have guns for self defense and home defense. A false negative or laggy response time on those could get us killed.
  It looks like you're trying to fire your gun.
  
  Would you like help?
  - Shooting inanimate targets for practice.
  - Hunting deer or other wild game.
  - Driving off assailants and criminals.
  - I am a law enforcement officer trying to stop a dangerous suspect.
  - Testing my gun's functionality after maintenance.
  - Firing bullets randomly into the air (i.e. celebratory gunfire)
  - Combating a foreign invasion or insurgent rebellion.
  - Just fire the damn gun.
  
  ( ) Don't show me this tip again.
13. Re:I would have serious reservations... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 10:17 · Score: 0
  
  Because everyone is 100% rational, and never does anything unjustified or unexpected.
14. Re:I would have serious reservations... by cold+fjord · 2013-04-29 10:55 · Score: 1
  
  Not being an abusive piece of shit is far more effective, you know.
  You do know that works both ways, right?
  Domestic violence against men
  
  . . . When we think of domestic violence, we automatically assume that the assailant is male and the victim is female. However, it is estimated that about 3.2 million men are victims of assault by their partner each year in the United States. Though most of these assaults are relatively minor, such as hitting, smacking, pushing, and shoving, others are much more serious. Some may even result in homicide. The majority of male victims do not report being abused because of the fear that people will not believe them. Men are also silent on the issue because of society’s automatic perception that men are physically stronger and should easily be able to overcome a female attacker. Because of this, they fear that they will not be taken seriously. The truth of the matter is that men are just as susceptible to abuse by their partners as women are, and the issue of domestic violence against men should not be taken at as a joke. . . more
  Domestic violence against men: Know the signs
  
  --
  much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
15. Re:I would have serious reservations... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 11:27 · Score: 0
  
  Being a white suburbanite is just terrifying
  Obviously it is. You're so terrified of thinking that you invent excuses to avoid it, such as pretending violent crime doesn't exist in Portland because it has only white people and white people never do anything violent.
16. Re:I would have serious reservations... by Kittenman · 2013-04-29 14:01 · Score: 1
  
  I know people who own guns and use them as penis magnification devices. I know people who own guns and who are kind, considerate, humble people. I know people who don't own guns and who are giant arrogant dicks. I know people who don't own guns and who are kind people.
  The guns really don't have much to do with it.
  Disagree. A person with a gun has a different step available to them with their conflicts. That step (quite reasonable to them and apparently to a lot of the readers of this board) is to shoot someone.
  
  --
  "The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
17. Re:I would have serious reservations... by DeanT · 2013-04-30 01:32 · Score: 1
  
  I'll only consider such a technology if/when law enforcement has been exclusively using such devices for years and data on false negative/positives is available.
  No sane cop is going to give anyone an automatic 1/3 second firing advantage voluntarily. If they are forced to carry these weapons, you can expect the rates of officer involved shootings to go way up. Either officers will break training and keep their fingers on the trigger when holding their weapon, or they'll try to make firing decisions 1/3 or more second sooner than they ought to.
  Now, since I didn't RTFA, I don't know how the weapon reacts to a trigger pull, but if the trigger won't pull until the computer says ok you've just ruined any smooth pull of a trigger, turning a smooth pull into a pull/jerk action -- taking you off taget. Or the trigger will pull smoothly and the firing pin won't fire until the computer says ok. That leaves you holding a gun with a pulled trigger on target for 1/3 second or more waiting for the bang. And you're going to look pretty dead if your CPU fails and you're left standing with an otherwise functional gun pointing at a bad guy while you hope it actually fires.
  Just in case I was lacking any clarity in my post: My point was to cause outrage about our LE needing 100% reliable, always ready for defense weapons - to which my response is "me too".
  WRT the article, it doesn't really say how the tech works... trade secret or some such nonsense... BUT, I got the feeling when reading the article that the sensor is in a natural position which is NOT on the trigger. My guess would be along the right side of the frame below the slide - which is where I put my finger until I'm ready to engage the trigger. I'd expect some sort of grip safety which kept the gun in an engaged state once authorized until grip was lost on the gun.
  And I STILL want nothing to do with interjecting software blocks into a purely mechanical process. Ask AT&T whether it's possible to have a catastrophic software bug regardless of how careful you are. Unfortunately, the person who finds this bug is quite likely to be able to report it.
18. Re:I would have serious reservations... by DeanT · 2013-04-30 01:35 · Score: 1
  
  Unfortunately, the person who finds this bug is quite likely to be able to report it.
  Unfortunately, the person who finds this bug is quite likely to be UNABLE to report it.
19. Re:I would have serious reservations... by CanHasDIY · 2013-04-30 04:29 · Score: 1
  
  Not being an abusive piece of shit is far more effective, you know.
  You do know that works both ways, right?
  Sure, albeit quite rarely in comparison to the amount of man-on-woman violence.
  If OP had said something about getting shot by your husband, I probably would have made a similar comment, albeit with a bit of gender-reversal. Besides, we're not discussion spousal abuse, this is a thread about gun violence.
  Not everything revolves around you.
  
  --
  An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
20. Re:I would have serious reservations... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-30 06:33 · Score: 0
  
  I doubt his wife needs a "penis magnification device"...I heard she's well-hung...
  Hmmm, captcha is "disarms".
  - T
"Fire gun!" by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 05:37 · Score: 4, Funny

"You do not have permission to fire this gun."
"sudo Fire gun!"
*BLAM*
1. Re:"Fire gun!" by CanHasDIY · 2013-04-29 06:20 · Score: 1
  
  "You do not have permission to fire this gun."
  "sudo Fire gun!"
  The command 'fire' was not found; perhaps you meant:
  sfire from package burninate.your.ass
  fired from package donald.trump.owns.you
  gunfire from package worst.self.defense.weapon.ever
  
  --
  An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Allow a friend to fire? by bogidu · 2013-04-29 05:38 · Score: 2

That's called 'transfer of firearm' and is illegal in many places thanks to our politicians. Creating technology to circumvent the law sounds like a sticky place to go.
1. Re:Allow a friend to fire? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 05:53 · Score: 0
  
  What? Even if the friend has a permit for similar gun?
2. Re:Allow a friend to fire? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 06:02 · Score: 0
  
  "Transferring" a firearm is not the same as "lending" a firearm. The laws differ from state to state, obviously, but I am not aware of any that prohibit "lending" a firearm on a universal basis.
3. Re:Allow a friend to fire? by PortHaven · 2013-04-29 07:06 · Score: 1
  
  Believe it or not, it often is....
  Think about it, otherwise those straw purchasers engaged in no crime. They didn't buy a gun for them, it was just a personal transfer.
  In fact, even in Pennsylvania, as I recall I can only "loan" transfer a handgun to someone who has a carry permit.
4. Re:Allow a friend to fire? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 08:00 · Score: 0
  
  What world do you live in? I can allow any non-felon over the age of 21 to fire my guns, or buy my guns from me, with no authorization from any government entity.
5. Re:Allow a friend to fire? by bogidu · 2013-04-29 10:11 · Score: 1
  
  What world? Colorado, and in 30 days we will no longer enjoy the same freedoms as those in other states in this country.
6. Re:Allow a friend to fire? by twistofsin · 2013-04-29 11:25 · Score: 1
  
  That's called 'transfer of firearm' and is illegal in many places thanks to our politicians. Creating technology to circumvent the law sounds like a sticky place to go.
  Citation needed.
7. Re:Allow a friend to fire? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 12:55 · Score: 0
  
  Despite the 2nd amendment, this varies by state. Transfer of firearm is usually legal ownership (bill of sale, gifted, etc), not constructive or actual possession. However if a state has requirements aside from age on firearms purchases (aside from federal NICS etc) then they may have have really messed up what it means to transfer a firearm.
  Incidentally, unless the law states otherwise as in a few states, transfer of a firearm (currently) to another resident of the same state is a simple matter of exchange of value for property (i.e. no background check, etc).
Who would use this? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 05:38 · Score: 1

I don't see why anyone would ever buy this. "It's a gun, but it's designed not to work sometimes. And we charge very reasonable rates for it to not work sometimes."
1. Re:Who would use this? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 06:01 · Score: 0
  
  because you would be forced to by law
  laws already on the books in multiple states say that if a company mass produces these then all guns sold in the state must have the tech.
2. Re:Who would use this? by neonKow · 2013-04-29 07:10 · Score: 1
  
  Stop being stupid. There are some obvious benefits with only allowing certain people to successfully operate something like a gun. I'd definitely pay more for a car I could park and lock than one that I couldn't. Whether the locking mechanism is reliable is another issue.
Blue Screen of Death by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 05:38 · Score: 2, Funny

is now real.
1. Re:Blue Screen of Death by PortHaven · 2013-04-29 07:06 · Score: 1
  
  Oh come on, who modded this down. I thought that was quite witty and humorous.
how to ban guns in 4 states by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 05:39 · Score: 1

seed a company to mass produce these. laws already on the books state that all guns must use this tech once someone starts making it. The laws make have no requirement that the tech work, just that someone is selling it in mass production. Seeding such a company, even if there is no real market for it's products, is cheaper than politics.
hah, catchpa OPPRESS
1. Re:how to ban guns in 4 states by Zimluura · 2013-04-29 06:02 · Score: 1
  
  Don't forget to give a 30 year prison sentence to anyone who does the (trivial) amount of modding to circumvent the device and lock it into "always fire".
  Man! I didn't even want an e-trigger for my paintball marker, wouldn't even consider putting one on a real gun.
2. Re:how to ban guns in 4 states by PortHaven · 2013-04-29 07:08 · Score: 1
  
  First thing every gun owner will do upon purchasing a gun equipped with such mandated technology. Remove it.
3. Re:how to ban guns in 4 states by Zimluura · 2013-04-29 08:19 · Score: 1
  
  You might be missing point. The reason we don't switch our semi-automatics over to select-fire is because doing so would be illegal, and the penalties are very very harsh. It has nothing to do with how difficult it is technically. Though I guess modding this kind of trigger could be easily blamed on defective electronics.
4. Re:how to ban guns in 4 states by Wookact · 2013-04-29 09:20 · Score: 1
  
  Tin hatter with no regard for spelling or grammar. Awesome.
5. Re:how to ban guns in 4 states by spazmonkey · 2013-04-29 13:45 · Score: 1
  
  the reason the gun grabbers love this idea so much (and it has come up every few years for decades) is not due to its function after you buy the gun. of course you can remove it, they don't care. the point is to drive the purchase price of firearms so high it prevent the sale in the first place. of course, they will likely also want to likely add removing this device to the same laws as removing serial numbers - you know, to 'prevent crime' or some crap, but really its mainly about driving cost up.
6. Re:how to ban guns in 4 states by The0retical · 2013-04-29 19:10 · Score: 1
  
  It'll go away soon enough. I remember reading an article in PopSci probably 15 years ago about new technology that would embed a sensor in an officers ring so that if it moved more than a couple inches from his hand it would not fire.
  I suppose technology has shifted to the point now where it is easier to miniaturize so that it is feasible without having a huge grip, however the only reason that this type of technology gets any attention at all is because, all conspiracy theory aside, it will give any state hostile towards guns an excuse to ban any gun without this technology. I have no doubt with how hard California makes it to stay within it's restrictions that they would be the ones leading the charge and expect the other 40 shall issue / no restriction (AK,VT) states to follow.
Anyone else hoping for ALIENS smart gun? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 05:40 · Score: 0

I was bummed when it wasn't the huge smart gun from ALIENS. :(
Let's rooooooooock!
This won't sell. by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 05:41 · Score: 1

Take it from a gun owner, this will not sell well. Gun owners do not want a safety preventing them from defending themselves. One of the most popular pistols, the glock, has a special "safety" mechanism where you can just pull the trigger and it will always fire, 100% of the time. Responsible gun owners that are worried about their children or others using their guns without permission will simply use an aftermarket trigger lock which costs $5 at the store, or keep their guns in a fast access safe with its own fingerprint reader or combination lock.
Info about glock's "safety": http://us.glock.com/technology/safe-action
I really doubt gun owners will keep this pistol charged and ready to read the fingerprint anyway. Gun safes usually do not have electricity inside and in some states it's a law that any guns must be kept in a gun safe, especially if they have minors living in the house. So it's not like you could just leave this fingerprint gun sitting on the kitchen table. Given this information, I don't see any advantage to the fingerprint gun.
1. Re:This won't sell. by Intrepid+imaginaut · 2013-04-29 06:09 · Score: 1
  
  If you haven't the presence of mind to flip a safety while aiming a weapon, you shouldn't be firing a gun.
2. Re:This won't sell. by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 06:43 · Score: 0
  
  If you haven't the presence of mind to flip a safety while aiming a weapon, you shouldn't be firing a gun.
  Yes, because in the high stress situation of being attacked and forced to use lethal force you always have the presence of mind to fiddle with safeties.
3. Re:This won't sell. by PortHaven · 2013-04-29 07:09 · Score: 1
  
  Wow, you just decreed that like 70% of police in America should NOT be firing a gun.
4. Re:This won't sell. by Bob+the+Super+Hamste · 2013-04-29 07:24 · Score: 1
  
  True but my beef is that there are some pretty shitty safetys on some guns. The worst has got to the be the safety on a Mosin-Nagent with the knob on the back of the bolt that locks the bolt back into a notch that you have to pull back to turn. I am not too fond of the one on the Mossberg 500 either but that is more personal preference as I got use to the push button on the side instead of the switch on the top.
  
  --
  Time to offend someone
5. Re:This won't sell. by Arker · 2013-04-29 09:10 · Score: 1
  
  That's true but it's part of the story only.
  You should be familiar with your weapon, and choose your weapon. When someone is choosing a weapon, the safety function is one of the things to consider carefully. Is it fully secure when set to safe, and is it quick yet positive to take it off? If not, dont buy the weapon. If you can get it to fire when it's on safe, that can get someone killed. But if it's not quick intuitive and very positive taking the safety OFF, it might get you killed.
  Of course, once you have the weapon, then you need to train yourself to use the safety as it exists, and to use it effectively regardless of how poorly designed it is. But those are separate issues.
  
  --
  =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
  Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
6. Re:This won't sell. by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 12:27 · Score: 0
  
  Spoken like a ignorant person who neither owns nor has really ever needed a fire arm for defense. Why don't you explain rocket science to us while your at it. I tire from people who have no experience wanting to tell those that have it how things should be done. Go back to telling professional sports players how to play through yelling at your TV.
7. Re:This won't sell. by gmhowell · 2013-04-29 12:39 · Score: 1
  
  If you can't use toggle switches to enter code on the front panel of a computer, you shouldn't be allowed to operate one.
  
  --
  Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
This tech worked really well at Butcher Bay by rodrigoandrade · 2013-04-29 05:42 · Score: 1

... NOT!!
Gloves? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 05:43 · Score: 0

I wear gloves when I go shooting, to protect my dork hands.
Ho-hum by Smivs · 2013-04-29 05:43 · Score: 0

Smivs looks across the pond and shakes his head in despair...

--
Smivs on the intertubes!
1. Re:Ho-hum by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 05:56 · Score: 1
  
  ...while referring to himself in third person, like a true neckbeard.
Safety loophole by j-stroy · 2013-04-29 05:44 · Score: 4, Insightful

This technology could cause accidents by people assuming the safety function is operational, similar to when electric carving knives were introduced they had a pressure activated on switch on the blade.

It may also lead to the assumption that a gun is safe when it can still accidentally fire for other reasons inherent in a firearms mechanism.
1. Re:Safety loophole by Bobfrankly1 · 2013-04-29 06:06 · Score: 2
  
  This technology could cause accidents by people assuming the safety function is operational, similar to when electric carving knives were introduced they had a pressure activated on switch on the blade. It may also lead to the assumption that a gun is safe when it can still accidentally fire for other reasons inherent in a firearms mechanism.
  Not to mention that a gun "keyed" to it's owner and used (or fired) in a crime will be used to lock up the owner because "only he" could fire it. What's the software platform anyway, Java?
2. Re:Safety loophole by fahrbot-bot · 2013-04-29 06:09 · Score: 1
  
  It may also lead to the assumption that a gun is safe when it can still accidentally fire for other reasons inherent in a firearms mechanism.
  Never *assume* any gun is safe - ever.
  Know your weapon, check its status. If you don't or can't, then you shouldn't own it or touch it.
  [ Probably preaching to the choir, but worth reiterating. ]
  
  --
  It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
3. Re:Safety loophole by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 06:49 · Score: 0
  
  That is why you:
  Always keep firearms pointed in a safe direction - don't point at it if you don't want a hole in it.
  Keep your finger off the trigger - doesn't matter about safeties, gizmos and gadgets attached, keep your finger off until you are ready to shoot.
  Don't load the firearm until you are ready to use it - and anytime a gun leaves your control/view, it is considered loaded.
  Safeties can fail, you never rely on them.
4. Re:Safety loophole by IndustrialComplex · 2013-04-29 08:03 · Score: 1
  
  Your statement is true, but if firearms become more 'safe' this credo will fade with time, even if they still remain rather dangerous.
  Consider what you SHOULD do every time you drive your car. Do you check your headlights? Verify that your brake lights work, verify your fluid levels, check your actual brakes (every time?), check your tires for wear and inflation levels.
  These are all things which do contribute to a non-negligible quantity of injuries and deaths, yet because they have become safe-enough, most people don't think to perform these checks. There is a very real risk that a well-intentioned fix could result in increased dangerous practices.
  (That said, it's not the safety devices on cars themselves which add to the danger, but people becoming complacent that the safety device removes the need to be responsible)
  
  --
  Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
5. Re:Safety loophole by fahrbot-bot · 2013-04-29 08:24 · Score: 1
  
  (That said, it's not the safety devices on cars themselves which add to the danger, but people becoming complacent that the safety device removes the need to be responsible)
  I agree. As things become more reliable and robust, they are often taken for granted. The phrase "out of sight, out of mind" comes to mind. Even concerted effort/practice can be counter-effective if a task then becomes automatic. Did I put the cap back on the toothpaste? Did I re-enable the safety? Did I leave the gas on? (No, I'm a fucking squirrel - sorry, Eddie Izzard joke.)
  So, I try to always be mindful -- and always double check myself and surroundings before turning on the table saw...
  P.S. I *do* check out all my car's systems before any trip out-of-town.
  
  --
  It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
6. Re:Safety loophole by IndustrialComplex · 2013-04-30 01:52 · Score: 1
  
  P.S. I *do* check out all my car's systems before any trip out-of-town.
  I tend to slack with regard to this. What I usually do is give my car a once-over whenever I stop for gas. (pop the hood, check the oil, radiator levels, etc) and take a look at the tires.
  Not all that I SHOULD be doing, but I'm trying to build in the habit little by little.
  
  --
  Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
EMP Jamming by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 05:46 · Score: 0

I was going to say what happens when the robber invading my home uses an EMP device to jam my gun's microprocessor to prevent it from firing, but then I remembered that EMP jamming devices are illegal to possess and use, and even if he did, it would jam his gun too, because we would be illegal to possess a gun without a fingerprint reader lock. Only a criminal would use such tactics.
what's the backup plan? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 05:46 · Score: 0

Is the user going to have to wear fingerless gloves when it's cold? People hate the locks that are built into many handguns because they're just another piece to fail or another little key to lose when you need it the most (which is why my first "upgrade" to my m1911 is to remove the lock that Springfield put into the mainspring housing). How is it going to indicate when the batteries are low?
so how unique are fingerprints? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 05:46 · Score: 0

If you're putting 15-20K different fingerprints in one gun, what's the probability of false positive matches? We know that false positive fingerprint matches are possible, but I haven't seen anything on the odds of different people having sufficiently similar fingerprints.
Will it come with background checks? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 05:48 · Score: 0

Will it come with background checks? So when you program "a friend" they get screened before the code is active?
Untrustworthy when most needed by willoughby · 2013-04-29 05:48 · Score: 2

If I really need my pistol to function, and I have blood on my hands, I don't think I'd trust one of these.
Testing by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 05:49 · Score: 0

Its going to need A LOT of testing before anyone is going to trust this system with their lives (Military, Police, Citizens). When you own a gun you to know two things, one that it will fire safely and reliably when you need it to (either at the range or as some nutjob is smashing through your door) and two that you can easily clean & maintain it. I'm having trouble believing that this system will do both of those.
Have the police and military use it first. by JumpSuit+Boy · 2013-04-29 05:49 · Score: 1

Given that most firearms technology starts with the military and then spreads out to the civilan market Congress should require this technology for the military. Also since the police are becoming most militarized they should also use. When it is good enough for the Special Forces and the Secret Service protective details I might consider it.

--
Oh really?
I suggest a better feature. by SharpFang · 2013-04-29 05:52 · Score: 2

Upon pushing the trigger a display on the gun prompts:
Are you sure you wish to fire this gun?
[ok][cancel]

--
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
1. Re:I suggest a better feature. by redshirt · 2013-04-29 07:26 · Score: 1
  
  If it's as poorly written as most software, it would likely prompt:
  Would you like to cancel your trigger pull request?
  [ok][cancel]
2. Re:I suggest a better feature. by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 09:53 · Score: 0
  
  The cop version will have a high capacity Clippy who will cheerily shout "Who do you wanna shoot today?"
3. Re:I suggest a better feature. by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 11:24 · Score: 0
  
  Or Clippy saying "It looks like you're trying to fire a round. Can I help?"
4. Re:I suggest a better feature. by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-30 07:08 · Score: 0
  
  If it's windows - we have a whole new dimension for the blue screen of death.
If the gun does not fire ... by 140Mandak262Jamuna · 2013-04-29 05:53 · Score: 1

... just peer down the barrel, squinting with one eye, and press then joggle the trigger.
But it is not going to be popular. The thief will simply take the gun from you, and know the cheat code trig-trig-up-down-up-down-A-B-A-B and presto, all the levels would be unlocked.

--
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Smart enough? by stevegee58 · 2013-04-29 05:55 · Score: 1, Flamebait

Would the new "smart" guns have been smart enough to save Trayvon Martin, or a classroom full or little children, or a movie theatre full of innocent people?
*sound of crickets*
Didn't think so.
1. Re:Smart enough? by UneducatedSixpack · 2013-04-29 06:11 · Score: 1
  
  This is not the point. We do not want to save anybody here. The idea is to sell more guns. It is an attempt by gun industry to have some sort of "organic" or "gluten free" guns which could be sold at Whole Foods.
2. Re:Smart enough? by PortHaven · 2013-04-29 07:12 · Score: 1
  
  I take issue with your lumping Trayvon Martin with innocent people.
  The guy was a thug. Not the cute 12 year old the media pictured. He beat up a bus driver, dealt drugs, and had women's jewelry and burglarly tools in his backpack...that's not innocent.
  Whether he should of died, we do not know. But he was far from innocent either way.
3. Re:Smart enough? by NoImNotNineVolt · 2013-04-29 07:56 · Score: 1
  
  Much like vaccines aren't effective enough to save people from starvation, and computers do nothing to save people from AIDS.
  
  You're right. If a proposed solution to a problem doesn't fix all the world's ills, we should just give up and go home.
  
  --
  Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
4. Re:Smart enough? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 16:38 · Score: 0
  
  Would the new "smart" guns have been smart enough to save Trayvon Martin.
  a 'smart' gun would have helped George Zimmerman had Trayvon Martin been successful in wrestling it away from its owner. It was Martin's decision to jump an armed citizen and try to pound his head into a sidewalk. IMHO, Zimmerman acted prudently.
Re:How ironic.... by KiloByte · 2013-04-29 05:56 · Score: 2

Then why exactly cars haven't been banned yet?
Even worse, breathing air causes millions of deaths every year, let's ban air!

--
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
I'd be more impressed by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 05:56 · Score: 0

If it took your fingerprint and lasered a code onto the base of the round fired... fingerprinting you to each bullet fired, and each shell dropped.
1. Re:I'd be more impressed by Dwarfgoat · 2013-04-29 06:34 · Score: 1
  
  ...unless one used a revolver or a brass catcher (or simply policed ones rounds after shooting).
  After a few reloads, all those overlapping stamps would get awfully hard to read.
  
  --
  That? That was a pigeon.
Single digit encryption by Lev13than · 2013-04-29 05:56 · Score: 1

"A single gun owner could also temporarily program a friend or family member's print into the gun to go target shooting and then remove it upon returning home."
Either that or the guy who takes your gun will also take your finger

--
When you have nothing left to burn you must set yourself on fire
For clarification sake by MAXOMENOS · 2013-04-29 05:57 · Score: 1

I thought that "transfer of firearm" was intended to cover change of ownership ("This gun is yours now") versus handing it over temporarily for the purpose of handling or firing ("Check out my new SIG, want to shoot it?"). Is my thinking here wrong? If so, what am I missing?

--
Finding God in a Dog
1. Re:For clarification sake by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 06:04 · Score: 0
  
  You're missing how dedicated politicians are at preserving their power. There is no legal differtence, at all, in some states, between loaning and selling.
2. Re:For clarification sake by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 09:48 · Score: 0
  
  No. You are right. GP is an idiot.
3. Re:For clarification sake by bogidu · 2013-04-29 10:14 · Score: 1
  
  The key word in the definition listed below is LOANING.
  Title 27 - Alcohol, Tobacco Products and Firearms
  Volume: 2
  Date: 2003-04-01
  Original Date: 2003-04-01
  Title: Section 479.11 - Meaning of terms.
  Context: Title 27 - Alcohol, Tobacco Products and Firearms. CHAPTER II - BUREAU OF ALCOHOL, TOBACCO, FIREARMS, AND EXPLOSIVES, DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE. SUBCHAPTER B - FIREARMS AND AMMUNITION. PART 479 - MACHINE GUNS, DESTRUCTIVE DEVICES, AND CERTAIN OTHER FIREARMS. Subpart B - Definitions.
  479.11Meaning of terms.
  Transfer. This term and the various derivatives thereof shall include selling, assigning, pledging, leasing, loaning, giving away, or otherwise disposing of.
4. Re:For clarification sake by bogidu · 2013-04-29 10:15 · Score: 1
  
  Define GP please.
5. Re:For clarification sake by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 17:49 · Score: 0
  
  Transfer is about possession and use, not ownership.
  That's why the recent senate proposal exempted loan transfers that stay completely within your own home, at certain types of shooting ranges, and allowing a prospective buyer to handle the gun before deciding to purchase.
  Since those are transfers, they would require checks under the plan if not exempted. The reason this meaning of transfer rarely comes up under current law is that private transfers within a state do not require federal checks. A groups spends afternoon shooting, transfers guns all around the group, and goes home with the same guns they arrived with. None of those transfers require anything currently.
This is not how SMART is supposed to work. by SharpFang · 2013-04-29 05:57 · Score: 2

You select the target with your iris and eye gestures, recognized by cybereye or goggles. Target gets a highlight/targetting frame.
You move the gun so that the reticle (based on gun-mounted camera) on your HUD enters the defined targetting frame.
The moment the gun detects the match (reticle enters the frame = the gun is aimed at the target), it fires, hitting the highlit target.
This is how a smart gun is supposed to work. Not some shmancy safety feature.

--
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
1. Re:This is not how SMART is supposed to work. by UneducatedSixpack · 2013-04-29 06:15 · Score: 1
  
  Do not forget internet! Gun should make a short video and upload it to youtube. Few photos with stylish filters and status updates should be posted to facebook, twitter and instagram. We are in the 21st century after all. Shooting alone is so 20th century.
2. Re:This is not how SMART is supposed to work. by PortHaven · 2013-04-29 07:14 · Score: 1
  
  Bullet cam, with a feature to self destruct if the target is the wrong selected target. Granted you have what.... 0.0001 seconds to disable the bullet after firing. But if it saves just one life.
whaat? no comment on brutal finger theft?? by smoothnorman · 2013-04-29 05:58 · Score: 1

i'm shocked (shocked!) that there's no long thread about how this technology will promote fingers being hacked off (and worn around the neck along with several others necklace style) by eeevil folk. for instance, here's your precedent: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4396831.stm now... let's get on with our panicking about this aspect, shall we?
chmod 777 /gun/perms by sl4shd0rk · 2013-04-29 05:59 · Score: 1

The problem with this system, as well as the problems with the Lanza reference, are that people were expected to follow a set of rules in order for the system to work as intended. When people don't follow the rules, the system does not work. As soon as someone forgets to disable temporary permissions, or effectively does a "chmod 777" on the smartgun system to "to make it easier to use", it's just as useless as the paperwork system that's been in use.

--
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
i think your sig is wrong by MondoGordo · 2013-04-29 06:00 · Score: 1

1^2=1; (-1)^2=1; 1^2=(-1)^2; 1=-1; 1+1=1+ -1; 2=0 :)
1. Re:i think your sig is wrong by al.caughey · 2013-04-29 06:27 · Score: 1
  
  No... his sig is correct but only for very large values of 1
2. Re:i think your sig is wrong by NoNonAlphaCharsHere · 2013-04-29 08:41 · Score: 1
  
  His sig is only correct for very small values of i.
Re:"smart gun" turns in to dumb hammer by MondoGordo · 2013-04-29 06:01 · Score: 1

Hammers are almost never useless.
Dead batteries by ArtemaOne · 2013-04-29 06:02 · Score: 1

Oh no, someone is breaking in. Okay, I have a "clip" (lol) loaded, ready to go. He's coming around the corner! Click! Click! Batteries are dead. Hold on, let me check the drawer in the kitchen.
God bless America .. by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 06:03 · Score: 0

`I had a guy waiting here first thing in the morning [after the election.] He came in, bought two AK-47s'.
Squirt gun real gun by T.E.D. · 2013-04-29 06:04 · Score: 1

Presumably there are some electronics in the gun making this decision, which means if the electronics are messed up (eg: with an EMP or by being immersed in water), the gun becomes unreliable.
Just imagine someone with this gun living in fear of an assailant with ... a water pistol! (scary music here).
Don't worry though, we can fix this by banning water pistols!
is it still "transfer" if you're still present? by Chirs · 2013-04-29 06:04 · Score: 1

I ask because I have no firearms acquisition certificate, but I have shot handguns at ranges under the supervision of their staff.
Presumably there is some mechanism to allow someone to fire your weapon without actually "transferring" it to them.
That said, I've also gone plinking with a .22 at my grandparents farm as a kid with my uncle...which I pretty sure is totally illegal. :)
1. Re:is it still "transfer" if you're still present? by NoImNotNineVolt · 2013-04-29 07:52 · Score: 1
  
  In a vast majority of the United States, your plinking would have been entirely legal. I used to do this in my backyard in Maine. Abandoned gravel pits make for great backstops.
  
  Currently I live in a suburb in New Jersey (NJ having insanely strict gun laws). While I can't shoot at cans in my backyard anymore, that's due to a city ordinance. I'm not allowed to discharge firearms within "city" limits here. However, there are many less-developed areas, even in NJ, where there are no such ordinances.
  
  Check your laws, they're sometimes very reasonable. The common sense rules always apply though; be aware of your target, what is near it, what is in front of it, and (perhaps most importantly) what is behind it. And don't shoot across roadways!
  
  --
  Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
2. Re:is it still "transfer" if you're still present? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 08:59 · Score: 0
  
  It's your grandparents' farm, and so long as precautions are taken to ensure none of the lead leaves their property or enters anything it isn't supposed to there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING illegal with this.
3. Re:is it still "transfer" if you're still present? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 13:19 · Score: 0
  
  In the USA, with the exception of 1 or 2 states, handing a gun to a friend to shoot does not constitute a legal transfer provided the individual is not otherwise legally prohibited from handling firearms. Not that our politicians aren't trying to redefine "transfer" as witnessed by the recently failed Manchin-Toomey amendment that Schumer was trying to likewise amend that would have made handing a gun to a friend on private property to shoot a felony.
Different problems by MAXOMENOS · 2013-04-29 06:04 · Score: 1

This is intended to keep unauthorized users from using the firearm, not to help authorized users use their firearms intelligently
George Zimmerman was the intended user of his firearm. The same goes for J. E. Holmes. It might have prevented Adam Lanza from using guns to massacre kids in Newtown, if his mother had kept him locked out of the fingerprint registry. Or, he would have resorted to other and equally gruesome means.

--
Finding God in a Dog
Doubt it would work... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 06:05 · Score: 0

Doubt it would have worked in Adam Lanza's case. He was very computer literate and probably would have found a way to hack into the software that controls the fingerprints.
Re:How ironic.... by oodaloop · 2013-04-29 06:07 · Score: 3, Insightful

Are you comparing hundreds of accidents per hundreds of millions of firearms, to 30 ingestion incidents per, what, a hundred thousand magnets? MIght that be at all relevant? While we're at it, backyard pools kill far more kids under 6 than guns do. Is that reason to ban pools?

--
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
Preventing enemies from taking them? by BlindMaster · 2013-04-29 06:07 · Score: 1

Perhaps this is more useful in large war or battle then individual use.
Tanks may incorporate these to prevent enemies from taking advantages (such as against North Korean).
Other than triggering them, maybe loading or unloading ammo need a security check as well.
1. Re:Preventing enemies from taking them? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 06:46 · Score: 0
  
  The only practical use of this system is preventing you from being shot with your own gun if disarmed in an altercation (anyone who steals a gun and has time to tinker with it could add themselves to the authorized list). This would be of interest to police if and only if the gun is 100% reliable about firing when the correct user holds it. And would be of moderate value to private citizens who carry a gun in public.
  The military will not touch it. They care about reliability more than they do preventing unauthorized user.
2. Re:Preventing enemies from taking them? by PortHaven · 2013-04-29 07:19 · Score: 1
  
  Come on, the government can't even keep people from hacking and taking control of our drones.
  (If it saves just one million lives, never never ever ever let our government put nukes on drones.)
Updates are available by mtrachtenberg · 2013-04-29 06:09 · Score: 4, Funny

Pulls trigger. Nothing. Notices blinking LED by trigger. Looks at six character LCD display scrolling past. "15 updates are available, would you like to download now? Please tap once for yes, twice for no."
1. Re:Updates are available by schlachter · 2013-04-29 06:27 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  more like: Pulls trigger. Nothing. Turns gun sideways to get a closer look at a why it failed. Pulls trigger again. BAM.
  
  --
  My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
2. Re:Updates are available by omnichad · 2013-04-29 07:23 · Score: 1
  
  Also known as a Daffy gun.
3. Re:Updates are available by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 08:11 · Score: 0
  
  Good riddance to the trash that infects our society with their constant need of worthless security. You aren't a cowboy, your gun will never save you. Stop being stupid.
4. Re:Updates are available by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 08:46 · Score: 0
  
  I've had a couple of friends who have successfully discouraged attackers with firearms. You aren't just taking away firearms from Captain Tea Party, you are also taking away the firearm from the grandmother who is so set in her ways if she had pepper spray she'd never use it.
5. Re:Updates are available by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 11:10 · Score: 0
  
  Your comments are uninformed and hateful. Try educating yourself.
  Tough Targets - When Criminals Face Armed Resistance from Citizens
  Stories That Happened In MI
6. Re:Updates are available by readingaccount · 2013-04-29 13:40 · Score: 1
  
  If your gun doesn't fire but instead turns blue after pulling the trigger, you better believe it's a BSoD.
7. Re:Updates are available by Anonymous Coward · 2013-05-01 01:35 · Score: 0
  
  "PC LOAD LETTER" - wtf?
personal incredlity by SuperBanana · 2013-04-29 06:09 · Score: 0

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/personal-incredulity

--
Please help metamoderate.
What happens when you pull the trigger .. by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 06:10 · Score: 0

"When I pull the trigger, I want the gun to fire. I doubt this will be reliable enough to depend upon".

How about a device that wirelessly contacts the Feds and disables the gun if you've ever been involuntarily committed to a mental health facility ...
Smarter guns not the answer by TheSkepticalOptimist · 2013-04-29 06:11 · Score: 2

A smarter society would be a much better solution.

--
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
1. Re:Smarter guns not the answer by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 08:15 · Score: 0
  
  And we can get there if I could just fire this gun at the dummies...
2. Re:Smarter guns not the answer by Viewsonic · 2013-04-29 09:07 · Score: 1
  
  Impossible. Which is why this exists in the first place.
Re:How ironic.... by mark-t · 2013-04-29 06:18 · Score: 1

Are you under the impression that I am suggesting that guns should be banned?

--
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
If the cops use them... by PortHaven · 2013-04-29 06:21 · Score: 1

Then so will I and other citizens....
If not, then we'll never accept it. Not as a requirement.
1. Re:If the cops use them... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 09:53 · Score: 0
  
  What a silly requirement. Most cops use guns without a safety, yet many gunowners opt for a firearm with a safety. People also buy 410's, but you won't find law enforcement using those. It's all about your intended purpose.
false positive are not a problem by aepervius · 2013-04-29 06:24 · Score: 2

False negative are the problem. False positive are OK if they are low enough. Effectively even if there is a 20% false positive rate, that means 80% of the time somebody not you trying to use your gun will fail. Better than the current 0% failure 100% sucess today. Bad guys would find the gun less interresting to steal, if they can't get their hand on the reprogramming tech or it is too expansive (and it would still be easier to steal a classical one not needing reprogramming).

--
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
1. Re:false positive are not a problem by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 09:48 · Score: 0
  
  Seeing as the fingerprint system appears to modify existing guns, I don't see why a would-be criminal couldn't just take out the system and restore the gun to "classical" configuration. Guns generally are not that hard to disassemble/reassemble...
How is that smarter? by al.caughey · 2013-04-29 06:24 · Score: 1

I was hoping the gun would have some intelligence(?!?) that would prevent it from shoot children or family members
Of course, that's impossible so it's neither smarter or safer
So ? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 06:30 · Score: 0

A safe and a lock to put the gun has a much lower MTBF than above. Going by this you would rather leave your gun outside a safe than secure ?
1. Re:So ? by Runaway1956 · 2013-04-29 07:30 · Score: 2
  
  An expensive firearm locked inside of a safe has zero value. The intruder can come in, shoot you in the back while you're attempting to open the safe, then walk out with the safe, to open it up at his leisure at the auto wrecking yard.
  
  --
  "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
2. Re:So ? by kwiqsilver · 2013-04-29 12:22 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  A safe and a lock to put the gun has a much lower MTBF than above. Going by this you would rather leave your gun outside a safe than secure ?
  Are you saying that a gun on his hip (or my hip) is not secure? Or one on my computer desk (no kids in the house) within arm's reach? And no intelligent gun owner uses gun locks. All they do is force a thief to take the gun home to break the lock. And trigger locks are dangerous, because the possibility of a negligent discharge goes up dramatically when you stick things in the trigger guard.
3. Re:So ? by cusco · 2013-04-29 14:41 · Score: 0
  
  Why the frack would I want to put a gun in a safe? Safes are for money and jewelry, If you're too stupid to teach your kid not to touch the guns then you're too stupid to own guns in the first place.
  
  --
  "Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
4. Re:So ? by tehcyder · 2013-04-29 23:23 · Score: 1
  
  An expensive firearm locked inside of a safe has zero value. The intruder can come in, shoot you in the back while you're attempting to open the safe, then walk out with the safe, to open it up at his leisure at the auto wrecking yard.
  If you weren't armed the intruder wouldn't need to shoot you in the back, would he?
  
  --
  To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
5. Re:So ? by Runaway1956 · 2013-04-30 00:41 · Score: 1
  
  I'm sorry - did you have anything intelligent to say? It sounded to me like you have attempted to justify a home owner's murder by an intruder, by saying that he was trying to get to a weapon. The home owner owns a weapon, so he deserved to die, is that it?
  
  --
  "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
6. Re:So ? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-30 04:54 · Score: 0
  
  "no intelligent gun owner uses gun locks."
  Wow. I would like to see your sources for that comment. I assume you are basing that off of some guidance and not your own opinions.
  I am an intelligent gun owner and use gun locks religiously. I want to make sure that the odds of my child hurting himself with my weapons is as low as I can _reasonably_ make it. That means stored unloaded, trigger locked and in a gun safe.
  Gun locks are shipped with the weapons by the manufacturer with instructions that they should be used. Foster care regulations require gun locks for foster parents. The firearms instructor for the region's federal LEO's (he was also the range instructor at his airforce base) uses gun locks.
  Let's all stop pretending that we are using our guns for self-defense. We own guns because we like shooting them. Once we embrace that fact, then we will start storing our weapons safely and stop shooting ourselves in the foot. (pun intended)
Probability by Skillet5151 · 2013-04-29 06:31 · Score: 2

According to Miller, had smart gun technology been available to Nancy Lanza, she could have programmed her guns so that only her fingerprint could have activated them; she could have enabled her son to shoot them at a firing range and disabled them upon returning home, or she could have enabled them for her son to use all the time, Miller said.
"So without the technology, we went from zero percent chance of preventing the shootings to having the technology and a 66% chance of preventing it," Miller said. "Those are much better odds."
Wow. How...what...really? "There's three scenarios related to this event I can think of in my head right now and two of them would be better ergo 66% chance of improvement?"
When I walk outside I can either be hit by lightning or not be hit by lightning, so 50% chance right? What the fuck?
1. Re:Probability by moeinvt · 2013-04-29 08:48 · Score: 1
  
  That was my reaction as well. WTF?
  66% probability ... assuming there's a 0% chance of the technology being circumvented, even with physical access, 0% chance of the killer stealing the weapons while temporarily enabled and 0% chance that the lifeless or unconscious body of the owner could be used to enable them?
2. Re:Probability by Python · 2013-04-30 02:16 · Score: 1
  
  It's ever sillier than that, Adam Lanza mother was reported to have taken his son to the range to shoot her firearms. So it stands to reason, in the hypothetical, that she would have programmed the firearms to allow her son to shoot them, and if her son was like most young people today he probably would have had to do the programming for her. So it's a double fail, he likely would have already been allowed to shoot the, by his mother, and even if she tried to deny this to him he likely would have gotten around it.
  
  --
  Python
3. Re:Probability by gman003 · 2013-04-30 05:26 · Score: 1
  
  "All probabilities are 50%: either the thing will happen, or it won't".
Re:How ironic.... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 06:32 · Score: 0

I think it was silly that they were banned. BUT, there are some differences:
-the magnets were marketed as a toy. Most people understand that guns are lethal and should be kept away from children.
-the magnets are individually small and could be overlooked by an adult. So they're harder to keep away from children, since a couple could be scattered around the room unnoticed while the toddler is left to play. Guns are big enough to notice.
-the number of deaths isn't what should be compared, it's the rate. How many homes had those magnets, vs. how many people have guns? I bet guns are in a lot more homes than those magnets.
Gunny by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 06:32 · Score: 0

"It looks like you're trying to shoot someone:
Are you trying to:
-Save your life
-Save the life of a loved one
-Intimidate someone in traffic
-Something else"
Re:How ironic.... by mark-t · 2013-04-29 06:34 · Score: 1

I haven't suggested we ban guns.... I just find it ironic that something as simple as a product intended for entertainment can get banned on account of a small number of incidents when it's actually entirely safe for people to use as intended can be banned when there are other things with far greater numbers of accidents which don't get seem to really get touched.

--
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
false advertising by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 06:35 · Score: 0

Dang, I was hoping this would be about a gun that made people smarter after being shot with it.
How hard is it to bypass? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 06:36 · Score: 0

How effective would this be in practice? Ignoring exploits like cutting off a finger or using a piece of tape to transfer a fingerprint, how hard will it be to short the mechanism such that it bypasses the scanner entirely? Or to replace the trigger, firing pin, and hammer mechanisms with dumb versions that work all the time. Or to reset it such that you can add a new fingerprint. If all it does is provide a less reliable version of a trigger lock, what's the point?
I found the Newtown reference especially disingenuous. They mention three alternatives, but those don't seem equally likely. In particular, I think that the chance that the mother would have blocked the son from firing the guns entirely was ridiculously low. Similarly, the chance that she would have set the guns to only work when she authorized them seems unlikely. Who would want to always be going through the authorization/deauthorization process. Even if she was doing that, would she have been careful enough to avoid him taking the guns while he was authorized to shoot them?
Far from giving a 67% chance of preventing this tragedy, it would have probably been more like 6%. That's not nothing, but it hardly seems worth the risk of the guns not working when needed. And that all ignores the fourth alternative: the mother could have kept her existing guns without this technology. And the fifth alternative: that he would have figured out how to disable the smart protections. After all, he killed his mother. Would he have balked at cutting off her finger?
Re:Yeah this is going to be the stumbling block. by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 06:38 · Score: 0

"There was this well trained army veteren prosecutor, well trained too, had many guns at home and the assassin rang the doorbell and shot his wife. And chased him down and killed him before he could get to his gun. But nah, that is not the issue."
Hey douchebag, your ranting and raving would make more sense if you FUCKING LEARNED HOW TO USE THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.
Now go complain to someone who gives a flying fuck.
WARNING! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 06:38 · Score: 0

As soon as enough people start buying them like that, they will start including additional "features" like the ability for the police or military to disable them remotely.
I don't allow govornors on my car's accelerator, and I won't allow this either, and for the same reason. it must remain under MY control.
Re:How ironic.... by chispito · 2013-04-29 06:38 · Score: 1

While we're at it, the anti-ladder lobby has really dropped the ball.

Gun accidents kill hundreds of people EVERY. SINGLE. YEAR.
There were fewer than 30 ingestion incidents, *EVER*, with buckyball neodymium magnets that led to their being declared a health hazard and banned.
While I know the latter aren't protected constitutionally, doesn't that still strike people as being incredibly inconsistent?

--
The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
What does this accomplish? by PPH · 2013-04-29 06:40 · Score: 2

Someone picking up a dropped gun in a fight and using it against its owner? Probably. But someone like Lanza from stealing his mom's guns, opening them up and jamming the solenoid in the 'enabled' position? I doubt it.
Guns are remarkably simple mechanical devices. Stolen guns will have their interlock mechanisms filed down or superglued and placed on the black market.

--
Have gnu, will travel.
1. Re:What does this accomplish? by vux984 · 2013-04-29 07:22 · Score: 1
  
  "What does this accomplish?"
  "Someone picking up a dropped gun in a fight and using it against its owner? " - That's one scenario.
  But the main benefit I can see is that it would be that it would be another layer to help stops kids from accidentally firing the gun.
2. Re:What does this accomplish? by Kohath · 2013-04-29 07:29 · Score: 1
  
  Someone picking up a dropped gun in a fight and using it against its owner?
  That only happens to police officers. And only when there are no witnesses. Example:
  http://www.10news.com/news/investigations/brothers-claim-they-heard-the-moments-just-before-a-fatal-shooting-by-an-officer-in-mira-mesa02052013
3. Re:What does this accomplish? by Nidi62 · 2013-04-29 07:33 · Score: 1
  
  But the main benefit I can see is that it would be that it would be another layer to help stops kids from accidentally firing the gun.
  Lock up the firearm, or store it in a place unreachable by children. Keep safeties on (if applicable) and store the firearm unloaded and separate from ammunition. Teach any children that you have that firearms are not toys and should never be touched unless handed to them by you. Be a responsible gun owner and it will prevent more accidental shootings than this ever will.
  
  --
  The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
4. Re:What does this accomplish? by rhook · 2013-04-29 07:43 · Score: 1
  
  Just what I was thinking. In fact it would be simple to just pull the "smart" safety out and replace it with a regular one.
5. Re:What does this accomplish? by shutdown+-p+now · 2013-04-29 07:47 · Score: 1
  
  For responsible owners, trigger locks and gun safes take care of that. Trigger locks in particular are pretty much foolproof.
  For people who won't use either of the above, I doubt they'd buy a "smart gun" in the first place. They'll just get a Saturday night special and stick it into the bedroom table, loaded.
6. Re:What does this accomplish? by vux984 · 2013-04-29 07:57 · Score: 1
  
  Lock up the firearm, or store it in a place unreachable by children.
  There is no place unreachable by a child over about 5 years old. And locks? Your kids live with you, they'll know where the keys are. Combinations? Odds are they'll figure those out too. These are good measures to take, but hardly fool proof.
  Teach any children that you have that firearms are not toys and should never be touched unless handed to them by you.
  You mean my daughter and son would stop fighting if I just taught them that it was wrong and that they must respect each other. I've only been doing that for a decade and they still get into fights, so while its definitely the right approach, its hardly responsible parenting to assume your guns won't ever be misused simply because you taught your kids not to touch them.
  Be a responsible gun owner and it will prevent more accidental shootings than this ever will.
  So why isn't a fingerprint safety not just another part of being a responsible gun owner in a home with kids?
  Plus if I already have the guns locked up and out of reach, I've already accepted that they will be much less accessible in the canonical "home invasion self defense" scenario... If accepting that is a part of responsible gun ownership why exactly is a secondary safety so objectionable to you?
7. Re:What does this accomplish? by vux984 · 2013-04-29 08:11 · Score: 1
  
  For responsible owners, trigger locks and gun safes take care of that. Trigger locks in particular are pretty much foolproof.
  Well, except that any kid over about 5 can defeat them trivially. I assume your knows how to open the safe and where the keys are to the locks.
  A bit of peer pressure to "see the guns" and some decidedly bad judgement by the child is all it takes for a tragedy.
  Do I think smart guns are the answer to all our problems? Of course not, but I don't see them as a horrible idea that must be stamped out either. The intense levels of objection to it on slashdot is simply tin-foil-hat levels of absurd.
  For people who won't use either of the above, I doubt they'd buy a "smart gun" in the first place. They'll just get a Saturday night special and stick it into the bedroom table, loaded.
  Agreed. But just because something won't stop 100% of the problem doesn't mean its not worth doing.
8. Re:What does this accomplish? by shutdown+-p+now · 2013-04-29 08:19 · Score: 1
  
  Well, except that any kid over about 5 can defeat them trivially.
  Not really. There was a scandal recently where some (quite popular) gun safe models were shown to be easy to open - literally just banging them randomly would have done that - but a properly designed gun safe is not like that. It doesn't need to have a key, either - the best models either have an electronic code pad, or a fingerprint reader (or both).
9. Re:What does this accomplish? by vux984 · 2013-04-29 08:43 · Score: 1
  
  There was a scandal recently where some (quite popular) gun safe models were shown to be easy to open - literally just banging them randomly would have done that
  Yeah I was aware of those, and that's beyond pathetic, but its not what I was referring to. I assumed a good safe.
  It doesn't need to have a key, either - the best models either have an electronic code pad, or a fingerprint reader (or both).
  I wouldn't put it past my kids to know an electronic code. Either by watching me, or just knowing me.
  But the more interesting point about this is that we're back at square one. The "big objection" to smart guns is "oh noes, if it doesn't read my finger properly it'll get me killed as a valiantly defend my home..." if you put an electronic code and finger print reader on the safe... well then that could fail too, and you won't be able to get your guns out to shoot the people breaking into your home.
  Why is a finger print reader on the safe good, but on the gun bad?
10. Re:What does this accomplish? by shutdown+-p+now · 2013-04-29 08:56 · Score: 1
  
  But the more interesting point about this is that we're back at square one. The "big objection" to smart guns is "oh noes, if it doesn't read my finger properly it'll get me killed as a valiantly defend my home..." if you put an electronic code and finger print reader on the safe... well then that could fail too, and you won't be able to get your guns out to shoot the people breaking into your home. Why is a finger print reader on the safe good, but on the gun bad?
  Assuming we're talking specifically about firearms designed and intended to be used for self-defense, there are two different scenarios here. When you're assaulted outside of your home, you generally have very little time to react, which is precisely why most dedicated carry guns these days have no manual safeties (but compensate with a long and heavy trigger pull), and why the standard way to carry is with a round in the chamber.
  In case of a home invasion, you generally get a fair bit more time to prepare yourself before you have to face the assailant, so it is viable to store guns unloaded with ammo for them separately, and use safes etc. In case of biometric safes, they are in fact known to be not particularly reliable, but most include a regular keypad as a fallback option - the idea being that fingerprint reader is fast to swipe, and if it works, then it saves you a couple of seconds of time; but even if it doesn't work, the keypad (which is far more reliable) is still there, and you are still likely to have enough time to use it.
  So, the short answer is: a biometric gun safe (with a fallback) does not significantly compromise the ability to use a gun for self-defense in a typical real-world scenario where it would be involved, while a biometric gun lock on a carry piece does.
  But, of course, this only goes for firearms intended for defensive use, not for hunting guns or firearms.
  I think the real reason why there is objection to that stuff is because of the amount of complexity it adds to the firearm. Firearm actions are, mechanically, rather simple devices, with most trickery handled by tight tolerances and accurate timing, not by the complexity of the mechanism. I think there is a sort of emotional rejection of something that is part of the basic gun action, yet is so complicated that it can't even be properly serviced by the owner.
11. Re:What does this accomplish? by vux984 · 2013-04-29 10:26 · Score: 1
  
  When you're assaulted outside of your home, you generally have very little time to react, which is precisely why most dedicated carry guns these days have no manual safeties (but compensate with a long and heavy trigger pull), and why the standard way to carry is with a round in the chamber.
  And *perhaps* those guns shouldn't be smart guns, if acceptable reliability requirements can't be met. But there are lots of other guns.
  In case of a home invasion, you generally get a fair bit more time to prepare yourself before you have to face the assailan
  Generally if you have that kind of time, you have time to just escape, and that's a MUCH better use of your time.
  Getting into a shootout with a criminal is going to result in someone getting shot. There's no reason to assume its going to be them and not you, especially if you are out numbered.
  In case of biometric safes, they are in fact known to be not particularly reliable, but most include a regular keypad as a fallback option
  And then you are back to having an option your kid may know. Most peoples combinations are patterns, significant numbers/dates to them, and they are written down somewhere. Odds are the people who live in your house with you for years on end and more or less have the run of the place, will have opportunity to see you enter the code, be able to guess the combination, find where its written down, or even just brute force likely combinations if they are so inclined.
  But, of course, this only goes for firearms intended for defensive use, not for hunting guns or firearms.
  Right, I think smart guns for sports and hunting make a lot of sense.
  I think the real reason why there is objection to that stuff is because of the amount of complexity it adds to the firearm. Firearm actions are, mechanically, rather simple devices, with most trickery handled by tight tolerances and accurate timing, not by the complexity of the mechanism. I think there is a sort of emotional rejection of something that is part of the basic gun action, yet is so complicated that it can't even be properly serviced by the owner.
  Hmm...This is actually a really interesting point, and you are right. It does potentially change a gun into something that has a "complex black box component" in its critical operation path.
  Perhaps like with cars this aversion will gradually disappear. I myself have an emotional rejection of keyless push to start cars... I just *like* having a key, and turning it for example, and don't like push to start with remote fob systems. Similarly I don't like F1 style "electronic flappy paddle gearboxes" either, and prefer the old manual transmission with a clutch, and this is despite knowing that the F1 style gearboxes are higher performance, with faster shift times, etc.
  While I can point out all sorts of failure modes that only affect the new systems, the reality is that they are very reliable in practice. I know that my accusations while theoretically valid are largely baseless - and that in my case it is more just an emotional attachment to mechanical solutions than any real benefit to them.
  The same could well apply to guns, and its an interesting point that you raised.
12. Re:What does this accomplish? by lister+king+of+smeg · 2013-04-29 11:27 · Score: 1
  
  Lock up the firearm, or store it in a place unreachable by children.
  There is no place unreachable by a child over about 5 years old. And locks? Your kids live with you, they'll know where the keys are. Combinations? Odds are they'll figure those out too. These are good measures to take, but hardly fool proof.
  Teach any children that you have that firearms are not toys and should never be touched unless handed to them by you.
  You mean my daughter and son would stop fighting if I just taught them that it was wrong and that they must respect each other. I've only been doing that for a decade and they still get into fights, so while its definitely the right approach, its hardly responsible parenting to assume your guns won't ever be misused simply because you taught your kids not to touch them.
  Be a responsible gun owner and it will prevent more accidental shootings than this ever will.
  So why isn't a fingerprint safety not just another part of being a responsible gun owner in a home with kids?
  Plus if I already have the guns locked up and out of reach, I've already accepted that they will be much less accessible in the canonical "home invasion self defense" scenario... If accepting that is a part of responsible gun ownership why exactly is a secondary safety so objectionable to you?
  I and my sister fought all of the time when we were younger and we both knew where the guns ammo and keys to the gun locks were and we never even threatened each other with such a thing. But we were taught what guns would do. My father took us both out to the gun range and had us put a pumpkin or watermelon out down range he would them fire one shot at it then tell us to go put it back together. We of course responded that it was impossible. He then told us that is what happens when you shoot someone. He would then teach us how to use a gun and proper safety practices with the guns. Firearm education is the answer. Of course the people you are teaching also need to have some respect for human life, if they don't the are mentally unfit and should not be allowed near guns by reason of mental defect. And if you have a child with said mental defect you should keep your gun locked in a gunsafe with a combination lock and not alow them in the room when you unlock the gunsafe so that they will not be able to access the guns thus avoiding the lanza style tragedy.
  
  --
  ---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
13. Re:What does this accomplish? by vux984 · 2013-04-29 13:17 · Score: 1
  
  I and my sister fought all of the time when we were younger and we both knew where the guns ammo and keys to the gun locks were and we never even threatened each other with such a thing.
  I'm not particularly surprised by this. My kids fight, and they do things they're not supposed to, but they can be surprisingly responsible about other things.
  Firearm education is the answer.
  Education is definitely crucial, but nothing is 100% effective.
  At the end of the day, they ARE kids, making bad decisions is part of childhood, and its safe to assume that even with proper education some kids are going to make some poor decisions without falling to the level of "mentally unfit".
  If a thousand clones of your father educated a million kids... some of them are still going to make a bad call. The mistake is often as simple as succumbing to peer pressure to show a friend who doesn't have suitable education his dad's guns.
  It also doesn't help that all your teaching is undermined by the gun glorification culture we live in.
RFID by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 06:40 · Score: 0

For military, I'd think something like RFID chip in the both hands might work to pair a weapon to its owner with an LED on the weapon to show if active or not. Obviously this can be hacked/spoofed but would prevent immediate use of a weapon against the person who was carrying it. Chips in hands obviously isn't for the common gun owner but the military could require it. Not sure how this would work with the concept of something jamming the RFID transmission.
This is like the LG smart fridge by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 06:43 · Score: 0

It solves no obvious problem and can't be used in cold weather or other conditions when gloves are required.
RF ID? by FuzzyDustBall · 2013-04-29 06:43 · Score: 1

I always thought that smart guns would be better implemented with a sub dermal RFID. It would make it alot more reliable,
Re:How ironic.... by mark-t · 2013-04-29 06:48 · Score: 1

The magnets were marketed as a toy... but most definitely *NOT* intended for children. The product was very plainly labelled as such.
It's idiotic parents who gave such toys to small children that were the real problem, not the toy itself. Just as certainly as the parents are wholly to blame when one of them leaves a loaded gun lying around where their kids can potentially handle it.

--
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Re:How ironic.... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 06:51 · Score: 0

Why do gun people insist on turning every conversation about gun safety into an emotional confrontation?
oh god, the irony.
This forum is full of fun freaks by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 06:51 · Score: 0

Hey guys
The rest of the world thinks that attitudes to guns in the United States are pretty fucked up. The contributors to this thread seem to be largely confirming those perceptions. But here is a fun mental exercise for you. In at the word did of in place of the word gun in each post above. Much more interesting in sight in to the dynamics of the fun debate.
1. Re:This forum is full of fun freaks by cold+fjord · 2013-04-29 11:36 · Score: 1
  
  The rest of the world thinks that attitudes to guns in the United States are pretty fucked up.
  No, not the entire world, although certainly many Europeans and leftists in general. But here is some material for you to gain some insights.
  Tough Targets - When Criminals Face Armed Resistance from Citizens
  Stories That Happened In MI
  Two Cautionary Tales of Gun Control
  Self-Defense: An Endangered Right
  
  The withdrawal of a basic right of Englishmen is having dire consequences in Great Britain, and should serve as an object lesson for Americans. Today, in the name of public safety, the British government has practically eliminated the citizens’ right to self-defense. That did not happen all at once. The people were weaned from their fundamental right to protect themselves through a series of policies implemented over some 80 years. Those include the strictest gun regulations of any democracy, legislation that makes it illegal for individuals to carry any article that could be used for personal protection, and restrictive limits on the use of force in self-defense. . . .
  England has worse crime rate than the US, says Civitas study
  Cheers
  
  --
  much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Re:How ironic.... by Skillet5151 · 2013-04-29 06:52 · Score: 1

If regulatory inconsistency is amusing to you then you've got an incredible amount of entertainment at your fingertips. Sorry some government bureaucrat feels the need to protect us all from negligently swallowing magnets, you seem to have described a lovely example of unnecessary restrictions.
Re:How ironic.... by misexistentialist · 2013-04-29 06:55 · Score: 1

Buckyballs could be banned because they were new , just like "assault weapons" could be banned. Trying to prohibit swimming pools or shotguns would be a different story even though they are actually more hazardous. So there is a consistency even though it's not logical.
Re:How ironic.... by mark-t · 2013-04-29 06:56 · Score: 1

I never said I found it amusing. I said I found it ironic. Stupidly ironic, in fact

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File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
gloves? by still+cynical · 2013-04-29 07:00 · Score: 1

Wonder what they plan to do with these things in the winter. For that matter, if they want to sell to police or the military, they're going to tell the potential buyers that they can't wear gloves at all? How well does this mechanism handle dirt, mud or blood? None of those things are unusual in combat, nor in the field for LEOs.

--
Ignorance is the root of all evil.
Steal the gun ... by PPH · 2013-04-29 07:03 · Score: 1

... flash the NVRAM.
So we have to prevent that from happening. No doubt, there will be a unique hardware reset key, available upon request from the manufacturer. Which means key management and a record of who legally owns each weapon.
No thanks. If you want to register guns, just say so.

--
Have gnu, will travel.
1. Re:Steal the gun ... by rhook · 2013-04-29 07:46 · Score: 1
  
  Or you could just rip out the mechanism and replace it with a regular one.
Or by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 07:06 · Score: 1

"You do not have permission to fire this gun."
"sudo Fire gun!"
"Please enter sudo password"
*BLAM YOUR ALREADY DEAD*
1. Re:Or by Bigby · 2013-04-29 07:35 · Score: 1
  
  And when you give the wrong password, it waits 5 seconds before the next attempt.
2. Re:Or by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 08:13 · Score: 0
  
  Worse is when you give the password correctly and it automatically remembers that for five minutes.
gloves, grease, dirty hands..? by jethr0211 · 2013-04-29 07:09 · Score: 1

tell me again - how does this nifty tech read your fingerprint through your gloves or other coating?
Re:How ironic.... by PortHaven · 2013-04-29 07:10 · Score: 1

Why aren't pools, cars, and doctors banned?
Re:How ironic.... by PortHaven · 2013-04-29 07:11 · Score: 1

Yes, based upon the implication of your post, I am.
Hope you don't wear gloves when you need it. by CaseOfThaMondays · 2013-04-29 07:14 · Score: 1

I bike and during the winter I wear gloves, with this I would have to remove them before I could fire it? There's got to be a better solution.

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thats pretty much my best post ever. I spent like 3 hours typing it.
Re:Yeah this is going to be the stumbling block. by PortHaven · 2013-04-29 07:15 · Score: 1

Does anyone in the world know what this guy is talking about?
So because an assasin can kill an army lawyer, this means we gun nuts live in a fantasy world?
Re:Yeah this is going to be the stumbling block. by PortHaven · 2013-04-29 07:17 · Score: 1

Oh and you prove our point that milliseconds matter. You outline a case in which the man did not have enough time. We already know we don't have enough time during a home invasion. So why would we want to risk losing more needless seconds.
And we're not so much worried about losing 6 milliseconds, as we are of losing seconds or even minute or even our life, if said electronic device failed to operate correctly.
Re:How ironic.... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 07:28 · Score: 0

I think a better comparison would be one of the following...
How many accidents involving a Glock 19 9mm vs involving buckyball neodymium magnets?
How many accidents involving guns vs involving rare earth metals?
Or maybe 1 injury per 21.5 million individual magnet pieces vs 1 injury per "X" rounds of ammo.
I shoot with gloves by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 07:32 · Score: 0

I shoot with gloves, not because I'm a criminal but because I don't like all the soot and lead particles getting absorbed into my skin.
After a few rounds, my gloves are filthy!
This technology will not work for me.
Stupid idea. by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 07:33 · Score: 0

And if I'm wearing gloves? If my hands are dirty or covered in blood? If I'm incapacitated and someone else might be able to pick my gun up and save me with it? Stupid technology for a serious duty weapon. Only worthwhile for a range toy.
failing at first by argStyopa · 2013-04-29 07:35 · Score: 1

Will it fire when my fingers are covered in zombie gore?
No?
Then no thanks.
The fact is that firearms are TOOLS. They kill things. To damn firearms for all the people they kill (including suicides) is like damning hammers for all the nails they pound in. If someone uses a gun to commit suicide, technically, they're using a pretty good tool for the job.
To directly harm the utility of the tool in order to make it safe is an argument that's failing in first principles.
Of course, we're all to uncomfortable to acknowledge that simply, some people are not responsible enough to handle these kinds of dangerous tools. Rather than actually point that out, we're trying to remove the ability of every civilian to use them - brilliant. Just brilliant.

--
-Styopa
Dumb by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 07:49 · Score: 0

So all weapons with this technology becoma inert pieces of plastic and metal as soon as an EMP event occurs.. Yeah, smart alright..
Can imageine a whole division suddenly becoming non-combatants because their weapons no longer function. Idiot idea.
Yeah, that's got lead balloon all over it by Overzeetop · 2013-04-29 07:51 · Score: 1

Riiiight. The same people who don't want background checks are going to just fine with an implanted RFID tag.
I would love to see that conversation take place, if only to watch all of the heads explode.

--
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
1. Re:Yeah, that's got lead balloon all over it by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-30 06:42 · Score: 0
  
  The same people who don't want background checks are going to just fine with an implanted RFID tag.
  Most gun owners support background checks, the ones who don't are the criminal gun owners. What legal gun owners don't support is requiring a background check just to loan a gun to your buddy who wants to try one out before he buys it. Universal background checks A) don't work without a registry and B) restrict your ability to dispose of your own personal property, property that is protected by the US constitution.
Not good for military use by detain · 2013-04-29 07:51 · Score: 1

Electronics fail, things go wrong. Adding more possible points of failure to the people that depend on a single shot firing perfectly seems absurd. This technology I think is great and should be required for all consumer sold weapons. I doubt that active military weapons are frequently used against us and I'm sure that they keep much tighter control on their weapons already. Additional components will also mean retraining of the weapons so they can be properly maintained. This would cost an insane amount of money to retrain soldiers as well as replacing current weapons.

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http://interserver.net/
Gun Control Implications by Le_Coupable · 2013-04-29 07:52 · Score: 1

This could be an interesting method for gun control. If an internet connection is required, a "banned" status could be linked to the fingerprints of felons and those who have been determined to be mentally ill by a court of law. I effect, no one who has been tagged could fire a gun. (I am ignoring the logistics involved. Just a thought experiment).
Re:How ironic.... by IndustrialComplex · 2013-04-29 08:19 · Score: 1

What was the market penetration of Buckyballs? Did they achieve saturation levels of firearms in the US?
Another problem with Buckyballs (and I have a bunch on my desk as I type) is that when you drop them, they scatter and cling. It would be very easy for them to 'contaminate' an area. I expect that after I leave for my next assignment, the person who inherits my desk will be finding little magnets on the lamp, edges of drawers, etc. In my office, that's not an issue (I hope), but at my home, I actually did become rather worried that I might lose a couple of the magnets and my children could find them (Kids find EVERYTHING).
With a firearm, I'm not worried about them getting lost under the stove, or stuck to the lamp. I don't run the risk of losing one while I'm handling them.
So I can see that buckyballs could actually become quite a serious problem if left in the market for a long time. I honestly could see it being an issue like lead paint in homes. Obviously a bit easier to cleanup, but quite easily a contaminant.

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Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
just great! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 08:28 · Score: 0

I will catalog that with self-flying jet liners and self-eating watermelons and a few other oxymorons.
This is silly. by Karmashock · 2013-04-29 08:33 · Score: 1

Yes, there are incidents where some kid takes his father's gun out and accidentally or intentionally kills someone or something that he shouldn't.
That said, the overwhelming majority of undesirable shootings wouldn't be stopped by fingerprint reading guns.
Furthermore, this is a radically less useful weapon in general. For one thing you have to charge up it's batteries which means you can't leave the gun in a safe place and then count on it operating months later. For another, the damn thing is likely to misread your print occasionally.
The fingerprint reading gun is stupid. Tell you what, get law enforcement or the US military to touch this thing with a ten foot pole and maybe it might be ready. Short of that... keep it in the comic books or the funnies.

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Target Audience (pun intended) by Tweezak · 2013-04-29 08:36 · Score: 1

The logic is flawed right out of the gate even before you consider any of the logistical issues with a shooter = owner confirmation scheme.
Here's the deal. A parent who lets their kid get hold of their gun or a gun owner who doesn't lock up their weapons and they are stolen and used in a crime have at least one thing in common: neither of them thought they had a problem to begin with.
My question then is: why does this company think anyone is going to buy one of these if their intended customer already doesn't think they are at risk?
I'll stick with my Glocks with NO safety. One of the primary reasons I chose them was because of that. I've read that many police officers have been shot because they forgot to switch off the safety on their duty pistol. Many other people have been shot accidentally because they relied on the safety which either wasn't activated or failed. Either way - it's misplaced trust in an imperfect safety device. The proposed system will obviously be many times more complex and subsequently even less reliable.
Maybe people will choose these guns because if given the choice between one that might not function in the wrong hands and one that will fire every time they feel better with the extra measure of control. I fear, however, that it will just be another cause of people getting complacent and lazy about proper training and handling. They will assume that the gun will not go off so they let their six year old play with it. Trust me...it will happen.
Re:How ironic.... by KiloByte · 2013-04-29 08:39 · Score: 1

Entertainment serves no vital purpose, self-defense does. That changes the threshold for acceptable danger.
Of course, this doesn't answer the question who gave the government rights to ban fun toys because "think of the children".

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The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Battery by DarthVain · 2013-04-29 08:44 · Score: 1

Seriously, other than multiple other flaws, how is this going to work with a battery?
Is it going to have a cord so you can plug it in? Sorry power cord won't reach! :) Or even if it has a battery , you pick it up and the battery is dead, so useless... and how might you charge it? Like an iPhone? And how is that going to work when locked in a safe or gun cabinet?
Reload! No no no. Reload the batteries! lol
Oxymoron by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 09:00 · Score: 0

fool-proof gun
Oxymoron
Re:How ironic.... by mark-t · 2013-04-29 09:08 · Score: 1

Reread it. You are mistaken.

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File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Re:How ironic.... by UneducatedSixpack · 2013-04-29 09:34 · Score: 1

Exploding magnets would have done just fine. Second amendment and all that. Stupid manufacturer.
Stupid Idea that will fail by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 09:43 · Score: 0

Stupid Idea that will fail miserably.
Electricity + gun powder + projectiles by bussdriver · 2013-04-29 09:52 · Score: 1

Perfect crime= internet hack + your gun as the murder weapon left at the scene
OR
Perfect crime= "But it's not even my gun! I've never even held a gun before!" Now, members of the jury, how can you believe a statement like that when his fingerprints were the only ones programed into the murder weapon?

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Politicians and people who know nothing about guns by Skynyrd · 2013-04-29 09:56 · Score: 1

This is going to be a market failure, because the only people to support things like this are the people who don't buy guns.
To all the anti-gun folks out there... you may wonder why gun laws are universally hated by gun owners. It's mostly because the laws are proposed by people who know nothing about guns.
As an example, here's a woman who has been her career trying to "stop gun violence". She's the co-sponsor of a bill to outlaw high capacity magazines.
US Rep Diana DeGette, from Denver.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfngrMVzH0s
In this snip of video she's asked how banning large capacity magazines will change the current situation, because there are so many of them out there. Her response is that as people shoot, the number will decrease as they are used up. She's co-sponsoring legislation to ban a product that she has no clue about.
Hint for the non shooters out there: magazines are re-loadable. Much like you can put more gas into the gas tank of your car, you can also put more bullets into a magazine. I wonder if she buys a new gar every time she uses all the gas in it?
Her response to the criticism? Blaming the NRA for twisting her words. WTF?
Until the anti-gun crowd finds some people with a clue, they just aren't going to get support from the gun people.
HERF bait if used by the military... by couchslug · 2013-04-29 10:07 · Score: 1

...or LEO.
Oh frabjous day!. I really want to deploy with a weapon that might not work if I get too close to ground radar, a welder (especially TIG), an aircraft radar, or other gear. Of course EMP weapons are a threat too, but there is good reason that hundreds of years of firearm designs have so many similarities.
Also, the military nowadays uses tactical GLOVES, because personal protective equipment isn't just for the workshop.

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Re:Wow! Geeks with guns, now that's scary!! by cold+fjord · 2013-04-29 11:14 · Score: 1

Figure it out.
Some Techies Hear Call of the Shooting Range
Tough Targets - When Criminals Face Armed Resistance from Citizens
Stories That Happened In MI

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much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Re:Wow! Geeks with guns, now that's scary!! by cold+fjord · 2013-04-29 11:23 · Score: 1

Almost overlooked your probable provenance. Sorry lad, you're in a bit of a hard place there, but I can understand your confusion over the rights enjoyed by American citizens.
Self-Defense: An Endangered Right

The withdrawal of a basic right of Englishmen is having dire consequences in Great Britain, and should serve as an object lesson for Americans. Today, in the name of public safety, the British government has practically eliminated the citizens’ right to self-defense. That did not happen all at once. The people were weaned from their fundamental right to protect themselves through a series of policies implemented over some 80 years. Those include the strictest gun regulations of any democracy, legislation that makes it illegal for individuals to carry any article that could be used for personal protection, and restrictive limits on the use of force in self-defense. . . .

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much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Adding Value to My Body Parts by stygian · 2013-04-29 11:38 · Score: 1

Reliability issues aside, I don't want to add value to my body parts. Consider the older gentleman in The Avengers whose retina was the key to unlocking access to that rock they needed to open the portal. Things didn't work out so well for his eye. It's a ridiculous example, of course. Still, I don't want to unnecessarily increase the chances that someone might want to lop off one of my fingers because it's the key to firing a gun. I like my fingers the way they are presently.
So a person that is sick enough to kill by Izuzan · 2013-04-29 11:41 · Score: 1

So they think someone who was sick enough in the head to kill his own mother, and then kill 20 + small children with multiple gunshots each wouldn't be sick enough to cut someones fingers off to unlock said gun ?
These companies proposing these things think they are dealing with sane and rational people with their technology. it all falls to pieces when they are dealing with someone that will stop at nothing to do what they want. the guy in question obliterated his mothers face with a 22.lr why would he stop and think "oh damn the gun is keyed to her finger prints i cant do it anymore" no he is going to think "hmmm il just kill her. cut off a finger and we are good to go"
Re:How ironic.... by Greyfox · 2013-04-29 12:33 · Score: 1

It wouldn't have been a problem if they'd just designed the magnets to be fired out of a gun.

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I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Even rain would prevent this from reading by spazmonkey · 2013-04-29 13:39 · Score: 1

Personally, I have only had to shoot one human being in my life, and it unluckily happened to be one where my strong hand was wrapped in bandages and a brace from injuries sustained shortly beforehand. In my case, a weapons system equipped in this way would have failed to function. Same with any grit, ooze, or even water from rain, forget battery or electronics failure or any other environmental issue. No way. Not even close.
I wonder by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 14:38 · Score: 0

what an EMP,. or microwaves would do to one of these?
Can you imagine an army equipped with these? One EMP and they're toast.
Disable it by Cyfun · 2013-04-29 15:05 · Score: 1

Considering how small and simple guns are, would it be that hard to simply disassemble it and remove the fancy gadgetry attached to the safety catch, or just file it down?

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In Soviet Russia, dot slashes YOU!
Military? Seriously? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 16:07 · Score: 0

Do they seriously think the military will use this? Adding all that complexity on top of the gun is just more chances for failure. In a combat situation that translates into really bad results. If the mechanism fails even once it could kill somebody. Not worth the risk considering that the enemy will never use this and therefore put our troops at a disadvantage.
What Next? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 16:20 · Score: 0

Dang! I just bricked my gun applying OS update while having non-proprietary ammo loaded.
Whats the next version? I need the cloud to verify my finger? Thats going to be great in third world countries with no internet access (raises middle finger to the sky)
Re:How ironic.... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-29 18:28 · Score: 0

it could be a reason to get rid of the pool while you have young children. We filled up our pool with sand so none of our small kids could fall into it.
As the old saying goes, the two most scary sounds by Ihlosi · 2013-04-29 20:16 · Score: 1

.. are a *bang* when you expected a click, and a click when you really, really wanted a *bang*.
I guess this system will increase the occurence of scary sounds of the second kind.
Pointless excercise by swamp_ig · 2013-04-30 00:19 · Score: 1

You're statistically more likely to shoot a member of your own family than an intruder if you own a gun.
Re:How ironic.... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-30 02:58 · Score: 0

Entertainment helps to give us a quality of life that is actually worth defending in the first place.
I'd call that pretty vital.
The Dominator by konoame · 2013-04-30 04:10 · Score: 1

Soon we'll have this http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120913222314/psychopass/images/b/b8/Gun212.jpg
lol goofy people by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-30 04:29 · Score: 0

lol let me preface the discussion "waa I'm a crotchety old man, I like the way things are and forming unqualified opinions, this gun will never work, progress is doomed." They'll argue against people who in 50 years will say "waa I'm a crotchety old man, I like the way things are, I want reliable kinetic weapons none of this energy stuff"
....business failure in.... by DrStoooopid · 2013-04-30 04:40 · Score: 1

Lol

Counting in

3....
2..... ........

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Wtf? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-30 04:52 · Score: 0

One story of a woman being raped when her gun doesn't recognize her this company is gone.
The Sales Pitch by nickserv · 2013-04-30 05:58 · Score: 1

I wonder if the gun lobby will be quoting the statistic they very much like to ignore in order to sell this gun? "Reduces or eliminates the possibility of you being shot with your own gun which, as people have been telling us for quite some time now, the odds of increase substantially when you take possession of a gun. Also, it will prevent your gun from being used without your authorization."
I can see this tech introducing a lot of investigative and prosecutorial cans-of-worms too.

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Less *is* more.
Bang! Oh dear. by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-30 06:18 · Score: 0

You'd be a bit fkd if you shot off your own auth finger in a struggle.
beyond retarded by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-30 07:06 · Score: 0

If this is forced on anyone, those doing the forcing should suffer the utmost consequences. The consequences are far more devastating than any possible potential problem they claim to want to solve. The 'good news' is that modifying the weapons will doubtlessly be cheap and easy for those in the criminal underground arms market. The bad news is that you will have to take off your glove to fire in cold weather, assuming the electronics will function at that temperature. It also brings up the question of what if your hand is covered in mud at any temperature. I also wonder how many people have been trained from infancy to look down a gun barrel if it fails to fire - like every other cartoon portrays.
This would truly be hilarious if not for the dangerous consequences.
Terrible idea by nessman · 2013-04-30 07:07 · Score: 1

Will I expect to hear modem tones squealing from my gun as it boots up before I can fire it? What if the "smart" stuff in the gun crashes? How reliable will it be in a device that gets dirty, greasy, cleaned with solvents, subject to high pressures and forces from the gun firing? I wouldn't trust my life to it. Guns have been mechanically simple for centuries for a reason.
Bottom line - my guns have no safeties. I didn't wait 8 months for a full unrestricted carry-concealed pistol permit from the Peoples Republic of New York only to be further hamstrung by needless safeties that only serve to make the gun useless if they fail.
Don't limit my ability to defend myself because some mentally insane fucktard from Connecticut or Colorado decided to go out and kill for thrills.
We didn't have these problems when we locked up mentally ill people until the 1980's.
not the problem by MA179 · 2013-04-30 07:36 · Score: 1

How about if the gun owner had kept the guns out of the hands of her know-to-be-unstable son? Wouldn't that have resulted in a 0% chance of her guns being used? Note that I'm not saying a 0% change of a tragedy, the kid was a disaster waiting to happen and people knew it and didn't try to stop it. I didn't blame the car when the drunk driver killed my cousin, I didn't blame the Bar, the distillery, other drivers, the car manufacturer, or the fact that cars are easily available. No, I blamed the driver!!! Also his license had already been suspended. I don't know where he is today, but I know he isn't rotting in jail as he should be. On another note, more people are injured or killed in car accidents where speeding is a factor than are injured or killed by firearms. How about we require a governor limiting speed to 65MPH in all cars? This has been technologically viable since 1985 when wide scale use of electronic control systems became reality.....and yes I'm kidding. BTW this isn't a new idea, I remember reading about a similar system with a wrist transmitter and grip receiver decades ago. I bet it's failure rate would be lower than a finger print reader, but where is it today? VC don't put money into this kind of thing because they know it’s not going anywhere.
Smart gun in 1995 by iMactheKnife · 2013-04-30 10:00 · Score: 1

I offered a smart gun design to S&W and Glock in 1995 that had a fingerprint system and had diamonds in the chamber that marked the bullet with a coded pattern identifying the gun. They both rejected the design with prejudice.
A few years later I started my own gun collection and discovered why. Getting the gun to fire with gloves on, a band-aid, or a clumsy grip are only part of the issues. Like getting into your car with a fingerprint reader in an emergency with a thug chasing you in an ice storm.
Re:How ironic.... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-30 16:38 · Score: 0

No.. But it sounds like a good idea to ban the dangerous and lethal substance usually found in pools, DHMO.
Pipe Dreams of the gun grabbers by Anonymous Coward · 2013-05-04 17:03 · Score: 0

What happens if your hand is covered with mud like from rolling around on the ground with a suspect or an attacker or covered with blood from a gunshot or knife wound and you can't fire your weapon because it won't read your finger prints? I can't see any cops or military willing to take such risks in carry a firearm like that, I know I would NEVER consider a weapon like that for self defense.