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Hardly Anyone Is Buying 'Smart Guns'
Daniel_Stuckey writes "The technology is here. So-called 'smart guns' are being programmed to recognize a gun owner's identity and lock up if the weapon ends up in the wrong hands. Entrepreneurs and engineers have been developing technology to make safer guns since the early '90s, and by now we've got working prototypes of guns that read fingerprints, hand grips or even sensors embedded under the skin. But after 15 years of innovation, personalized guns still haven't penetrated the marketplace."
Any technology that prevents the accidental death of irresponsible gun owners' children is simply interfering with natural selection.
Why is very simple, people don't trust them. They use technology to prevent a simple mechanical device from working, which do you think is more likely to break?
Guns are life-saving devices when used by the police or military. Murphy's Law says it all, and if their life-saving device won't function for whatever reason they are dead. Period.
Then there is also the old remote-control problem like using a magnetic or EM/RFI field to jam the gun's mechanism and render it useless remotely, but I'm sure they already addressed this, right? Right?
Bottom line is no one trusts the technology, it's too new, unproven, and an introduction of multiple points of failure in an otherwise tested and time-proven technology.
-- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
1: Don't need another point of failure introduced, if the reader doesn't recognize it's owner at the worst possible moment when he needs to fire a gun.
2: Price hike. I expect there would be a hefty price jump with these newfangled electronic gizmos.
3: Remote killswitch? The police can kill your car's engine and disable your gun with a simple command. So can hackers.
Also, are batteries included? I don't think people want to charge up their guns, unless they're shooting plasma bolts.
Trigger locks and safes will do the same thing, and not mess up and get you killed when you need it to work.
Why would anyone buy this? Its a horrible product idea. Take a reliable device and fuck with it. All I want is to know that when I point and click it goes off. Not, my hand isn't held right, the battery is dead, i'm in a fight and its covered in mud, or its just dusty and it malfunctions. Or even worse and a delay, which could cause you to be off target or allow someone else to enter the sight picture. It is a self defeating idea. If you are worried about child protection, buy a safe, teach your kid gun safety. Carry it with you. I could go on for ever.
If Murphy had used a smart gun, he wouldn't have been shot with his own gun.
On the other hand, he then wouldn't have become Robocop neither.
The answer is: pretty often.
Numbers are argued over constantly, so I won't bother quoting any, but this subreddit is relevant: http://www.reddit.com/r/dgu
RUGBYRUGBYRUGBY
You've got it right in one. The biggest issue is one of trust. I don't trust the gun to not screw up when I need it the most.
I don't trust the technology to work when the gun needs to be rekeyed to a new owner upon resale (assuming that's even possible. Wouldn't surprise me if the intial models are imprint once and that's it). Or when I want to rent a gun and test fire it before I purchase.
I don't trust the technology to not have some kind of back door making the firearm able to be disabled, even when I'm the keyed owner and I pull the trigger.
As for safety... give me a break. My first firearms instructor put it best 'Your finger is the safety'. If I put my finger on the trigger, it means the discharge of my weapon is imminent unless circumstances change *really* quick.
About the only way this will work is for manufacturers to offer it as a cheaper alternative (aka, the Android business model) in order to spur adoption, and then increase cost as it became more mainstream.
The vast majority of firearms deaths are caused by people pulling the trigger on purpose, and a smart gun does nothing to prevent that decision.
It depends.
I carry a sidearm with me pretty much everywhere I go (as allowed by state law, anyway). I reside in Georgia, and I have in fact carried my sidearm in plain view on MARTA and in the public areas of Hartsfield-Jackson.
I've never had to use it, never even had to draw it, and $DEITY willing, I never will.
It's presence on my hip has acted as a deterrent to what would have very likely resulted in at least a 911 call, if not a trip to the emergency room or the morgue on two occasions. Downtown Atlanta is not a friendly place at 3am.
A disarmed populace is just a crop of victims waiting to be harvested. Contrary to popular belief, most folks who legally carry a firearm are not cowboys out looking for a reason to go shoot somebody up. Most of us take the responsibility of carrying a firearm very seriously, and we do so because we understand that the world at large is not a friendly place. I am an honest and true believer that it's better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.
As a sportsman, a gun owner, a CCW license holder, and an avid shooter, I guess I will weigh in here.
For one thing, if I ever have to use a gun quickly, it's in a circumstance where (God forbid) my life or the life of someone else is at risk. There is no room for error in that situation. How do I know this system will work? Sure, it probably works, but why take the risk when other weapons don't have that point of failure?
Another thing is that a lot of these systems rely on the user wearing something for the weapon to be useable, which creates a second point of failure. The user has to be wearing it, and the system has to work.
The point is fair that the overwhelming majority of weapons used street crime are stolen, not purchased lawfully. Systems that disabled a gun after it was stolen might have some value there. But to me, mine are kept in a safe that is secured to the floor in my house - they aren't getting stolen, so that doesn't concern me.
I also forgot to add, the old canard about the gun being taken away from you in an encounter with a criminal and being used against you is so astronomically rare that statistics have never been been able to be documented about it. That is not a concern.
The one thing folks can never be free of is human nature, whether their own or that of another.
Civility is only accomplished by the mutual agreement of all participants. Not everyone is willing to participate.
I agree with you in that it would be ideal to not have a need at all, but there hasn't been a society in the history of the world that has been free from a criminal or oppressive element.
However, I have to live in the real world where there are people who are more than willing to do me and mine harm if presented with the opportunity. I choose to eliminate the possibility of becoming a victim as much as I possibly can.
I cannot conceive of a circumstance where I would be intimidated by the abundant presence of guns, while in the absence of belligerent people. The presence of belligerent people on the other hand, may intimidate me without the presence of guns. It's clear to me that guns are not what make a place dangerous.
Learning about brewing beer, by brewing beer.
We may be the land of the free...but that doesn't mean there arent bad people here out to take advantage of the unwary. he mentioned atlanta; he's right. It's not a nice place in the wee hours. Hell, there's places you just don't go even in broad daylight, especially if you're the wrong color.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Guns are, however, what makes belligerent people dangerous. Hence the focus on extensive background checks.
No. Belligerent people are ALREADY dangerous. If they're going to be dangerous, they'll do it whether or not they have a gun, box cutter, knife, baseball bat, etc.
But the various mental defectives out there latch on to GUNS being the culprit and not belligerent assholes.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
A disarmed populace is just a crop of victims waiting to be harvested. Contrary to popular belief, most folks who legally carry a firearm are not cowboys out looking for a reason to go shoot somebody up. Most of us take the responsibility of carrying a firearm very seriously, and we do so because we understand that the world at large is not a friendly place. I am an honest and true believer that it's better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.
Isn't this viewpoint as sad testament as to the state of the land of the free?
In a civilised country the populace shouldn't feel that they need to carry a weapon when walking the streets to be safe.
I believe that its better to not have the need to carry than to carry just in case.
From a straight humanist POV, yes it's a sad commentary.
OTOH, civilization only works when everyone follows the same rules. Hence the problem of criminals who, by definition, refuse the social contract of civilization.
And yes, not having the need to carry is INFINITELY better than carrying "just in case". HOWEVER, we live in the real world. Where a small subset of the population make the first an unrealistic option.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
In a civilised country the populace shouldn't feel that they need to carry a weapon when walking the streets to be safe.
I always find it to be a peculiar blend of amusing and depressingly facepalm-worthy when people talk about "civilization" to mean "sticking our heads in the sand and pretending human nature is the opposite of what it is."
Attempting to shoot someone in the foot is stupid and dangerous. Extremities are very small and difficult to hit and shooting at possibly hard ground can cause a ricochet which would put others in danger. If you are shooting at a person, you shoot for center of mass. If the situation doesn't require lethal force, you shouldn't bring a weapon into the situation.
You mad
You ask us to assume that a gun is the same as any other weapon.
Excuse me, perhaps you do not know what a gun is.
A gun is a device that is pretty much guaranteed to maim or kill--with a single use--a selected target, at a distance and almost instantly. It requires almost no real physical effort on the part of the user. Multiple uses can be accomplished pretty much as quickly as you can point, squeeze your finger, release, and point again.
This works really well for cancelling out advantages of size/weight/strength such as otherwise might be of concern to... I dunno... say, a skinny 16-year-old kid who's got a very big grudge against a high school teachers' lounge full of adults half again as big as he is.
Ah, but such things don't really happen except in our paranoid imaginations.
How anyone in his right mind can imply that such a device is qualitatively no different than, say, a baseball bat or a straight razor is simply beyond me.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
I reside in Georgia, and I have in fact carried my sidearm in plain view on MARTA and in the public areas of Hartsfield-Jackson.
I'm somewhat dubious that you carried openly in an airport unless you were wearing a uniform at the time or this was a LONG time ago. However even if you did I have to ask, WHY? Nobody is going to attack you in an airport that you are going to be able to defend against and it's about as secure a location as you are likely to be in. Your sidearm at best is NO help at all and at worst could cause a huge problem. I don't have any problem at all with people transporting their unloaded firearms though airports but if you brought a loaded firearm into an airport in the current security environment we should have heard your arrest report on the evening news. I say this even if what you did was perfectly legal. Actions like that are what gives thugs like the TSA the excuse they need to behave badly.
A disarmed populace is just a crop of victims waiting to be harvested.
Really? India seemed to do pretty well with passive resistance against the UK. The Soviet Union collapsed and it wasn't because of personal firearms. Your little personal firearms don't stand a chance against the military or even the police really. The notion that your personal firearms are what preserves your liberty is a cute little sound bite that doesn't really stand up to serious scrutiny. I have no illusions whatsoever that my own guns (yes I have some) are what is keeping our government at bay. What keeps them at bay is our collective behavior and our willingness to speak up courageously in the face of power. The government can overwhelm some of us for a time but it can't handle all of us forever. As the saying goes, "vox populi, vox Dei".
Contrary to popular belief, most folks who legally carry a firearm are not cowboys out looking for a reason to go shoot somebody up.
I think you are mistaken on what constitutes popular belief. I very much agree that most firearms owners are quite responsible and most Americans understand this. That's never really been the issue. The problem is how do you identify the people who are crazy? How do you identify the irresponsible ones? How do you identify the criminals? It only takes a small number of people with guns to cause a big problem.
In all likelihood you are not the one I'm really worried about. (Although if you actually brought a loaded gun to the airport maybe you are...) I'm a supporter of gun rights but the the gun lobby (aka the NRA) has really gotten out of hand. There ARE crazy people out there looking to shoot up schools and movie theaters and public gatherings. They exist but as a society we seem unwilling to have an adult conversation about what to do about them. I'm not for a moment proposing that we take away everyone's guns but I don't think it is unreasonable to register firearms, *require* safety and competency training, and to conduct background checks. I don't think it is unreasonable to require precautions when handing someone a weapon whose primary purpose is to kill.
I believe he's asking you to assume that a gun is an inanimate object incapable of independent action and that it is the person wielding it that ultimately makes it dangerous or rather uses it in a dangerous manner.
Can it be used more effectively than the other items listed? Sure. Does that negate the point? It does not. You want to imbue it with special powers beyond those of the person holding it as it seems what you really want to do is blame the thing and ignore the user.
A baseball bat in the hands of a mad man is most certainly a deadly weapon and without adequate resistance can easily kill a goodly number of people in a relatively short period of time. Longer than a gun perhaps but that really depends on the targets and environment.
A sword would be even more effective and again absent adequate resistance would be extremely deadly even in the hands of the untrained mad man.
While you're mentioning the evil uses of the canceling properties it seems highly disingenuous not to mention the practically infinitely more common instances:
The 90 pound woman defending herself against a rapist.
The gay man defending against the mob intent on beating him senseless.
The old and the infirm defending against the young and strong
And so on.
I was raised on the command line, bitch
"Nemo me impune lacesset"
"I believe that its better to not have the need to carry than to carry just in case."
So do I, and once you create that place, please invite everyone, as it currently does not exist on this planet. And no, the first step is no to take protection away from honest people.