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"Smart" Gun Seller Gets the Wrong Kind of Online Attention
R3d M3rcury (871886) writes "How's this for a good idea? A gun that won't fire unless it's within 10 inches of a watch? That's the iP1 from Armatrix. Of course, don't try to sell it here in the United States." From the NY Times article linked: "[Armatrix employee] Belinda Padilla does not pick up unknown calls anymore, not since someone posted her cellphone number on an online forum for gun enthusiasts. Then someone snapped pictures of the address where she has a P.O. box and put those online, too. In a crude, cartoonish scrawl, this person drew an arrow to the blurred image of a woman passing through the photo frame. 'Belinda?" the person wrote. "Is that you?" ... "I have no qualms with the idea of personally and professionally leveling the life of someone who has attempted to profit from disarming me and my fellow Americans," one commenter wrote." The article paints a fairly rosy picture of the particular technology that Armatrix is pushing, but their ID-checking gun seems to default to an unfireable state, which might not always be an attractive feature. And given that at least one state — New Jersey — has hinged a gun law on the commercial availability of these ID-linked guns, it's not surprising that some gun owners dislike a company that advertises this kind of system as "the future of the firearm."
Count me out. No way would I rely on this technology, or the electronics, or the battery.
When I pull the trigger I don't want to hear a "beep" that's the equivalent of the Blue Screen of Death.
Thanks, but NO FUCKING THANKS.
Well they're clearly a bunch of moron rednecks but they're still right. What if the watch runs out of batteries? What if somehow the signal is disrupted? What if you take the weapon off someone who's robbing a bank and now it won't fire? Guns do what they do and there's no need to cripple them in this way. It's the PEOPLE with the guns that need work. Stop selling them to idiots with mental problems or people who, oh I don't know, maybe send letters to places saying they're going to kill everyone.
Why yes! Those kind of people sound *exactly* like the kind of people that should have guns!
Invaders must die
a gun that might not fire.
Sounds like a good gun for the police to use. Get back to us when every police officer in the country has one of these and is forbidden to use a traditional weapon.
Just mandate that the police force has to use it. Once it's been fully adopted and vetted, i'm sure us normal citizens would enjoy the chance to buy it.
Other than that, who cares?
The government could disable every firearm at will. That might take a backdoor into the gun or watch, but hey...
If it is disrupted, it doesn't fire. End of story. If a robber is stupid enough to use such a gun, the robbery turns into a comedy sketch. End of story.
Cars and airplanes have been repeatedly "crippled" in the last decades, which made them incomparably safer and saved countless lives. Hell, even guns have locks for more than a century now. Should we outlaw gun locks? If not how do you decide which locks to allow and which not? Nanny state, anyone?
Most importantly: NO ONE forces you to buy this gun. She was just selling it to whomever wanted to buy it - and was getting hated for that. That's absolutely, unqualifiedly nuts.
> Stop selling them to idiots with mental problems
This story just shows how frighteningly many idiots are there in the US of A...
"Weapon Shops of Isher" (A.E.Van Vogt) or the Harry Harrison "Deathworld" novels.
Well, apparently, you only have to fool the majority of people for a little while.
Not sure if you're American or not, so I'll try to explain:
The 2nd Amendment of the US Constitution guarantees that each citizen has the right to keep and bear arms for self-defense. There are only a very few obvious prohibitions, namely against convicted felons and those declared mentally incompetent or ill.
Meanwhile, there are people in the US who fear the things so much, they want to restrict who can and cannot have a firearm, and wish to dictate under what conditions they are possessed. There is a route by which this can be accomplished, but it would require amending the US Constitution, which is notoriously hard to do (as it should be - capricious changes are painful, to say the least.) Any other route (including most attempts at federal "gun control" laws) is a circumvention of this process, and IMHO should not be taken, lest it set a dangerous precedent - after all, if you can circumvent one amendment, you can circumvent them all, and down that road lies fascism.
If you wish to live in community that heavily regulates firearms, then band together and do so - nothing restricts a locality/city/region from banning the things of their own initiative (see also Chicago, D.C, New York City, etc.) However, please do not try to impose such things across the whole nation. There is no "reasonable" restriction in the eyes of those who wish to promulgate these laws, save for complete abolition.
As for the people you speak of? As long as they do not commit a felony, so what? The fear of any given law-abiding person owning a firearm is irrational at best.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Not everyone wants a gun to defend the nation against enemy insurgents slamming down their door. Some people use guns for SPORT or PRACTICE. They do not care if it takes 5-10 seconds to unlock the safety. They don't mind changing the batteries. They don't care if a weapon only works inside a shooting range. They care that their kids can't take the gun and bring it to school, or shoot their friends, or shoot their eye out. These sort of technologies are needed to get guns and weapon proficiency into AVERAGE JOE hands, because freedom doesn't come from gun nuts.
Indeed. Gun legislation often is scoffed at because almost every time an exemption is put in for law enforcement. 10 round magazines for everyone . . . except cops.
Its hard to keep a straight face when these people are saying that "anything more than 10 rounds is good for nothing but mowing down crowds of people" while they insist that the police need to keep their hi-cap mags.
Bottom line is that most gun regs put a needless and artificial burden. I wouldn't accept an artificial and arbitrary limit on my computer of 1GB of RAM, a 160GB hard drive, and a single core 1Ghz processor to keep me from hacking, nor will I accept artificial magazine capacity limits, or "smart gun" technology on my guns to keep me from misusing it.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
"I have no qualms with the idea of personally and professionally leveling the life of someone who has attempted to profit from disarming me and my fellow Americans," one commenter wrote."
The constitution doesn't prevent the nation as a whole from deciding which sort of weapons are appropriate for self defense and which aren't. Nor does the constitution restrict anybody from developing a weapon that has safeguards built in designed to prevent it from being fired by anybody other than its owner.
The above quote is a not so veiled threat and yes the poster has a right to question whether the person behind the quote is somebody who should be trusted with a gun, - constitutional rights aside.
> He got two, the third strangled him. So three people dead, one in jail for life (I hope) ... which probably would not have happened if he had not had a gun.
It still would have happened, but the only death would have been his.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
To be fair, a firearm probably is the best home defense weapon on hand; it's just that a home invasion is rare.
What gets me is people who think the gun makes them a god. I will never carry a weapon when I'm out. What if I get jumped? What if a mugger pulls a gun on me? People tell me, "Oh, I'll shoot them." "When a mugger threatens me with his gun, I'll shoot him with my gun." You're grappling on the ground, you reach to pull out a gun... and you don't think you're now grappling for a firearm? The mugger will see you reach for a firearm and shoot you dead with the one already trained on your face.
I'm not bringing a liability to a fight. For a firearm to do me any good, I need to be able to take you with my bare hands first so I can get to the damn thing without having it taken from me. If I can do that, I'll just beat the shit out of you in the first place, and if you bring out your own firearm I'll take that and shoot you with it. If it's not a war, a stealth infiltration, a closed-quarter invasion, or a defense against animals (bear), carrying a firearm is the absolute stupidest thing I can do.
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Let me explain it to you: This company is not requiring you to turn in your non-smart gun and get theirs. They are selling their weapon which has enhanced firing protections. There have been previous guns which had physical firing protections before. This one is simply more high tech. The gun manufacturer believes that there is a market for their gun as there have been cases of children being accidentally shot when discovering their parents' firearm as well as weapons being stolen. So if you don't like their restrictions, DON'T BUY THEIR GUN. It's that simple. In your talk of freedom and rights, it is ironic that you are actually advocating for restrictions. Since it is a weapon that you don't like, no one else can buy it.
Second, I find it also amusing that you talk about irrational fear. Someone has posted this woman's phone and address on a forum. But she has nothing to fear, right? This is a veiled threat to her life simply because she works for a company that people don't like. So if I don't like the company you work for, I can post your whereabouts on the Internet? I can have people stalk you? Funny you don't seem to stand up against people who seem to be threatening others.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
A milita is a contingent of citizens, who may be called upon to act against the "legitimate" government. Putting contol of the guns in the hands of the government completely undermines that most important of functions. Or did you forget the fact that the founders had just finished winning a blatantly illegal war against the "legitimate" government of the US colonies?
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
To be technical, the text of the 2nd Amendment is:
Many people focus on the last two phrases in that sentence. Not so much attention is focused on the first two phrases, but IMO they're just as important as the last two. Keeping and bearing Arms is a right ... but it's a right, a power that comes with a hefty dose of responsibility (to be "well regulated") as well. Most of you probably know the quote "With great power comes great responsibility." If you can't handle the great responsibility, well, responsibly then perhaps it's better you hold off wielding the great power until you can.
For instance, the person quoted in the summary as issuing a death threat directed at the employee? Yeah, IMO they're not handling the responsibility very well at all. I wouldn't have a problem with that person's gun or guns being placed out of their reach while they learn how to play well with others.
My personal opinion is that the second amendment is dated and no one should be allowed to personally own a gun. BUT, I'm aware that there's a huge collection of libertarians, rednecks, whatever who feel they need one. So changing the Constitution is out of the question. Anyone trying that will get the rednecks at their doorstep just like this person did. Either the South and most of the West will secede again, or they'll try to take over.
The problem with the US is that we're way bigger than we were in 1789, and have 300+ million we need to keep happy. We also have little need for an unorganized militia, although the more survivalist among us might disagree on that one. The reality is that gun use is very different in urban areas than it is in cities. In the country, people go shootin' at some food. In cities, they're used primarily in crimes and by the mentally ill to wreak havoc. This is why mayors ban handguns -- not because they think it'll do anything, but because they can't be seen as contributing to the problem.
Anecdotal example about differing opinons -- someone I know who grew up in an urban area moved out to a rural location. Over the years I've known him, he's gone full-on libertarian and is constantly railing against gun control. I have no idea what changed, but I guess it's the differing way guns are viewed. Country = useful tools, city = aids to criminal activity.
I've never had the desire to own a gun, nor do I see the appeal. However, like I said, I realize we're stuck with this state of affairs. It does not make the gun lobby look good in the public eye when someone attempting to make gun ownership safer is threatened by a bunch of kooks. I don't see the anti-gun movement making death threats on gun owners. Even if the people making these threats are only a small sample of the pro-gun group, they sure make a bad impression.
but the interpretation you take as obviously incorrect was settled law for 70 years.
Actually, it wasn't, the Supreme Court had never ruled on it before. More to the point, if you look at the more than two hundred years of precedent in lower Courts (State and Federal), the State level 2nd Amendment equivalents written around the same time, and the writings of the Framers it's clear as day that the Amendment always referred to an individual right. The 'militia' argument is a losing one and we both know it.
A couple more reactionaries retiring or dying and being replaced by moderates or liberals will likely cause the court to return to the old interpretation
Be careful rooting against stare decisis for I think you'll find that Roe is in a lot more danger than Heller, and Roe is near and dear to the hearts of most of the anti-gun crowd.
You also might consider the political reality of the United States, where even traditionally blue States remain staunchly pro-gun. In fact, I can name only five States that are openly hostile towards guns (New York, Hawaii, New Jersey, California, and Maryland) and even in those States you'll find a solid consistency that's pro-gun (all of Upstate New York for example). In fact, I live in one of those States (New York) and have an unrestricted pistol license that allows me to carry a concealed firearm almost anywhere I deem it appropriate.
Best of luck with your dream of doing away with the 2nd Amendment when you can't even win the issue here in New York.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
The problem is that we have a poison atmosphere where any discussion of reasonable regulation get's you thrown into one camp or another.
In particular, I am generally very pro-gun but I'm also in favor of more tightly regulating handguns. We already regulate the sawed-off version of shotguns, fully automatic rifles, etc. so I'm not sure why the suggestion that we treat handguns a bit more strictly elicits such a strong reaction. They are objectively the largest contributor to homocide in this country - it seems like a reasonable thing to discuss, anyway.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Hey, here's an idea: why don't you go fuck yourself?
My right to self defense doesn't require your approval.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
You don't see posting someone's cell phone number or taking a picture of their P.O. Box as threatening?
The threat doesn't have to be explicit to still be a threat, as in the stereotypical Mafia line "Nice little restaurant you have here. Hate to see anything happen to it."
Hopelessly pedantic since 1963.
There is nothing in the world more useless than an unreliable firearm. When you need a gun, you need it very badly, and you need it right away. What you do NOT need is something that won't fire if its battery is dead.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
It is not rational to fear all people who own guns.
If you own a gun, here are the things I know and suspect.
1.) All people who own guns own a gun, and nearly all own ammunition. This means that simply being around a gun owner or at a gun owner's house I am dramatically more likely to get shot accidentally. This is perhaps not so much a fear of the gun owner as it is fear of the gun itself.
2.) MANY gun owners believe in using their gun for self-defense. This also increases my likelihood of being shot around a gun owner because the gun owner may mistake me for an intruder.
3.) HARDLY ANY gun owners (and this includes police officers and members of the military) are sufficiently skilled to discharge a firearm in a crowded indoor situation with multiple panicked people and possibly a few assailants in such a way that they correctly identify and harm the assailants but do not harm the bystanders. If an individual has multiple years of experience working as a military sniper they probably fall into this group, but even then they may not fall into this group when using a handgun.
4.) FAR MORE gun owners believe they fall into group 3 than actually do. This makes them a danger to others when they incorrectly gauge either the facts of the situation they are in (see #2) or their ability (see #3.)
5.) SOME gun owners believe guns are a good way to solve interpersonal problems besides those involving self-defense. These people WANT their ownership of a gun to be a form of intimidation to some individuals. I rationally consider these people to be a danger to everyone.
6.) MANY gun owners are responsible with their guns and how they are stored. They also understand the risks of discharging a firearm and the limits of their ability. For these individuals the increased risks come primarily from items 1 and 2, and not items 3-5.
My point is, it is perfectly rational to fear gun owners for the increased risks they bring to my personal safety. While I am most afraid of those who fall into group 5, all gun owners represent an increased risk to my safety.
I'll play devils advocate here.
Yes, I'm willing to bet the guns that were used against you were purchased legally at one point.
That said, I am not against gun ownership. However, I am for stricter controls on who can purchase weapons, especially the resale market. The 2nd Amendment says you have the right to bear arms. There is no restriction in place however on how easy or hard that should be.
I came, I conquered, I coredumped
When I was in Arizona, a place known for permissive firearms laws, there were very few "rednecks waving their guns around as they please". By and large most armed Arizonans are reasonable people; most of the crime there (and it's really not that bad) is associated with cross-border smuggling (and specifically not "illegal immigrants", who are generally peaceful people). Yes, there are wackos like the Minutemen, but they're less bonkers and less prevalent than CNN would have you believe. If you want to talk about armed gangs harassing people out in the desert, there's one that overshadows all the rest: US Border Patrol.
If you want to see people "waving guns around" irresponsibly, look at what happens in inner cities (often places where guns are banned). People get shot in DC and Baltimore all the time by, essentially, kids exhibiting machismo.
Obviously the bracelet will not stop the gun owner from suiciding with the gun. However, it will stop the owner's kids from doing so.
Another thing about suicide: while many suicides are attempted, people who use guns in the attempt are far more likely to succeed than people using other methods. Taking pills, etc., allows time for regret and possibly calling a suicide hotline to be saved.
And you are damn right I have an agenda. I see the NRA and their ilk as stoking fear in the public in order to increase sales for the gun manufacturers (Glock, Beretta, etc.). Who do you think gives the NRA most of their money? It's not the members.
Here's a quote from NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre at the latest NRA convention:
We know, in the world that surrounds us, there are terrorists and home invaders and drug cartels and carjackers and knockout gamers and rapers [sic], haters, campus killers, airport killers, shopping mall killers, road-rage killers, and killers who scheme to destroy our country with massive storms of violence against our power grids, or vicious waves of chemicals or disease that could collapse the society that sustains us all. I ask you. Do you trust this government to protect you? We are on our own.
http://home.nra.org/pdf/waynel...
Can't you see that this is all an attempt to make people be afraid, very afraid? And to also not trust any external agency to protect you from all these threats. Why? Because that fear motivates people to buy guns, which enhances the profits of all those gun manufacturers that bankroll the NRA.
It a wonderful racket.
Hopelessly pedantic since 1963.
Whether this device is a good thing or not boils down to simple math, but the outcome is going to be different for different people.
Take prison guards. They normally go unarmed, because the probability a weapon will be taken and used against them is extremely high. This makes a handgun a net liability for them. A device like this might be a good thing for them, even if they occasionally forget to change the batteries. In fact, even if the device had an extremely high failure rate, say 1 in 5, it might still make sense *for them*.
On the other end of the scale there are big game hunters who carry a sidearm as a backup weapon. Since there is no chance a bear or lion will use their handgun against them, the device would have to have a zero percent failure rate before it made sense to even consider.
Then there are people in the middle, say process servers or people who carry cash, for whom being disarmed is a potential concern but not necessarily an overriding one. For them whether a particular smart gun makes sense depends (a) on their particular situation and (b) on the performance of the specific smart gun model in tests. There's likely to be no one-size-fits-all decision that covers all users and all models of gun.
Critics of smart guns demand certainty: "Even if a particular system could be 99.9% reliable, that means it is expected to fail once every 1000 operations. That is not reliable enough. My life deserves more certainty," says one [citation]. Clearly this is an irrational position, given that non-smart guns don't have anything near 100% reliability. Feeding mechanisms jam and cartridges misfire. This is to say nothing of the most unreliable component in any self-defense shooting scenario: the user. The user can miss, hit an innocent bystander, or even fatally shoot himself.
A device like this could well make a great deal of sense to some users while making absolutely no sense at all for others. Insofar as people are free to use lethal weapons for self defense, they should be free to choose the weapon that fits their needs best.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
A firearm IS a safety device in and of itself.
To add another 'feature' to impede in the ability of a safety device to function properly is insane.
Imagine if the brakes on your car had such a 'feature.' Need to slam on your brakes? Ooops, you were reaching your right arm out to grab your coffee, watch now out of range, no brakes.
Now imagine the same thing, but in a mugging. You and your attacker go to the ground, including your gun. You manage to reach it with your off-hand. Oops, no bang--your watch was on your other hand. Or, to go with their scenario, the bad guy gets the gun. You grab his wrist, trying to push the gun out of your face--oops, you just stuck your watch within 10 inches of it...bang, you're dead.
The word 'for' isn't there. What are you reading? I mean this is simple stuff, you say it says FOR, FOR isn't there. Thus I am proven right.
You may continue to go fuck yourself.
Well regulated in the language if that time meant well practiced. An accurate watch might also be called well regulated.
Maybe I'm missing something here, but wouldn't having a "smart" gun as described in TFS be a win/win for everyone? Gun owners can use their guns, but it someone steals it or disarms the gun owner, the gun is useless. Not sure why folks are complaining. Anyone want to enlighten me?
Because the evil gub'mint could also render the gun useless with their special Freedom-Destroying-Rays, and then force everyone to drink tea and other evil things.
Really, you need to learn how to think like an American to understand them.
I want everyone in my family to be able to use my guns without a moments' hesitation. Furthermore, I want perfect strangers to be able to use my gun if I am injured and cannot use it myself. Finally, I want my gun to be absolutely 100 percent reliable. That reliability concern is the most pressing. Many gun manufacturers still haven't worked out how to make guns operate with >99% reliability (i.e. in a box of 100 cartridges, I will experience no more than one failure to feed or failure to eject). Reliability is hard, and electronics are infamously unreliable. Electronics are particularly known to be unreliable in the kinds of conditions that concealed firearms experience, such as hard shocks, exposure to strange chemistry, and high humidity.
I'm just amazed. This doesn't apply specifically to you LF11, but WTF!?!?! What makes all of you so afraid? I don't (and never have) need a gun to feel and be safe. This has been borne out by almost fifty years of living, some of it while engaged in activities which can (and has) attracted a violent element.
I feel sorry for those of you who are so terrified of the world around you. It's just sad.
Stop being cowards, hiding behind your death machines and grow a pair, folks. Guns don't make you safer. Your brain (when used properly) makes you safer.
I don't begrudge you your right to bear arms. But you certainly aren't welcome in my home. Your fear makes you much more dangerous than the vast majority of bad actors in this world, IMHO.
This makes the point, I think:
“Dwayne's bad chemicals made him take a loaded thirty-eight caliber revolver from under his pillow and stick it in his mouth. This was a tool whose only purpose was to make holes in human beings.”
-- Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions
I have quite enough holes already, thank you very much.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
You either support this law or are against it.
Are you saying the insane and the criminals should not be afforded their full constitutional rights?
You cannot refer to the constitution and pretend it doesn't apply to all.
The reason you were distinguishing between the insane/criminals, and the rest, is that you know this law describers a privilege, and not a right.
You don't have a right to drive a car. It is a privilege that you must earn by passing a test. And you can't drive the car everywhere.
The second amendment has been mislabeled a Right, and not a privilege, which is why people are so confused about it..
A privilege can be revoke easily. A right is something that can never be revoked. You will always have a right to a fair trial , no matter how many times you've been to jail.
I claim that the second amendment does not belong in the constitution. It is no longer relevant. The founding fathers opened for the constitution being changed. Creation of the 2nd amendment was situational, based on recent events. They thought they codl prevent saem from happening agains by putting it in the constitution as a right. They din't really elaborate much on that. If the same brains had been writing a constitution in 2014, they might have had an amendment describing the right to live free from the perils of private guns.
-- Another senseless waste of fine bytes.