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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."
... as usual go ape shit at slightest reason. Calm down morons, nobody is taking away you dick extensions.
the fireworks
I guess I don't quite understand the point. Perhaps my own gun couldn't be used against me? That would be nifty for burglars who do not BYOG. However, for ones that do, it might spell trouble for me when I realize that my battery has died...
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.
Don't like those guns, don't buy them.
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.
Keep the tag on your keychain. Done.
And again, gun nuts show they are the last people that should be trusted to be responsible with anything.
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.
The criminal is surrounded by cops... no escape. The cops yell "slowly, take off your watch.... no, you don't have to put your gun down, but you HAVE TO REMOVE YOUR WATCH... NOW!"
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?
If a journalist wants to go around posting the addresses of all registered gun owners, then expect the opposite to happen.
While needing to enter a code on your watch to fire the pistol would be fine for range shooting, it would seem to be unworkable for people wanting a gun for protection.
Maybe just a distance sensor would be better.
I think once the police and military adopt this kind of gun locking technology in large numbers, then we can start talking about whether it is ready for adoption. If it is a compelling safety feature without great expense, proves reliable and gun owners find it worthwhile to add to their safety and the safety of their families, then they will buy guns with these features.
Otherwise, this sounds like just another way the anti-gun fear mongering freedom hating lobbying industry are trying to increase the costs and burdens of gun ownership in order to reduce gun ownership by law abiding citizens. It is yet another straw man in the war against freedom.
The government could disable every firearm at will. That might take a backdoor into the gun or watch, but hey...
I used to be VERY good at martial arts.
The school I went to had a deal with local police for martial arts training.
To make a long story short, we would have a trainee pull his gun and I'd disarm him from 10feet away. IOWs, if I am within 10 feet of you and you try to pull a gun on me, I will make you eat it before you can get a round off.
I am very confident of this because I have done it.
I don't care if you are at your shooting range 10 times a day popping at unintimidating stationary targets that cannot fight back.
See, while you are freaking out with me coming at you, and dealing with the ingrained safety procedure of taking aim, putting your finger on the trigger ... I am on you like white on rice, breaking your wrist, elbow, fingers, gouging out your eyes and then taking your gun and shoving it up your ass.
That is why when a cop feels threatened in any way, he's got his gun out - because of people like me - even if you are across the street.
Now, do you really want safety feature like these?
And, yet, if someone did the same to them, they'd cry their freedom of speech was being violated.
But, when these same people get shouted down for saying they want to ban gay marriage or let religious assholes openly discriminate, it becomes all "help help I'm being repressed".
And, yes, I do believe the gun nuts, conservative idiots, and religious nut jobs share a common core group of morons.
It's strange but I've noticed there is a great deal of shilling for the NRA here in the last number of years. Is there a deliberate campaign by NRA to infiltrate other libertarian but not pro gun constituencies and bait and switch them to an NRA agenda? Considering the topic in the article excuse me if I don't post with my standard account.
For a long time I thought of myself as a gun enthusiast. I kept my old Army service CZ for decades, and I kept replacing the barrel, as I was firing thousands upon thousands of rounds to 'keep my hand'.
Then I got married, and now my gun stays at the range, where we go and fire it once in a blue moon. Now that I think about it, I have not touched it since last August.
I live in a much nicer community than the one in which I used to live, and really do not think that my gun would be much extra protection over my swords and bows. (Not that they would be much protection, either) Furthermore, a few months ago, agun owner 20 miles away, in San Bernadino, got killed when he interrupted a home invasion (by unarmed people) 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.
All of this said, I cannot imagine for the fuck of it a situation where I would want a fucking piece of shit that only fires if I am wearing a watch. I do not sleep with my watch, and I am not replacing my watch with another, for any reason. This is a stupid gimmick that will eventually screw a legitimate owner up. And I bet that if you give me two of these guns, the associated watches, and leave me alone with my PC, in my office at the plant, I'll have the gun 'unlocked' within a week.
No good deed goes unpunished...
discard the guns & the watches. the hymenless monkeys still do not resort to shooting each other (turd flinging still non-fatal) & continue to share their bananas with mom monkey having full partnership rights if we change how we look at stuff stuff will change
People like to say it's articles like these that show "the true nature" of americans.
Which sounds quite stupid to me, it's a small number of enthusiasts.
The real tell is the comments on the articles, on pages like these. Where the tone might not be as "redneck guntoting", but you will surely see the overall tone of US. citizens vs the rest of the world(aka. most posts regarding "let the police vet them first", is a clear sign of the US problem in a nutshell. They are way to reliant on guns to function as a society).
They are human excrement.
If we are talking about functionality, the simpler the better with a firearm, the last thing I want to worry about is a battery failure, radio interference or "forgetting" to wear my "watch".
Consider that in this case you need 2 devices to talk to each other, so how simple would it be for someone to interfere with the communications between the devices, a jammer of some sort (something the cops would enjoy I'm sure) and in other cases with biometrics involved I would poo to that as well, electronics are not reliable enough for firearms.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
I'll trust a smart gun when the police are required to use the same technology on their service firearms.
If they're not willing to stake their lives on it working properly in an emergency, why should I?
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.
I hear my fellow Americans talk about needing guns in every room of the house to ward off the nightly assaults of Orc maurders but what country do these people actually live in? How many times has anyone ever personally had to fire a gun for self defense?
Someone wants to own a gun because they enjoy firing it for sport. Maybe hunt. Whatever. But they are concerned that their children get hurt. Sure, they have all the precautions. They have it locked in a safe and have spoken to their children about safety. But they remember how when they were a teenager they popped off Jobba the Hutt's head and filled him with gasoline. How they tried to make black powder bombs out of the little plastic gumball containers.
But they also know that as stupid as kids can be, they can also be crafty and clever. You really think that your kids don't know where the lock to the gun safe is? So someone is looking into technology that can keep my gun from firing if it isnt near my smartwatch/phone, whatever. What's the worst thing that can happen? I might not get to shoot a gun some night. What a damn horrible thing to happen.
The website says that if the gun loses radio contact with the watch, it disables itself. So if I'm a criminal and have a regular gun, all I need is a radio jammer to disable my victims gun? Nice.
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.
Put an RFID into everyone's shoot hand you're set.
You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
..."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.""
That help give gun owners a bad image/name. Stupid motherfuckers.
Then again, how do we know this wasn't purposely put out by an anti-gunner? I hate tossing conspiracy stuff out there, but there's no way to really know.
Ironic that the libtards are crying now, while a few weeks ago they were happily leveling the personal and professional life of Brendan Eich for exercising his constitutional rights in private.
Kind of like when they cry "freedom of choice"
-as long as it's their freedom to murder the unborn
-and not freedom to buy the gun you want
-or the health insurance you want
-or to take pictures where/when you want
Not that the wingnuts on the other side are much better, but today the libtards are feeling the effects of their own techniques.
I can see the situation desired.. A loaded gun is no threat. Can leave it on the coffee table, no one can fire it. Daddy doesn't have to watch his gun as the kids play, secure in knowing that his weapon is not useful to the kids at play. Before the Smart gun, Daddy always had to be vigilant and actually watch his children to make sure they are playing safely.
Little Timmy picks up the gun, walks up behind Daddy working away at his computer, and now is in electronic range. So begins the story of Little Orphan Timmy.
Because, if we read the law literally, a law can be written where you can have arms but no: firing pin, barrel, ability to hit anything beyond 50 feet, .....
Basically neuter a gun by law but yet have a legal definition of an "arm" so that the Constitution isn't violated but yet the arms you bear are nothing." Here's a bullet firing stick that can't hit anything beyond 50 feet and if hit it's a hurtful sting - like a pinch" - It wouldn't violate the Second Amendment.
As it is, the NRA being legal gun owners, have ALL their arms recorded and cataloged by the government. So, if I were a despot, I know EXACTLY where to find my adversaries!
Just say'in.
> 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.
Furthermore, a few months ago, agun owner 20 miles away, in San Bernadino, got killed when he interrupted a home invasion (by unarmed people) 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.
Isn't 2 dead burglars, an imprisoned burglar, and a dead homeowner still better than 3 live possibly free burglars and a dead homeowner?
All of this said, I cannot imagine for the fuck of it a situation where I would want a fucking piece of shit that only fires if I am wearing a watch
Also, assuming the watch/firearm actually work as designed: god forbid you have have to shoot with your weak hand for some reason (such as your strong arm/hand being injured) and all you can do is uselessly pull away at the trigger (since the watch is more than 10" away), as your attacker continues to do whatever it was that prompted the use of lethal self-defense in the first place.
Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
To me, you are the perfect person for this type of gun. Your gun currently sits at the range. With a standard gun, if it gets stolen, they can then use it for anything they want. You don't have to worry about using it in your home for self defense or anything like that. So with this type of gun you can still use it at the range when you want but if it ever is stolen, the thief couldn't use it for anything. This gun isn't a good replacement for people who feel they need protection at all times with them (of course I think most of those people are paranoid and are idiots for not keeping their gun secured). But it is a perfect weapon for someone who goes to the range once and a while to shoot. It at least starts to cut down on illegal guns by taking at least a few of them out of circulation since if these guns are stolen they are useless.
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
Surely if smart guns suddenly became the only type available, responsible gun owners would quickly work out how to modify it to work like an ordinary gun.
They smart enough to work something like that out, right? Right?
.
A gun is a fairly simple machine. There are only so many ways to prevent it from firing normally. Stop the trigger pull. Lock the sear from disengaging. Block the firing pin. I can't think of anything else. All require some electromechanical device to push a pin or bar in the way to prevent the normal motion. My point is, it would not take you a week, and you don't even need the watch. File that pin down. Remove the bar, or jam it in the unlocked position. A week? no. For someone even remotely mechanically inclined maybe 2 hrs. Then we're back to only criminals having guns that work reliably.
I can see that smart guns are not for everyone, but for many owners they may be just the thing. What a smart gun can do is put the owner is control of who can use the gun or who it can be transferred to. I could easily see the military and police, as organizations, being very interested in them even if individual members find them an extra hassle. Basically it proves accountability, no "the guns were stolen/misplaced", now you can prove and track authorization and transfer. So sure a beat cop may view it as a annoyance, but the police chief may view it as valuable feature. The locking system can probably be hacked, but it still makes the gun less valuable to the black market because it requires extra effort and no legitimate gun shop will deal with at afterwards.
The leftists started this.
Post this on Slashdot and its "LOL at the gun nuts" Post something about DRM on the newest game and people on Slashdot loose their minds.
If you do NOT have this technology, someone WILL take your gun away and use it against you. Because after all, they just crippled you.
It is very easy to disarm people and the last thing you want is your own gun used against you or your family or friends.
No really, nobody practices quick draw - I tried and was thrown out of my gun club for it.
It's all: Pick gun up ... Breath. Count. .... take aim. Breath. Count. ... put finger on trigger ....Breath. Count. fire. ....
At "Pick gun up" you are dead.
Got it?!
It's obvious that few people on this forum even care about the victim in the article.
Just a refresher: Stalking is a crime.
So perhaps this woman needs to carry a gun now to keep her safe from the idiots who are (pun intended) up in arms over this silly device?
If you support this device or not: it is wrong to intimidate, threaten and/or stalk someone.
It seems overly likely that this watch "smartgun" combo use some kind of near field communications. Whats to stop someone from jamming NFC like the asshat with the cell jammer they caught the other day?
I for one will probably not welcome our new NFC jamming overlords that will with the push of a button disable nearby Smart guns with a simple jamming transmitter.
Now that I'm thinking this through a Jamming device would prevent alot of police caused deaths. Might be a safer time to take up a life of crime.
Also possible that with an NFC hacking program on a Smartphone a criminal might be able to activate a smartgun stolen from a police officer.
This sounds like a brilliant plan. Almost needs a Florida tag on fark.
Do these same people complain if they pick up a gun which has the safety engaged?
OMG! I CAN'T FIRE THIS GUN! MY FREEDOMS! WHAR ARE MY 2nd AMENDMENT RIGHTS?
Does anyone else have a problem with legislation being tied to a commercial product?
To me, it just seems wrong.
As long as ALL the police and military are required to have them and use them. If they completely trust these firearms to be 100% reliable and safe, then I will.
But I guarantee not one cop on the planet will use one. Their reliability is suspect which makes their safety also suspect.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
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.
I live in a much nicer community than the one in which I used to live, and really do not think that my gun would be much extra protection over my swords and bows. (Not that they would be much protection, either) Furthermore, a few months ago, agun owner 20 miles away, in San Bernadino, got killed when he interrupted a home invasion (by unarmed people) 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.
First off, I will give my standard libertarian disclaimer that I don't care what you do as long as you don't try to compel me to do what you think is best. So, fair enough you believe you have no use for a firearm anymore. Great, just don't try to prevent me from owning and using firearms for my own protection.
As for your anecdote, I would take the odds of potentially only stopping 2 out of 3 while defending my family with my firearm. Because, you know, home invaders aren't your typical burglars (cf. Wichita Massacre). Home invaders are more like rabid animals—normally burglars have a fear of being discovered. Home invaders, like rabid animals, somehow lack that fear and are willing to enter the home while people are present. Witnesses... something every criminal wants.
If someone forces their way into my home, their right to live is forfeit in favor of my right and duty to protect my family.
You are correct, you would have had only one murder, the home owner and 3 criminals still roaming the streets. If you think someone who does a home invasion will leave you alone, you are nuts. If a criminal enters a home they know is occupied, they are ready to kill whoever is in there.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
This does nothing to disarm the average person any more than when weapons first started using safeties.
Seems less suited to civilian use and more to major organizations. PMCs or a standing military make them part of the equipment. Have a standard "watch" (doesn't actually have to be a watch) for everyone in the unit/outfit/organizational unit, different units have different ID. Making sure the watch works is now just a standard part of the equipment check. Maintains the ability for a soldier to use a fallen weapon when things go FUBAR but prevents them getting shot by their own weapons in most scenarios. Armories keep the weapons and watches separate as a standard safety procedure.
This is not beneficial practice for private owners. Gun ranges? Sure! Weapons provided by the range are disabled until the range is active. There are plenty of safety practices already in place that do the same thing. This just takes the responsibility of safety away from the average person.
Are you going to sleep with the watch on? (again it doesn't need to be a watch) Do you sleep with a loaded gun under your pillow? A loaded gun in a nightstand? An unloaded gun in a nightstand? All this does is add another safety system to the firearm. It's somewhere in between Bio-metrics and what exists already with the button on the firearm.
What if ECM is employed to jam the signal between the watch and firearm? That would disable a lot of guns and render an area with the system disabled. This would be both harmful in a military engagement and beneficial to public areas like sports arenas or schools. Hell, I can see this being a major thing in the far future if the system is widely adopted or mandated.
I kinda altered my view on this halfway through writing it. So if it seems disjointed that's why. The more I wrote the more i realized it's just a higher tech version of the safety already standard in guns. Any complaints on mechanical failure of the system are responsibility of the owner. If you don't maintain a gun, you don't get to complain that it doesn't work.
If you can show me something the police and maybe military is happy with, then I'll say you have something. However if they have unresolved concerns, then I think it is valid for others to be wary.
Why not to use a gun?
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Simply put, no.
...and that solution is neat, simple, and wrong. (paraphrasing H.L. Menken)
The logistics of making something like this work reliably and in a manner that can not be subverted are ridiculous. It is also quite straightforward to remove the solenoid that keeps the gun from firing.
This whole idea is a anti-gun twit's wet dream. Oh, one other thing: Those who steal the guns can also steal the bracelet. Read about what Adam Lanza did before shooting up Sandy Point elementary school. How would this stop anything of the sort?
What kind of fucked up country do you live in where only murderers break into houses? over here burglars mostly run for it if interupted (they also vastly prefer owners to be on vacation etc, not asleep in the house), sometimes people get beat up.
Muggers used to look for the white head phones, now they can look for the watch.
Grab the watch arm and the victim is disarmed. Take their gun that is worth a lot more than an iPod.
Bludgeon the victim until they agree that you should have the watch and gun.
Sell gun after hacking it or just sell it with its watch.
This is as dumb as open carry. You are advertising that you are carrying hundreds of dollars if not thousands, that someone can mug you for.
First of all, I heavily disagree with your opinion that 3 dead people is better than one dead person, no matter who they are.
But more importantly, the typical (>95%) home invasion involves stealing some small, easily replaced objects and then leaving quietly. If he hadn't confronted the invaders, no one would have died.
Congratulations!!!
You've just arrested and locked up every cop, the IRS, and half a dozen Federal agencies. All of which, enact their policies under the threat of to murder anyone who questions them.
Without the gun, maybe the homeowner would have been killed, maybe he would have been hurt, or possibly left unharmed. What we do know is that he had a gun and it didn't do shit to save his life. The gun changed the scenario and probably forced the home invaders in to a "kill or be killed" mindset.
You mean like boycotting a company because an employee exercised his own freedom and donated to a political campaign?
And to the "There's 100 million other guns" argument- these gun nuts understand too well the risk of letting the camel get its nose under the tent. Unlike you, they're not just worried about today, they're worried about tomorrow and 100 years from now.
So the original post was right: They're nuts, but they're right.
If a gun's pointed at me, there is a problem. If I see you reaching for a gun, that's a wholly different scenario. These two things require differentiation.
Your typical gun owner isn't trained in combat techniques. They'll be firing everywhere you aren't - if you know how to evade amateur gun fire.
If I were against a combat veteran, I'd be screwed.
So what if all the privately-held weapons in the USA were of this type? do you think that someone (... some 3-letter acronym, maybe... ahem) might design a gun jamming system? What good is the right to bear arms if someone else can simply shut them off on you? Sorry, no go - at least from a mandated-use standpoint. Sure, I can see it being nice for some people who CHOOSE to use it, but not if it's mandated by law.
I used to have a sig, but I set it free and it never came back.
"but their ID-checking gun seems to default to an unfireable state, which might not always be an attractive feature."
I'm sorry, but that's the _only_ feature of this gun vis-a-vis a regular gun. The whole point is that it has to be "activated" by some specific method before it will work, in an attempt to verify that only the "right" person can use it. The details may differ, whether using a watch such as in this case or other proposed methods using fingerprints or other biometrics, but the fundamental concept is that the gun doesn't fire unless that condition is met.
Why in the world would you pay extra for a gun that checks your ID, but then decides to default to a fireable state even if you fail the ID check? If that's what you want you could just get a regular gun that doesn't bother checking your ID to begin with.
If you don't like the fundamental concept, don't buy the gun. If you don't like the idea of laws being passed in relation to this concept then write to your congressperson and/or vote for someone else. But complaining that the gun does exactly what it is designed to do is just dumb. (And needless to say, harassing and/or threatening employees of the company that sells them is just insane.)
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
Those fools have said far worse. Confiscating firearms would be shortcut to a violent and bloodly revolution.
Depends. Am I the dead homeowner, either of the dead burglars, the incarcerated burglar, or the tax payer who is paying to incarcerate the burglar? Come to think of it, I don't think it's better for any of those people.
Isn't 2 dead burglars, an imprisoned burglar, and a dead homeowner still better than 3 live possibly free burglars and a dead homeowner?
No. The point is - he probably would not have 'interrupted' the invasion in the first place if he didn't have a gun. So 3 live, possibly free burglars and a live homeowner vs 2 dead burglars, a dead homeowner and a burglar that is now in jail for life (hopefully). Hurray for gun ownership...
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's no surprise that so many Americans have a hate-on for Muslims -- they hate competition.
I'm all for the 2nd amendment, but do you gun nuts flip your shit this easily over mandatory gun safeties? You know, that switch on the gun that keeps it from firing just like this watch? I know, I know, it's substantially different. But in the vast majority of the ludicrously rare scenarios that you guys keep on dreaming up, someone fumbling around with the safety would do the exact same thing.
Jesus....
I don't think we can let the government disarm the populace. The "personal safety" and "hunting sport" aspects of the debate fall flat with me. It's a matter of sovereignty and the fact that government needs to worry about an armed uprising. We're NOWHERE near needing that sort of conflict, despite how many preppers and tea-partiers think it is. But the potential has to be there. And so I believe in the 2nd amendment (specifically we need to be able to have powerful long-arms, secure encryption, and powerful optics. A wide-spread sniper campaign by the populace would still disrupt enough of the country that the government would be toppled. Although that might be less true in the near future with total surveillance.)
So anyway, wooo gun-rights. But the sheer retardedness of the people who also hold this idea really turns me off and makes me re-evaluate my stance.
I'm always amazes me how more or less everything Hideo Kojima imagines for his Metal Gear Solid series actually ends up existing in one way or the other. In MGS4 virtually all guns have such a security feature (except it's enabled by nano-technology, not watches). This leads to the existence of weapon-launderers who can disable these security features. The UN troops end up getting screwed when the arch-villain hacks the network and disables all their guns. He then pretty much pwns the world (until Solid Snake kicks his ass yet again).
This article confirms that technology is stupid, as it's users. Examples: Smart phone, Smart watch, Smart @ss. If you are not an American citizen then you don't have a horse in this race so enjoy imagined 'freedoms'. Thank you I'll be here all week...
I haven't worn a watch for years. Not because of cell phones, but because the straps or where the strap mounts kept breaking on me.(a problem that I don;'t want to have with a gun when a Trayvon Martin type decides he doesn't like my looks.) But when I did wear one, like most right handed people, I wore it on my left wrist. This gun interlock supposedly has a 10 inch range. Why is no one commenting on that? I don't want a bunch of right handed people going around trying to aim guns and shooting with their left hands, and I doubt that many will want to change where they wear the watch (there are good reasons why a right hand person wears the watch on the left hand). I also have noticed that there is a wide range of tastes in watches. but I don't expect that variety of consumer options to be reflected in a device sold to be used as both a watch and a gun interlock. Of course, you don;tr have to buy this crap and wear a junky black plastic or rubber watch today, but if the liberal wackos who live to take away second amendment rights get their way, it will not be long before they get laws passed mandating this technology for anyone who wants to be able to protect themselves.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
...is that it listens to many owners, and the buyer is not the most important of those.
The buyer is the least important of those in fact.
Just wait until the government insists on these for civilians and we find a backdoor in them to allow broadcast disarmament. Push-button anti-revolution kill-switch. And we'll buy it. We'll buy it because it satisfies the constitutional requirement. We'll buy it because we're thinking of the children. This won't end well.
What if the watch battery dies when you need the weapon, or you can't use the gun after you get it out of the hands of a criminal? What if? I don't really see the big issue? How often does someone stop a bank robbery or other crime from happening by forcibly removing the weapon from the hands of the perpetrator and then using the same weapon to prevent them from leaving the scene or doing anything else? That's more likely seen in the movies than reality. Typically, the "good guy" with his/her OWN gun manages to stop the criminal. You're more likely to just get shot and potentially killed by trying to take the criminal's weapon away.
The "watch battery went dead just as I needed the gun" scenario seems rather unlikely too, but sure -- it could happen. Obviously, someone buying this setup would be aware of that possibility -- and would hopefully double-check the status of the watch before leaving with it and the gun.
I agree that there may not be a pressing need to cripple the functionality of a gun in this manner, but SOME people may have reasons they prefer it. I see no problem with offering it, if the technology allows it. Perhaps law enforcement would be interested for the department-issued weapons, to ensure they're not fired by a suspect who manages to take one from the officer? (I remember reading where this happened on more than one occasion, when someone was able to sneak up behind an officer and remove their service revolver from a holster.)
Or just an RFID jammer, in this case...
Can anyone say "RFID jammer"..?
Not only will the pro-gun crowd say that a jammer could be used by government agencies to disable their weapons, but the bad guys could easily build a jammer for their own use to ensure their safety during commission of a crime. Imagine cops closing in with "smart guns". The bad guys flip on the jammer and cops can't do anything about it. Throw in the bad guys having traditional guns, and the cops have a serious problem on their hands. Same goes for home invasions.
I understand the idea behind smart guns, but this is a horrible idea. And as a gun owner, I'll never guy a smart gun. I've heard of fingerprint scanners being easily bypassed, as well. Unless you can tie it to DNA or something, I see no good way to produce a gun like this. And even then, it could likely be bypassed without much difficulty.
Bite my shiny metal ass!
People who feel strongly about gun ownership consistently make the claim it's for self defense, and that they are law abiding, good people that only want to own a gun to protect themselves.
Yet whenever gun ownership rights are threatened, or even perceived to be lightly infringed upon such as in this case, it is the gun enthusiasts who are the first people to start making insults based on gender, race, and religion, to verbally and physically intimidate and harass people, and to generally be as unpleasant as they possibly can towards the individuals they feel are threatening their "rights". They don't act civilized, they don't act like adults, they don't go through the proper channels.
It's hard to take these people seriously when at the drop of a hat, they turn into they very violent, unhinged freaks that they purport to be defending themselves from.
Gun nuts really are "nuts"!
This only sounds good to those who know nothing about guns and gun ownership.
Because clearly we should instate capital punishment as the penalty for breaking and entering.
"but their ID-checking gun seems to default to an unfireable state, which might not always be an attractive feature." Isn't that the point? So that only the person with the bracelet or whatever can fire the gun? Unattractive feature? Isn't it THE feature?
Insane logic, guess soldiers shouldn't carry guns either since they often die anyway. We know with certainty that if he killed all 3 he definitely would have lived, the unpredictable criminal actors being taken out of the equation. And it's probably gun control that got him killed, if that's what stopped him from firing more rounds by arbitrarily crippling his weapon
Yes, I'm sure the burglars wanted to kill him and would have done so even if they were able to just steal his stuff and leave. That's why they were called "burglars" and not "hitmen."
A good gun is a fairly simple machine, I agree with you there. But I would not go as far as assuming that the gun we're talking about is a good one, or a simple one.
If I had somehow agreed to design something like this, and, for some unfathomable reason, had avoiding positive failure as the highest priority, I would not go for something as tested and true as a firing pin.
No, I would have specialized ammunition, that can be only fired when some kind of electronic challenge-response has taken place. Hell, the ammunition would be paired with the watch, the gun would be only be supplying the power for the communications, to truly insure a logistic nightmare and at least three points of failure! Sounds like an abomination to you? You must not have dealt with enough upper management yet, and I am told politicians are even worse :-)
By the way, the Armatix in question uses electronic magazine disconnection. Sure, there still may be a simple mechanical way to insure the gun fires reliably, and you may be able to figure it out in two hours. But I would rather find a way to reliably and cheaply unlock any gun of that model. Once you have physical possession of two guns, it should be possible.
Of course, the manufacturers could have made it very hard to get at the electronics... but that would increase the price of the gun and possible repairs... of course, $400 is already an awful lot for a rather crappy .22L
No good deed goes unpunished...
Constitution for the most part limits only the federal goverment. So the initial statement is somewhat true. It is also somewhat false. The 14 amendment expanded the bill of rights to state and local goverments. (the amendement was passed after the civil war to legally end slavery) That includes the right to bear arms. That is why a Chicago gun law was recenty tossed.
I post a link with a news story that gives more info, and I get hammered down to a -1, but this moron gets a +1? Fuck this site and the stupid anit-gun moderators. By rewarding this moron, you are proving you put your personal beliefs ahead of the health of the site. Thanks for trying to ruin a good thing.
I consider myself a gun nut. I love my guns. I feel safer having them in my home than I do without them, and I enjoy taking them to the range for practice. A couple times a year, I even use some of them to put food on the table, and if someone breaks into my home with the intent to do harm to me and my family, I will, with minimal hesitation, use my firearms to protect my family.
I will gladly entertain any questions put to me by those who agree and disagree alike, and never once have I threatened to murder someone who questions me. Kill in self defense a person who intends to do me harm? Sure. Murder? no.
Last I checked, the right to bear arms is protected as an individual right - by the constitution of the United States of America. Restricting that right requires an amendment to the constitution - just like restricting any other right protected by the constitution.
If you want those restrictions - you need to get enough people to agree with you to amend the constitution - it is not acceptable to end-run the constitution - and the supreme court, in recent history, seems to agree.
Find better champions of your cause indeed.
The solution was described in "Rainbows End" by Vernor Vinge; a group called "The Friends of Privacy" would post fake information about people all over the web. If you googled someone, you'd get so many fake hits, that the real ones would be impossible to detect.
Same thing here: make new posts claiming that her address is something else (preferably an NRA member's house), with similar blurred pictures. And when the original poster posts again complaining "hey, these other posts are fake", then generate new posts claiming the same thing about his posts.
Pollution: its time has come.
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.
Tried, true, reliable, inexpensive. We dont need to add unreliable complexity just because liberal pea brains are afraid of something..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
First off, I will give my standard libertarian disclaimer that I don't care what you do as long as you don't try to compel me to do what you think is best. So, fair enough you believe you have no use for a firearm anymore. Great, just don't try to prevent me from owning and using firearms for my own protection.
Serious question though, should people be allowed to privately own tanks with live shells? Where is the line drawn between allowing people to own dangerous items and items being too dangerous to be allowed widespread private ownership due to the potential on infringing on others' right to life?
It would have save WILL GARDNER. There, arguement won.
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.
Then I got married, and now my gun stays at the range, where we go and fire it once in a blue moon. Now that I think about it, I have not touched it since last August.
All of this said, I cannot imagine for the fuck of it a situation where I would want a fucking piece of shit that only fires if I am wearing a watch.
Ok, so you'd rather have no gun at hand at all than a gun you can safely keep at home?
You must not put a lot of value on a life... people who lived for 20+ years, had a family, laughed and cried. Burglars... they wanted some hunks of plastic and some pieces of metal which you could just claim on insurance. Instead we have 3 people with lives cut short. Most people aren't thieves purely for the fun of it. It's a system where the owner of Wal-Mart makes more during the time it takes to shit than you do in a year and you are complaining about a bunch of poor people.
Unarmed burglars, but somehow you know that they would have killed him?
"Then again, how do we know this wasn't purposely put out by an anti-gunner? I hate tossing conspiracy stuff out there, but there's no way to really know."
You're right. It could have been an anti-gun troll, or it could have actually been a pro-gun commenter. From one comment, we can't tell. You'd have to look at their other posts to get a better sense of their motives.
I'm more interested in the community reaction. Did they call him out for giving them a bad image or name? Or did they stay quiet... and if so, why?
"You don't tend to see the left calling for banning guns either"
So when these guys call for bans on "assault weapons", they're not on the left or not calling for gun bans?
When NYC starts taking people's guns away, the city is not left-leaning or it's not banning any guns?
When Democrats tried to put confiscation of assult weapons into a bill in New York state, apparently they were not "on the left" and were not going for the guns?
When Democrat senator Dianne Feinstein said this about her desire to order every person in the US to turn in their guns (which only failed to happen because she could not get enough votes) she did not really mean it?
And while we're on the subject, what's with this article on the various Democrat efforts to grab/ban guns and various ways to lie to the public about it so the public will let them do it???
Who am I supposed to believe? You or my apparently lying eyes and ears? Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.... and as a corallary: those who failed to listen to tyrants as they announced their evil plans in the past, are probably too dumb to notice when the next wave plainly announce the evil they are planning.
Why would people be opposed to the possibility of buying a gun that limits the user base to a single person who can be identified by either a "watch" or a fingerprint? Personally I think the watch idea is terrible because someone could, feasibly, steal both the gun and the watch. Fingerprint scanners would be a much better solution for security of that firearm.
I wouldn't be opposed to some form of DNA identification either, but I am one of those people who is okay with the NSA snooping my texts, emails and phone calls... Why, you may ask? Because I am not doing or planning on doing anything illegal with my email, texts or phone calls.
Bring it on!
Just my 2 cents.
"I think you know what I'm talkin' about, Mr. President; We're gonna kill us a mummy!" - Bruce Campbell as Elvis Presley
Many criminals try not to escalate their charges if they don't have to. It's why retail employees are trained to just hand over the money and let insurance deal with it, instead of fighting back. Of course, this doesn't work when you have a macho "tough-on-crime" politician make the penalty for theft and the penalty for murder near indistinguishable.
If I thought that I needed a gun at home, I would have a good, reliable gun. (It would probably be a newer CZ with a similar grip to my old one - not that there aren't better guns, but because familiarity is more important that subtle differences in performance)
If I didn't think I need a gun at home, I'd have no gun at home. (Which is the case right now)
In no case would I have an expensive, gimmicky contraption like the iP1 at home, nor I would I recommend anyone gets it - I do not think that the watch is any more useful a control than a key for the trigger lock, and kids have defeated these to shoot themselves before.
This said, feel free to get one, and feel good about it. Chances are, you will benefit from the positive emotions, and will never be harmed from the decreased reliability.
No good deed goes unpunished...
It's like mandatory locked bootloaders on ALL future hardware.
You must get the government's approval for ALL code you wish to run on any device.
Imagine that they make it mandatory to have breathalyzer key locks on all cars in the future. Sounds good, right? Even people who have never taken a single sip of alcohol in their life must blow into a sensor each time they want to start their car. That sounds like a brilliant idea right up to the point where we all know that technology has a propensity to break down. The one time your wife is in labor and needs you to drive her to the hospital, your car decides not to start just because the sensor is dead.
The stupidest part about this gun is that anyone who knows anything about wireless transmissions should immediately think of jamming devices. You quite literally jam the gun with a tiny device on your keychain.
This means a home invader just keeps a conventional gun (even if they're illegal because why do they care?) with them, then jams the transmission between the watch and your gun, and you're dead.
The police state agents disable all innocent citizens' guns when they come to round us all up into concentration camps.
It may sound crazy now, but the people of Germany would probably have you institutionalized if you told them what was about to happen pre-WW2.
We don't have representatives. Only corporations and special interest groups do.
Our votes mean just about nothing. Maybe they actually mean LESS than nothing because we have the delusion that they DO mean something.
Our votes are a placebo.
Try living in New York, Massachusetts or several other places where restrictive gun laws have been passed. Confiscating guns and making all sorts of makes and models illegal is exactly what they have done. Oh sure they are "grandfathering" in some weapons, but if you let your license lapse or for whatever reason that gun in your closet that your grandfather bought legally or your father earned in the service of his country now makes you a felon. Congratulations, anti-gun nuts have made your grandma a felon.
Every single vehicle proximity key has a mechanical alternative built into it.
Why are the gun-nuts afraid? Haven't they got their guns to cling to?
Given the way the internet reacts to women saying things they don't like about video games and coding I wonder if a man had invented this instead of a woman would someone still have decided to retaliate against him by posting his personal information on line for people to give them trouble? Independent of whether the idea is a good one or not.
Of course, one significant difference which people don't tend to get is that there's no constitutional right to drive an automobile, especially on public roadways.
Sure there is. It's in the Ninth and Tenth amendments.
The definition of a right, which people don't tend to get, is that a right is something that can be limited, but only for a good reason, and only for a limited scope related to that reason.
Now ask me why in the 21st century driving is a right.
The technology in question is the "magazine safety". It blocks the trigger press unless a magazine is fully inserted.
A magazine safety isn't for "gun grab" protection. It's to prevent a supposedly unloaded weapon from firing when there's still a round in the chamber. California requires it on new handguns. Prevents the "But I didn't know it was loaded" problem.
The U.S. Army often puts a barrel of sand outside mess halls and such in war zones. Entering the area, soldiers must unload their weapon, then try to fire it into the sand barrel. For a large mess hall, about once a day, on average, "bang".
When Col. Dave Hackworth was working on the Army's project to replace the 1911A1, he discovered that, over the Army's history of that weapon, it had killed more US troops through accidents than enemy. Sidearms are carried by troops who don't plan to use them. If you expect to need a weapon, you take something bigger. So the Army really wants sidearms that don't go off by accident.
The Internet recently got Mozilla's CEO (a man) fired (ok fine, he stepped down) over him donating to a cause they didn't like years ago.
The Internet is equal opportunity hater. Enjoy your stay.
They were probably just offended about how ugly the watch is.
They should have made it a stylish watch you can wear every day, and have several styles. Where it is an awesome watch that just happens to also unlock your gun.
As it is, it is an ugly watch you only wear when you want to shoot your gun, which mean's 99% of owners will actually store it with their gun.
A) Making it absolutely pointless.
B) Unless they shoot a lot, maybe a dead battery, making it also pretty pointless.
So bling it up already! :) (Seriously I've seen calculator watches from the 90's that looked better than that)
What is the point of such a gun anyway?
Telling a law abiding person that you need to take away their gun for the safety of society raises the same red flags as telling someone that they have to leave their doors unlocked. And it should. We do not live in a perfectly peaceful society. We live in a society where people want to kill us, they want to rape us or our children, they want to take our stuff and enslave us. And for tens of thousands of people in this country alone, this is their experience. I understand people wanting to feel safer, that is what motivates gun owners and that is what motivated the founding father's when they adopted the second amendment. If you want to live in a safer society let people keep their guns and encourage them to keep them locked up until the day they need them. Because telling them they don't need guns is going to be seen for the transparent self deluded lie that it is and that lie will just hasten mistrust and division in society and will itself lead to greater violence. Feeling safer is your right, feeling safe is delusional.
Serious question though, should people be allowed to privately own tanks with live shells? Where is the line drawn between allowing people to own dangerous items and items being too dangerous to be allowed widespread private ownership due to the potential on infringing on others' right to life?
I suspect you are trolling, but in the interest of rational debate I will give you the benefit of the doubt.
From a historical basis, the Constitution authorizes letters of marque and reprisal (Article I, section 8), which reinforces the notion that the framers were comfortable with the concept of heavy weaponry in private hands. Letters of marque, of course, were the basis that distinguished a warship owner as a privateer rather than a pirate. So... the founders were comfortable with private ownership of warships and cannons. Tanks with live shells can do less damage than a warship with rows of cannons, so I'm going to use logical induction to say they would consider that acceptable as well. Suffice it to say, I don't believe it's legitimate to infringe upon the right of law-abiding citizens to keep and bear modern firearms.
Practically speaking, though, the tank thing really isn't an issue. A modern battle tank costs millions, and I'm guessing the shells are in the tens of thousands, and the fuel for an M1 Abrams is quite expensive (it gets ~0.6 mpg). What would allowing private ownership of this tank do to threaten peace, in your opinion?
Besides, if someone *really* wants to inflict mayhem, they will build a Killdozer.
Gun nut logic applied in other fields.
I don't like amazon's TV box => Mr. Bezos must be 'leveled'.
You don't like the product? Don't buy it. It is a free country, right, dimwits?
I don't agree with everything you said, so here's my comments.
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.
True. These types tend to fixate upon 'gun crime', and worse tend to give us the perception that they're willfully ignorant. They want to ban 'assault weapons', IE scary looking semi-automatic rifles when 72% of firearm murders are by handguns. Shotguns are normally used in more murders than *ALL* rifles. They want to ban .50BMG, used in approximately ZERO murders or crimes(Each round costing ~$20 and fired from a rifle that can't be shot unsupported and is normally 5+ feet long might have something to do with that...). They want to ban high capacity magazines when the average number of shots fired in a confrontation with a semi-automatic is 3.5(2.5 out of revolvers). Etc...
The general consensus is that gun-grabbers are doing the same things that conservative anti-abortion types are trying: Make guns so expensive and such a hassle that most don't bother. We don't like that.
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.)
I'll note that their gun bans have been shot down by the Supreme Court recently.
Personally, I'm all for allowing the sale of Biometric/fire control firearms. I'm just scared of the prospect of states and other jurisdictions *REQUIRING* them before they're well enough developed that the police are willing to use them. Nearly 5% of 'feloniously killed' were killed by their own weapon over the last 10 years. (25 out of 535). Despite this, even in states where they support the most gun control, the police will lobby to the hilt to exempt themselves from any such requirements.
Honestly enough, my figuring:
1. "Smart Guns" will not stop their use for suicide by authorized users. (~19k suicides by firearm; 14k murders by all methods; 69% firearm)
2. SG will not stop criminal action by authorized users
3. Smart Guns will not hold against being reset/modified to remove the function if stolen.
4. I hear more about guns being taken from criminals than citizens trying to use them to defend themselves from criminals.
In short, until they've proven themselves reliable enough for police use where professional armorer support is available for maintenance, I don't think they're ready for private use either.
I don't read AC A human right
I see arguments about what the 2nd Amendment "really" says all over this page; people talking about how their guns are going to be stripped away; how any law-abiding citizen has a right to own a firearm. Where are we really disagreeing here, people?
You want a gun? Fine: pass a background check. Have a history of 1) violent crime or 2) attempts to harm yourself or others due to mental illness? Then maybe you should consider something other than a gun for protection, and maybe the state should enforce that for you. You want an assault rifle for hunting? Hunting what, exactly? Well-armored bears who are currently stealing your children?
Legitimate uses for guns owned by citizens fall into either hunting, or self defense. Other than that, it's fun to go to a shooting range sure, but that's arguably practice for the aforementioned tasks. If you need an assault rifle for militia-type purposes, maybe you need to have those kept somewhere safe. "Geez, we all banded together in our community and have decided to fight oppression from the government, but I'll be damned if I'm driving over to Gander Mountain first to grab a gun!"
So glad you have the ability to see into alternate realities to assert what would have happened if things had been different. That's a valuable skill.
I just scrolled down past 600 messages and not one I stopped at was worth reading.
Now, that is the Slashdot I know and love.
Since you don't respond to dialectic, I think you should be killed. If members of your immediate family are the same way, they should be killed as well.
That is the reason why Americans need to own guns.
First post on this here.
Roughly speaking, firearm owners are very conservative in their fiream selections. Consider that the most popular handgun type is the 1911- accepted by the Army in the year 1911, development and early models were around a few years earlier. Even the AR-15 dates back to '57.
The concern is one of reliability. Consider how hard police will lobby for exemptions to any requirements to use smart guns, when 5% of officers murdered are murdered with their own firearm. They're not reliable enough yet.
Another is expense - guns are expensive enough to begin with, how much more expensive would this make firearms for how much added safety? Probably a lot, for very little. Few are murdered with their own weapon by a person that wouldn't be authorized(Spouse killing Spouse, for example).
I don't read AC A human right
It isn't reasonable to discuss throwing people in jail for exercising their second amendment rights, but that is actually what you are proposing. That is every bit a threat of violence against otherwise law abiding citizens as anything else you could say. You are just saying that you don't want to be the one to pull the trigger and will leave that up to the police. That is why such talk elicits such a response, because you want to so casually talk about attacking your neighbors and taking away their right to defend themselves.
1. Take the watch and super glue it to the gun ....
2. Profit
Maybe without the gun he would have done the only sensible thing which is to retreat and call the police. It is a completely unacceptable risk to prevent the theft of your possesions if those possesions aren't necessary to stay alive.
What you see may be a small startup with an exciting new technology. What they see is a opportunistic vulture looking to abuse a law to get goventment granted monopoly and deliver a fake product.
What if I get jumped?
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?
George Zimmerman successfully pulled his firearm and shot Trayvon Martin while being straddled and having his head punched into the sidewalk.
This isn't a hypothetical situation anymore. This happened, and everyone watched the political witch-hunt and trial.
and they are the kind of people who would have the ability to maintain it.
I'm worried about anything that would keep George Zimmerman from being able to shoot Trayvon Martin. This is one more thing to keep maintained.
I am neither for or against guns as I am not against nail guns or hammers (also known to be used in crimes).
I am however wondering if instead of fighting against guns which would in theory have protected you... Meaning guns which can only be fired if held by the owner would be something which everyone should agree on.
1) in military situations, guns used in the field that can only be fired by the side who purchased them. So weapons which can't be raided, stolen, etc... Being turned against the side who brought them.
2) Personal protection. Guns can't be removed from people who purchased them and used against someone else.
I think the bracelet thing is stupid unless people are expected to wear them at all times. However, using iPhone style finger print scanning on the grip for identification sounds pretty smart.
If you want a gun... Go for it! But wouldn't it be nice if it had an effective means of making sure that it couldn't be used by someone who stole it from you?
Will there be problems to begin with? Absolutely! Batteries won't last. There will be electronics problems. There will be jams. Many guns already have similar problems when not properly cared for. This is why things like revolvers are still so popular. But for newer weapons... Why not try to make them safer.
I had to buy a table saw recently and purchased a Dewalt which had a nice safety guard for the blade. It's a little inconvenient, but I figured it was a smart move. If I bought a gun, I would probably like the idea of a safety guard. For now, I just borrow guns when at the range and leave the there when I'm done. I have no need for them. If someone wants to take my money... Go for it... Drink one on me. Of course I live in a city with 800,000 people and an average of 10 shootings a year... Mostly domestic.
The home invaders were unarmed, but they would have killed him anyways? Look, I know that criminals are not generally competent, but that's quite a pretzel of logic there.
Can Armatrix guarantee that in a close quarters combat / scuffle that...
1. your finger prints will read?
2. battery can't get jarred loose or somehow disconnected?
3. the firearm will "initialize" fast enough to be deployed?
4. if the firearm is somehow taken beyond that 10" range of use , will you have to reinitialize the weapon to get it to work?
5. will it only work on your strong side? What if you switch hands?
6. will 22LR get the job done?
If smart guns were a good idea police and military would be the first to purchase and mandate them ! California law exempts police from the requirement ! Do you know why state law exempts police ?
7. batteries regularly fail, then what?
Many states, mine included, are on the path to banning any gun which is not a "smart gun". Except for cops of course, because they don't need to have safe stuff.
So to anybody who does not want this stuff, this person is actually leading the charge against them, directly.
Let's make this simple for people with quips not appropriately modded insightful.
If the pacemaker already worked as intended without a battery, there's no reason to add one. And just like a fucking pacemaker, the purpose of one of my pistols is to protect /my/ life. Not yours. I will not needlessly introduce unreliability into a functional system for no actual benefit.
but you're too damned opaque in the one liners to admit it.
TLDR; I'm not relying on a fucking battery for anything other than a backup sight. It needs to send lead at 1300 fps every time I squeeze the trigger with the safety off and the gun properly held.
But can't you see? The criminal who broke into the gun owner's house would have most certainly spared the gun owner's life if the gun owner hadn't shot and killed two of his accomplices! We know this because the common criminal is a man of morals and high standing who would never ever kill an innocent person to prevent a living witness from testifying against said criminal at trial.
We as a progressive society should allow the criminal to proceed with his pilfering undisturbed if discovered in one's home or place of business. If you are so unlucky as to meet the extremely rare brute of a criminal who doesn't thoroughly enjoy spending time in penitentiary, then perhaps you shouldn't have been in your own home or owned anything worth stealing, you capitalist pigdog.
I agree. But every gun banning law being proposed, including the ones that would ban guns that don't have such devices are a direct threat of violence against every otherwise law abiding gun owner that simply wishes to be left in peace to possess the gun they see fit to defend themselves with.
This gun interlock supposedly has a 10 inch range. Why is no one commenting on that?
Possibly because using two hands is part of a proper gun stance.
People will pass up steak once a week, for crap every day.
So on the day I need to protect myself, or my wife and kids, I'll have to also worry that the battery in my watch might be low? Will the President and all the people on capitol hill and all the rich-and-famous celebrities be exposed to this extra failure mode? More-importantly: Will every criminal, and every federal agent who might end-up serving some future tyrant face this extra risk of failure?
The problem with a deceptive scheme like this is not just an engineering issue (as-in "use as much hardware as needed, no more, and no less") but it is a political problem as the supporters of these things always know. Here's how it goes:
1. Once a gunmaker pushes something like this, and one of these is successful in the market, then the anti-gun politicians push laws only allowing these crippled weapons (pointing out that they're "proven to work" and "proven available"). Of course, for them "proven" means less-likely to be fired (whether the owner needs it to fire or not).
2. This is almost always a crony-capitalist play by a smaller manufacturer (who frequently has a patent on some aspect). This has happened in many fields before (other than guns) and it goes like this: Lacking market share, and a legitimate way to get market share, they design a newer "safer" product using the patented feature and then convince the politicians to mandate the feature (so the other makers need to buy licenses to the patent, and all customers pay higher prices)
3. If this is done via some electromagnetic scheme, there will be a push to create "jammers". Oh, rest assured... the jammers will only be available to the police and only for use against bad guys..... just like all the spying and groping that we currently only apply to terrorists....
The Trayvon Martin type was being stalked by a crazy person in a neighborhood where he lived. I'd be much more afraid of some hack self-appointed security guard type who runs around with a gun chasing people who don't "look like they should be there".
This is the Free Market (tm) fixing a problem! The invisible hand of the market and all that. Isn't this what all the RightWing Gun lobby people want? Free Market (tm) economics and the second amendment coming together in some freakish way to solve a gigantic problem?
I am shocked. Shocked, I tell you, that any support of America, the 2nd amendment, and our God-given constitutional rights would ever say anything against a market-driven solution.
Shame! Shame!!!!
From gun control, to the minimum wage, to importing millions of illegal voters, to propaganda media in the form of public TV and Radio, the Democratic Party needs to be excised from American politics and reformed from the ground up.
I agree with your comment except you called what was always a standard capacity magazine a 'hi-cap mag'. Those are standard cap and the new regulated models are reduced capacity.
I've also never understood the need to reduce a magazine's capacity. If I can't buy a 20 round mag, I'll buy 2 10 round mags. If I'm a nut job determined to 'mow down crowds of people' having to take 2-3 seconds to swap magazines isn't going to stop me. I would assume said 'nut job' would have a bag with tons of magazines already loaded.
How often are people locked out of their car because the key doesn't work?
Not often enough for it to be an issue.
you're dense. the acceptable rate of failure for a self defense weapon is infinitely lower than the acceptable rate of failure of a car door.
a few months ago, agun owner 20 miles away, in San Bernadino, got killed when he interrupted a home invasion (by unarmed people) He got two, the third strangled him.
perhaps if he didn't live in such a shit state, he might have had a firearm with a standard capacity magazine and been able to save his life.
LEL IF YOU NEED MORE THAN TEN ROUNDS TO STOP AN ATTACKER YOU SHOULD GET MORE TRAINING
A large part of illegal guns in tight control places like New York, originate from legal purchases at gun shows which are specifically exempt from the tracking and controls that would be done elsewhere. Likewise there are gun stores in Pennslyvania which are ONLY legally allowed to sell to people coming in from out of state. The problem is that loopholes like these are deliberately created to make end runs around gun control laws which show the problem of leaving this thing to the states. We need a Federally imposed standard of gun regulation which can't be circumvented by gun shows and Pennsy gun shops. We need to stop deliberately inhibiting the AFT from doing the job it's supposed to do.
"This would only be true if said gun owner started taking his firearms out and handling them carelessly, which is so rare that you stand a better chance (by at least an order of magnitude) of being hit by a car driven recklessly (yet for some odd reason, no one is calling for a ban on automobiles.)" No one's calling a ban for guns either, but I don't think that you're looking to have all regulations lifted on auto safety, are you? The NRA gets into a frenzy whenever ANY regulation is brought up, or even any technology that might restrict the free use of a firearm. They're apparently in a major panic on smartguns because they assume the existence of them will lead to mandated confiscation of non-smart weapons.
Right. Equally plausible scenarios:
They beat him up but let him live.
He gets the hell out of their way and the burglars get away
You're forgetting one fact: He already shot two burglars - which choice exactly does the 3rd one have? Surrender and hope for the best? Naw. The situation had already escalated to one involving lethal force which makes a peaceful outcome pretty unlikely. It's pretty rare for violent situations to de-escalate without involving an outside force.
More likely he wouldn't have tried to stop them -- one unarmed man against three who may or may not be armed, not very good odds. Then he would be dealing with some property damage and some stolen items, which in the grand scheme of things is a whole lot better than being dead.
I'd call that a decision that only the guy who intervened could make. And he did, so it would appear that he considered the risk to his own life to be worth it.
I applaud that.
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
But if you have children how would you juggle keeping a gun accessible enough to actually use in self defence but not accessible enough for your children to easily access it?
He assumes that the home invaders are never going to invade someone else's home and end up killing *them*, too, which seems to prove the very view he's arguing against.
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
I read through the comments and many people don't seem to realize that this gun is potentially combat-ready more quickly than others in case where weapon and ammunition have to be stored separately (by law provisions). Not so with the Armatix systems.
In Washington state a naked man, high on drugs was sprayed with pepper spray by a deputy sheriff. It had no effect. He then wrestled the cop's gun away from him, and shot the cop to death with his own gun. I saw the funeral precession for Deputy Richard Herzog personally. If this technology had existed back then, it would have saved his life. If baffles my mind these gun nuts would fight against these kind of things. It just shows they're more about crazy conspiracy theories than gun safety.
First off, people who are afraid of guns have a misplaced fear. Doctors, cars, and prescription meds are more dangerous.
Secondly, people who feel afraid when they do not have guns on their hip have misplaced fear. Doctors, cars, and prescription meds are more dangerous.
I wanted to take a moment to beat back the crazies as any gun debate brings them out.
- it is not wrong for someone to develop a gun that has this proximity mechanism. It is in fact innovation. You might not like it but if someone's purpose is to buy a gun(for whatever reason), then this might fit their needs just fine while providing additional protections to those around them from accidents.
- I am for federal laws, but only federal laws. When each municipality can make its own rules, then transporting a firearm for hunting/shooting competitions in another state can get you into the wrong side of the law if you pass through the wrong communities. Make for sensible uniform, NON TINFOIL hat laws.
Lastly as it relates to self defense: up until recently, ONLY Wisonsin and Illinois were the left holding out on concealed carry. Wisconsin was not a high crime state and crime did not precipitously drop once CC was approved. By the NRA's logic, criminals should have flocked there because people were not carrying weapons. IOW, it is a myth that carrying guns changes anything in terms of being a crime influencer.
PS. Before you quote how I do not understand risks, read "The Science of Fear". People spend too much time worrying about stuff that does not matter.
If he hadn't had a gun, he wouldn't have done something stupid like confront robbers face-to-face. Instead he would have called the police and waited a few minutes for them to arrest the unarmed robbers.
By having he gun, he made a foolish choice that resulted in his death.
Enable 3D printed prosthetics!
To me, you are the perfect person for this type of gun. Your gun currently sits at the range. With a standard gun, if it gets stolen, they can then use it for anything they want. You don't have to worry about using it in your home for self defense or anything like that. So with this type of gun you can still use it at the range when you want but if it ever is stolen, the thief couldn't use it for anything.
Sigh. Making it clear that you've never been into the guts of a gun. There's not much in there. There will always be a simple way to defeat these mechanisms. If a mechanism becomes widespread, the means will become known to criminals rapidly. Legitimate gun owners will defeat it, and they will share the information with other legitimate gun owners. It's worthless, and it makes the firearm less reliable.
If you want to improve firearms responsibility, here's a method which can also be easily defeated but which doesn't impinge on their function: a camera should be attached to the gun which takes a picture when the weapon is fired. (It's activated by the mechanism just before the weapon fires.) Every cop's gun should have to have this camera. It might well be reasonable to integrate them into all handguns as well, but that's a whole other argument. Let's see just what they're looking at when they fire.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
> 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.
Or it is just as likely that if he had been unarmed, he wouldn't have confronted the invaders, and all of them would have lived. Without knowing the specifics, we can't say.
Unless you are blazing away one-handed like you think you are a goddamn action hero, shouldn't you, a responsible and well trained gun owner, be using your firearm with a two hand stance?
... I keep it loaded. It isn't much use in a home invasion if it isn't loaded.
Guns are for girls... I always carry a dead man's switch to the 500 pounds of TNT I keep under my bed.
Nobody robs me and gets away with it...
I think of it as the nuclear option (patent pending).
I'd venture to say people are just as unlikely to clean and oil their gun and install fresh ammunition..
Au contraire! Every year, thousands (thousands!) of good responsible gun owners unintentionally shoot themselves or their buddies in the hand, or foot, or ass, or crotch, or head (that last one seldom turns out well!).
In about 2/3 of those cases, guess what they were doing? Wait for it.... they were CLEANING THEIR GUN AND IT JUST WENT OFF! So there are gun cleaners everywhere, I tell you, and my hat is off to them, having the courage to clean their gun when it is (apparently) such a risky activity.
Jay
Will fire 10 inches.... so the bad guy holds my wife by the neck and she clutches at his arm choking her trying to pull it away... where is her arm? within 10 inches of the gun pointed at her head. bang goes the supposedly safe gun.
Maybe not. Instead of confronting the burgles he could have hid, barricaded himself somewhere, or ran away (if he's so concerned with home safety he has those portable fire escape ladders for every window right?).
Personally, if I had a gun I'd barricade myself and shoot anyone who attempted to get to me. I wouldn't go confront the enemy in their area. Too many people act like they're invincible when they're holding a gun.
It could also be that having a gun prompted him to be confident in interrupting the invasion himself. Without a link to the story, we don't really know if he was sitting at home and the door was burst in, or if he was arriving home and the gun is what allowed him the confidence to walk straight into a dangerous situation.
The weapons you suggest lack the stopping power of a gun.
The melee weapons lack the necessary range. The bow and arrow lack the necessary draw speed.
A revolver represents a much better trade-off between complexity and effectiveness than your suggestions.
Who said you need a modern battle tank? You can get demilitarized T-55s for less than $50,000. They're infinitely more accessible to a single person than a warship in your example, which would need a fortune to own and a considerable crew to run it.
But then, even if you think a live round capable tank isn't realistic for someone wishing to do harm to own, what about shoulder mounted anti-aircraft missiles? What level of military equipment do you allow in private citizens hands? Everything?
Besides, if someone *really* wants to inflict mayhem, they will build a Killdozer
Well, it didn't actually kill anyone though did it.
If you don't like your laws, vote. If you're outvoted, shut up or move out to where you'll live with more likeminded people. Threatening vendors of gun locks or claiming that a new kind of gun lock somehow violates constitution is beyond stupid. If you're for literal interpretation, how about we ban any weapon except 18th century pistols and muskets that were around when the constitution was written.
You didn't get the "unarmed" part. These were people intending to steal from him, not kill him. The reason they were unarmed is that being caught after an armed robbery carries a much longer jail sentence. Murder is obviously even worse, it's not something they intended or wanted to happen because that will make the police actually try to catch them. You may be living in a Mad Max style fantasy world, but most criminals don't. They want to maximize profit and minimize risk/cost just like anyone else.
Having needed to draw and fire once in my 28 years on this planet and 6 years of having my CCW, I will say the following:
I will not allow my life to depend on some poorly contrived embedded devices utilizing code written by the same kinds of contractors that threw together the healthcare website. I take painstaking care of my carry piece. Every time I get back from the range (about twice to three times a week), I clean it, condition it, check the metal for signs of wear, oil it and cycle the slide to ensure smooth operation. In the tens of thousands of rounds that have gone through this firearm, I have had less than 50 failures to fire, I have had exactly one failure to feed, and two failures to eject. All of which were at the range, cleared in a second or two, and normal operation resumed. The firearm in question is a Beretta PX4 Storm Compact chambered in .40 S&W. It's a very light, compact, easily concealed, and comfortable. It's also a safe firearm. It has a type-F ambidextrous thumb safety. When safety is turned on, it decocks the hammer, ensuring it won't fire. And, when the safety is on, the rear part of the firing pin rotates out of alignment with the hammer, and in addition, there's a hammer drop catch that prevents the hammer from contacting the firing pin when safety is on. It also has an automatic firing pin block, so the firearm will not function unless the trigger is pulled fully back. This prevents accidental discharge if the defense weapon falls.
The one time I had to regrettably draw and fire, there was a man approaching me with a rather large knife, demanding my wallet. Noticing tracks up and down his arm, I did not trust him to not utilize the knife on me once I did indeed give him my wallet. So I began to back away, left hand in the air, right hand reaching back for what I told him was my wallet. When I drew the firearm, he lunged at me with the weapon. I fired twice, as per training. (Controlled pair.) Both rounds struck center of mass. He survived, but there was a six month period of my life I will not get back, as I had to go through the court system defending my action. All because some drugged-up individual decided my life was worth less than his next fix. I've drawn in one other situation, but thankfully did not have to fire. It was a home invasion. The individual had a gun in his waistband, but I had already drawn. One movement toward that weapon and I would have fired. This individual had perpetrated three prior home invasions, one in which he raped a woman at gunpoint and had several warrants out for his arrest. His firearm was purchased from an illegal source.
This is all anecdotal, yes. But in my mind, as long as there are human beings who choose to act more like animals than people, I will not resign my safety to the lag time of police response or the unreliability of poorly coded, poorly implemented embedded device safeties. In a time where milliseconds mean life or death, minutes are simply too long to wait, and a failure rate of 1 in 1000 is still a worse set of odds than I'd like to base my life on.
So how exactly is a burglary possible without "forcing their way into a home"? How do you know that these people knew there was somebody in the house, let alone someone with a gun that they ignored because they were "fearless"? You're making some huge assumptions there without much to back yourself up.
Please feel free to use a pacemaker powered by walking or beer. I look forward to your demonstration.
Well, if you can't attack the facts - attack the author.
I would have to agree- if they were willing to tackel and strangle an armed man to death things only could have gotten worse had he been unarmed and dealing with three people capable of strangling a man to death.
What's worse then death? Being horribly tortured for days until you die from your accumulated agony while your tortured out bank codes are used to completely deplete your savings. Potentially surviving being tortured for days before being rescued could be 'worse' depending on how you view it.
And they will get shot down in court just as fast. I'n not exactly pro gun but even I can see this is a stupid law that violates the constitution.
originate from legal purchases at gun shows which are specifically exempt from the tracking and controls that would be done elsewhere
Citation please. The 'specific exemption' you talk about is that sales at gun shows are regulated exactly the same as they are NOT at gun shows. IE a dealer with an FFL is required to do a background check, log the sale into his bound book, etc... A non-dealer selling a firearm is NOT required to log it and can't legally do a background check using the NICS system.
Likewise there are gun stores in Pennslyvania which are ONLY legally allowed to sell to people coming in from out of state.
Again, citation is required. The laws regarding an interstate sale - and the feds care about state of residence for considering it 'interstate' are complicated and restrictive enough that I don't imagine that a legal gun store would be able to survive on the exemptions. For the first restriction, I know that they wouldn't be able to legally sell handguns at all.
We need a Federally imposed standard of gun regulation which can't be circumvented by gun shows and Pennsy gun shops.
Sure, just as soon as you show that 'gun shows' and gun shops are actually circumventing anything.
I don't read AC A human right
The difference between burglary and home invasion is whether occupants are present—this is a standard definition. The most affronting type of home invasion is the deliberate kind, as in the Wichita Massacre. The invaders forced their way in after the occupants opened the front door when they rang the doorbell. This is an example of what I meant by "rabid".
In the end, though, the person/people forcing their way into my home are not accorded the benefit of the doubt and are (yes) assumed to intend harm upon my family. Thus, the use of deadly force is appropriate and legal. Yes, I know this means that "simple" burglars may end up being killed. If people don't want to risk getting shot, all they have to do is... not force their way into my home.
This really isn't hard to comprehend.
"Criminals gonna commit crime."
Hm, that doesn't really roll off the tongue, but the point is valid.
This debate is rapidly devolving to a consideration of how much money people are willing to spend to inflict massive casualties. Terrorists like McVeigh can do a lot with a relatively low budget. I will note that ANFO and Ryder trucks are legal to own, and yet this has happened only once. Technically, Mohammed Atta et al managed to do a lot more with just a few box cutters.
Your concern appears to be that if regular, private citizens had arms they would use them for mayhem. You know that a modern MANPADS costs hundreds of thousands, right? The firing unit is very expensive. Okay, so are you suggesting "cheap" RPGs or grenades would be an issue? We know the terrorists can get them already, so the concern is limited to law-abiding citizens that go crazy once they have said weapons, right?
As you correctly surmised, there is really no point banning the ownership of warships and other expensive weapons. If someone has that much money and is determined to inflict mayhem, they will succeed. Were you aware that three of those miniguns that Jesse Ventura used in The Predator are legally in private citizens' hands? Does that worry you? What if I told you that their going price is well over $100k and they can fire $1000 worth of ammo in a minute or two?
Now everyone will see why I needed a skull gun. -- Gunther Hermann
"In the absence of the ability to establish the attribute of truth they tried to establish the noble attributes."
And as for the "what if this is the only gun you can buy" counterargument: there are a few hundred million guns in the USofA, and the people that make them have considerable clout. The notion that suddenly all those other, conventional firearms will disappear, and that gun manufacturers will be forced to make only this type of gun, is delusional.
Ruger has already been forced to quit selling new guns in California because of a requirement that all new pistols include 'bullet stamping' technology -- technology that is not near ready for regular use and will make pistols at least two to three times more expensive than they are now when it is finally reliable.
Other manufacturers will be affected by the new regulations as they refresh their model lines (and in Cali, that can include things like a different color finish).
Take away " guns " and replace it with " smartphones ". Use the same tech as the watch, to prevent any use of a smartphone ( other than emergency calls ) while inside a running vehicle. No exceptions.
Watch how fast folks lose their MINDS when you try to change something. Even if you're only trying to do the right thing. ( prevent deaths )
I would say 75% know not to use their phones while driving, yet the tech will impact 100% of all drivers. ( So, to fix what is clearly an issue with a minority of users, we'll just screw everyone over )
Would you be ok with this ?
and what makes you think buy coming up with an ID bracelet for a firearm this is going to prevent some kid from suicide?
I didn't realize firearms bans had such magical powers to prevent everyone from hurting themselves.
Why not genetically engineer human beings at birth so only those among the elite class are born with legs and arms?
The rest of you who are so afraid to live your lives as a free person because someone is going to come up behind you and shoot ya, can be born without legs and arms.
There problem solved.
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
This debate is rapidly devolving to a consideration of how much money people are willing to spend to inflict massive casualties. Terrorists like McVeigh can do a lot with a relatively low budget. I will note that ANFO and Ryder trucks are legal to own, and yet this has happened only once.
You're right it is relatively easy to make high explosive, but in that case why not sell it ready made? Is that making it too easy?
Were you aware that three of those miniguns that Jesse Ventura used in The Predator are legally in private citizens' hands? Does that worry you? What if I told you that their going price is well over $100k
Maybe because there are only a dozen or so in existence that are legal for citizens to own? Would you be comfortable if these were mass produced and sold more affordably?
This debate is rapidly devolving to a consideration of how much money people are willing to spend to inflict massive casualties.
I will happily give you that for someone smart and determined enough they can create casualties whatever restrictions you place, but my point is how easy should we make it for people to do that? How low should the barrier to entry for creating mayhem be? Should it be higher than it is now to prevent things like opportunistic mass shootings etc.?
background checks. there is no way anyone with that level of psychosis and general nut-baggery could pass even the most basic mental stability tests.
Only if the home invasion was specifically to kill him.
Alternatively, he could let them take his stuff, call the cops once they leave and claim his losses on insurance. That's how it happens in other countries where we don't have bloodlust.
(Disclaimer: I live in Australia)
I don't know if Rambo or Apocalypse Now would be more manly though.
I will grant you that no one is happy about these massacres. However, there is no reasonable discriminator function that will prevent people intent upon destruction from accomplishing their goal while also allowing law abiding people to live with liberty.
I mean, it really doesn't get much easier than "fertilizer plus diesel". Hell, McVeigh made a shaped charge out of it by using a sheet of plywood. Years ago, well before the post 9/11 terrorism paranoia, you could indeed buy ANFO premade (and why not, given it is so easy to make?).
In the end, though, I have stated my rationale for why I believe it is legitimate and appropriate to allow private citizens to own modern firearms (self-defense, and the Constitutional basis of using the armed citizenry to offset the prospect of tyranny). You appear not to agree, though I am inferring this from your line of questioning. What is your position? Complete abolition of firearms ownership?
[quote]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.[/quote]
Been with the department 17 years now... trust me, everybody who has the guts and gumption to defend themselves with deadly force ought to get a CHL and a high quality reliable handgun, and practice with it often. Despite the fact that violent crime rates have been decreasing a lot over the past couple decades, you would not believe the number of nutcases who are still out there who would do you or your loved ones harm... just for a thrill or to take the few dollars out of your pocket that you happen to have on you at a given time. We the police cannot defend you. That's not our job anymore. We're here to clean up the mess afterwards. However, if you don't have the 'right stuff' to defend yourself, then you do NOT need a firearm. Instead you need to practice being the snivelling whining submissive crybaby victim that Hollywood is teaching you to be. You're just as easy to clean up after as the thug who tried to rob or rape the wrong person and got a .45 thru his skull for his attempt. As for myself, I really don't care anymore one way or another. In 3 more years, I'm retired and gonna spend my time fishing and restoring old furniture. And I'll be well-armed.
They only strangled him out of self defense. Had he just run away or started screaming, they wouldn't have felt threatened.
Learn to love Alaska
I laughed my butt off when I read your comment. Yeah I would really be worried that my gun might not work when a "Trayvon Martin type" (innocent black child) doesn't like my looks. Or what if a baby in a stroller suddenly looks at me funny! Here, let's make this easier for you. Instead of Trayvon Martin just put Hitler. There's no way you are going to screw up and mix up an innocent child with Hitler.... I hope.
a problem that I don;'t want to have with a gun when a Trayvon Martin type decides he doesn't like my looks
You mean the stalking-an-unarmed-person-through-back-streets-at-night-with-a-gun-drawn look?
Yeah, how dare those fuckers take a dislike to that?
A gun. We use to call that yellow.
He already shot two burglars - which choice exactly does the 3rd one have?
I think you'll find it's rather impossible to plead self-defense when you were engaged in the commission of a felony in any of the 50 United States. What choice did he have? Did you seriously ask that question? Here's a notion: Try not breaking into houses.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
But if you have children how would you juggle keeping a gun accessible enough to actually use in self defence but not accessible enough for your children to easily access it?
Any one of the dozens of handgun combination safes on the market would do the job. I can open mine in about three seconds.
Of course, the most important thing is education, not gun locks/safes. In fact, you should be teaching your kids gun safety even if you don't own any firearms, because guess what? One or more of their friend's parents do.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
So, if I own an ordinary gun and the bad guy wants to steal it, he takes the gun. If I own this special gun that requires a wristband, then he hacks off my wrist just before he takes the gun. Unless this gun is going to require a hidden microchip embedded within my body, then it won't provide any safety at all against a personal theft.
I suppose that this is supposed to provide an automatic safety should the owner leave the gun in their car, etc. where it could be stolen. So now the bad guy disassembles it, takes out the safety device, installs a fake one, and has what amounts to an ordinary gun.
What a useless, stupid idea!
Are you saying the insane and the criminals should not be afforded their full constitutional rights?
Fifth Amendment - "No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."
They're being deprived of the liberty to own firearms via the due process of law - IE a court trial. I'm really not happy with anything less, and even then in the case of the mentally ill they should have their case periodically reviewed, and in the case of criminals they should be able to have their rights restored after getting off of parole at the latest. If they can't be trusted after their parole ends, they shouldn't be out anyways.
Even then, as you say - you still have rights no matter how badly you've acted. A felon still has the right to a fair trial for his second offense, etc... Heck, he still has the right to defend himself against attack.
I don't read AC A human right
Trayvon Martin was the innocent child gunned down by some gun-owning white guy. I think you have him mixed up with someone more menacing.
""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.""
Why doesn't that person try to do something to the employees of Armatrix?
Die in a fire, you racist fuck.
I'm curious, how did you know that the guns that they used were illegally purchased? Were the assailants both caught and convinced of illegal possession of firearms? Did you manage to look at and remember the serial numbers or something? This just smacks highly of a hypothetical anecdote; not that you weren't robbed, but that your assertion relating this to gun control holds any water.
That aside, how exactly how those weapons were procured? Were they stolen? If so, from whom? Wouldn't it have been nice if there were some law mandating that the person from whom the guns were stolen had to keep them stored safely so that maybe they wouldn't have been stolen? Wouldn't it be nice if the guns were registered so that when the police recovered them, they could track them back to the original owner and possibly take away his permit so that he doesn't let even more guns flow into the hands of assailants? Would it be nice to have a law mandating that all gun owners prove their proficiency in the safety and use of firearms, like a driver license but for gun owners, so that maybe the original owner would have been more responsible?
Or maybe the guns were bought at a gun show, where in many places you can buy firearms without so much as even showing an ID. CNN recently did a segment in which they sent a reporter out to some gun shows to do precisely that, and he was extremely successful. Wouldn't it be nice if we had universal background checks to makes sure that even when Bob sells a gun to Steve, we have some assurance that Steve hasn't recently been convicted of mugging BronsCon in a parking lot? Or to keep Steve from just going to a gun show and buying military-grade weaponry?
Even most liberals I know aren't against "legal gun ownership." All we want are some common sense laws to ensure that the people who are buying guns are mentally competent and aren't violent criminals, that people who own guns are proficient in their safety and use, and that when guns are used for crimes, they can be tracked back to find out where they're coming from so that, hopefully, the flow of guns into the hands of lawbreakers can be stopped. If you really are a responsible gun owner, you should support these laws too.
When right-wing gun nuts and the NRA oppose things like universal background checks, training and/or testing to obtain a license, registration, and bans on military-grade weaponry, it makes people like me EXTREMELY skeptical that all you're interested in is being able to protect yourself. None of those laws would prevent you from doing so, unless you're not mentally competent, a convicted criminal, grossly irresponsible, or you think you might have reason to shoot up an elementary school someday. And if that's the case, to be blunt, yeah, I don't think you should be able to own guns.
And please, don't start with the "first step to confiscation" bullshit. We require no less to legally drive an automobile; in fact, there are thousands more regulations on that activity. Yet somehow for more than a century, we've managed to keep the government from confiscating all of our cars, go figure.
That frankly sounds like something only a nut would write or agree with. But I'll chalk it up to a misguided attempt to pass weak snark off as pithy wisdom.
Yeh, its nice to live in a country where guns are well controlled. It seems we don't have as many men with tiny dicks as the US does. The gun nuts roll out the same tired discredited arguments when all of the evidence clearly shows other countries such as ours laws work well, cognitive dissonance at its finest.
The product isn't a big deal. It's just another firearm feature. Lots of people who buy guns won't buy it. Lots of people who buy guns only buy revolvers because they consider semi-auto's not to be sufficiently trustworthy. That's fine. Another product in the market is all it is. Death threats by idiots are fairly common also. I imagine any politician in favor of abortion or gay marriage has received a few. If I remember the psychological rules for adult kindergarteners correctly, it's best not for feed them any attention. The only place where I can imagine this sort of firearm successfully being required is for the specific use-case of concealed carry pistols, and then only after the technology has been shown to be sufficiently reliable so that law enforcement is happily using it also. Of course, there will still be objections. Law enforcement frequently favors semi-automatic pistols, and lots of people still only buy revolvers.
Looks to me like chiefcrash answered the question. Since you don't like the answer, you come back with a witty reply about research.
So, what's the value of pi to the 10 place? You have to calculate it now, no googling! If you do, no one else can accept that value as real.
The hammer is by far and away the weapon used most in murders. Let's license those now!
Well, if we're going to do the stats, if you get a decent sample size, individuals in possession of a gun were 4.46 times more likely to be shot in an assault than those not in possession.
I haven't worn a watch for years. Not because of cell phones, but because the straps or where the strap mounts kept breaking on me.(a problem that I don;'t want to have with a gun when a Trayvon Martin type decides he doesn't like my looks.)
I haven't worn a watch for years. Not because of cell phones, but because the straps or where the strap mounts kept breaking on me.(a problem that I don;'t want to have with a gun when a George Zimmerman type decides he doesn't like my looks.)
Fixed that for you. Obviously you weren't paying attention to the case when it was being tried or the problems Zimmerman has had with law enforcement since. It was obvious that Zimmerman was the one who "didn't like the looks" of Trayvon from the 911 call and continued to pursue him when the 911 advised him not to. You do realize Trayvon Martin was the victim in that case, right?
Aside from that. Yeah, this "watch required" thing is a ridiculously stupid idea and there is no way it will be accepted. This is the kind of thing that the NRA should be involved in stopping -- not the sensible implementation of background checks. But then again, NRA has been infiltrated by dumbasses who think Trayvon Martin was the one who decided he didn't like the looks of Zimmerman.
When does the USA expect a civil war, in which the population will have to arm themselves against a band of other states.
America is the last country in the world to move forward from the days of the wild wild west.
Americans are no better than anyone else for anger management, and if, in the hight of anger, the person loses his cool and uses the gun, what happens is death on one side, and life or injection on the other.
American minorities who are wacko, have easy access to guns. Sellers don't care about wacos doing the purchasing, it is the buck that counts.
Imagine what the USA would be like if for every death, the arms dealer was made an accomplice. Perhaps we should include the NRA in that accomplice role.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
The home invasion in Cheshire a couple years back was by a couple "unarmed" guys too. Very nice neighborhood, no one worried about crime.
Unfortunately, no one came to help them. Teenage girls raped and burned, Mother strangled and burned, Father beaten and left for dead with massive head trauma.
Good thing you're certain no one would have been hurt....too bad it's a moronic argument.
Let us go ahead and assume there are more thieves than there are people who randomly break into homes to attack people. I think that's reasonable. Without a gun, is he really going to attack 3 people? No, he's going to hide upstairs and call the police. Chance of death is waaay lower.
If it needs to be in proximity to a watch, there must be some kind of signal reception going on. So.... depending on the method, there is a reasonable chance of a signal jammer being developed (by the police or the bad guys.) It would really suck to go for your gun to find a jamming field was present and you were screwed. Not very cool.
However, it will stop the owner's kids from doing so.
Only if they're not an authorized user. Crazy, I know, but many gun-owning adults trust their kids enough to let them shoot. Even in the case of this RFID system, there's a good chance that the watch will be stored right next to the gun. Safety systems only work if you use them... With me and my parents? You need the key and combination to the safe. I'd rate that as at least as effective as most biometric systems I can picture.
Alternatively, the teen could decide to commite suicide by another way. The most horrible I can think of that can actually happen would be the 'deliberately veer into incoming traffic on the highway' one. That asshole actually ended up surviving - he was in a premium SUV. The family in the car he struck, not so much.
which enhances the profits of all those gun manufacturers that bankroll the NRA.
Gun manufacturers are a minor component of NRA funding, and the NRA is more moderate than you think.
I don't read AC A human right
Why dont we make guns that fire by reading your genes like in District 9? that worked pretty well, and those aliens were very advanced. why reinvent the wheel?
Men on average in the US are 3-10x more successful at committing suicide than women.
This reminded me of a 'freak' statistic - More women attempt suicide than men, but more men actually committ suicide, precisely because of this. Though it's evening out. Women are using more effective methods. :(
I don't read AC A human right
"...how easy should we make it for people to do that?"
I think that's the wrong question. It assumes that the =average= person *wants* to go forth and commit mayhem, AND has no social brake on his behavior.
Reality is that only rare individuals have such a desire (most of us have =fantasized= about doing away with some jackass) AND lack the social brake. The right question is -- is that microscopic incidence worth restricting everyone's ability to own whatever? (Isn't this the same nonsense that assumes every airline passenger is a terrorist?)
Chemistry being what it is, there's always an alternative. If you can't get diesel and fertilizer, there's always ammonia and propane, or even just propane by itself. Should we restrict millions' ability to heat their homes because some nutjob =might= use a propane tank as a bomb?
[And if you don't think that's doable, my propane dude told me of a case where a portable cylinder fell off a shelf, knocked its valve askew, and the resulting explosion flattened a motel. Yep, something the size of a Gatorade bottle took out a good-sized building. Having seen the aftermath of a neighbor's misadventure with propane, I'm not too astonished.]
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Because any place that is designated as a "gun-free zone" thereby becomes a place of danger. Nowdays they are refered to as "Rob Me zones".
Generally speaking, bars are rather filled with people, so robbing people inside is impractical and a bit silly of an idea even when everyone is supposed to be disarmed.
Robbing them in the parking lot is a possibility -- bars seem to attract crime of all sorts -- but the typical target you want to mug is someone who can't defend themselves. For a bar, that most likely means drunk people, who would be in no condition to defend themselves if they did have a gun; you'd just end up with an escalation of the situation that would most likely work against the armed patron by encouraging the mugger to attack while the patron attempts to draw.
On the other hand, the threat of impulsive, alcohol-fueled murders in a flash of anger is massively increased when you let someone carry a weapon into a bar. 50% of all murders are committed under the influence of alcohol. Allowing guns into bars is a recipe for raising the local homicide rate.
Just look at what happened to the schools !
Over 99% of schools will never have a school shooting throughout their lifespan. There were 38 school shootings in 2000-2010 resulting in the deaths of 33 victims (not including the shooter). This number does not include colleges but does include a handful of non-public schools. There are just under 99,000 schools in America, meaning that around 4% of 1% of schools had a shooting, and of those most were single-target attacks or very short opportunistic attacks rather than the slow, deliberate Columbine or Virginia Tech style massacre that people hold up as an example of where a gun might help.
On the other hand, 606 people died of firearms accidents and 19,392 people died of suicide just in 2010 alone. So with that in mind, what exactly do you think would have been solved by bringing guns to a building filled with curious children and emotionally wrought teens other than a lot of opportunities for tragedy.
You have to do a fair threat evaluation. Guns in schools are a far bigger threat than they are a threat neutralizer.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Anything that puts us closer to a gun registry or the ability in this case, electronic confiscation of your gun, is a bad thing.
You don't have to extrapolation very far to see how this tech will be abused just like all tech by the "government".
This type of "feature" is intended for covert use of the weapon, which I'd argue falls under what most would categorize as an assault weapon.
A flash suppressor is mutually exclusive of a noise suppressor aka 'silencer'. As such, you'll still have the full report of the rifle, as stated, all it does is cut down the flash a bit so it's less likely to blind the shooter.
As for 'completely changes the weapon's intended use', it's a small metal part that does more than just suppress flash. It also protects the end of the barrel('crown') from damage, which is critical to accuracy.
Today use is shifting towards 'compensators' that use a different hole pattern - besides suppressing flash and protecting the crown, it also helps fight muzzle rise and reduce kick-up if you're shooting over loose sand/gravel.
I don't read AC A human right
> 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.
Possibly, but probably more likely is the burglars tell him not to move, and he sits quietly while they take his stuff, then they leave and he calls the police and his insurance company.
Trayvon Martin was the victim & shot dead. George Zimmerman was the "type" who decided he didn't like Trayvon's looks.
On the other hand, I challenge you to find a 3 year old that can open my safe.
Reaching the dial would be challenge #1...
I'll agree with dyslexicbunny, they shouldn't be marketed as a 'safe'. At most it should be marketed as a 'residential security container', and one that, depending on how it failed* should leave the company open for some liability.
Even a RSC should provide sufficient protection to keep a pre-teen out of it. It just that it would provide minimal fire and theft protection.
*Setting a password of 1,2,3,4 doesn't count as a failure if the kid actually pushed the buttons.
I don't read AC A human right
Actually, not necessarily - even the most nonviolent criminal is probably going to attack if you just killed two of his friends and are about to kill him if he doesn't do something. The fact that they were unarmed and didn't even have a knife probably says something about how violent they were.
Of course, it's not reasonable to expect that a home invader isn't going to try and harm you, but assuming that all burglars are going to murder you isn't quite right either.
Use two hands?
Depends. Am I the dead homeowner, either of the dead burglars, the incarcerated burglar, or the tax payer who is paying to incarcerate the burglar? Come to think of it, I don't think it's better for any of those people.
Funny you never considered the perspective of the burglars' potential future victims, now spared the traumatic and potentially life-threatening experience of having three men break into their homes. I would be surprised if this was the first house they broke into, and am glad that they won't be breaking into any more. It's a shame that someone had to give his own life to make sure of that.
I guess that given the choice between protecting your constitutional rights or fellow citizens desire to not be randomly killed that each side as made a choose however are there are two problems, secondly both sides are right. Firstly, both sides are also wrong.
* Pro-gun is correct to protect all citizens constitutional rights because erosion of a single right could easily cascade to removal of some or all rights. Trying to remove gun crime from society without removing a citizens right to bear arms is impossible when Anti-gun ignore the unintended consquences of their arguments. (Refer to Anti-gun is wrong).
* Pro-gun is wrong to assume the USA is a despotic hell-hole where fully automatic weapons are required for protection in a civilised society. Other similarly well armed nations control weapons, outlaw fully automatic weapons are have a level of gun crime several orders of magnitude less that the USA. (Refer to Anti-gun is correct).
* Anti-gun is correct to desire the same level of safety from gun death as other well armed countries (such as Canada, Switzerland and Australia) because protections demanded by pro-gun are unnecessary. The likihood of being killed by a stolen weapon is far, far more likely than the USA will (1) turn into a hellish, totolertarian fascist state overnight. (Refer to Pro-gun is wrong).
* Anti-gun is wrong when they fail to consider the unintended consquences of their attempts to limit the 4th amendment (for the reasons which pro-gun is right).
Two sets of interdependant logic creates two examples of circular logic (it's very difficult to break one circular logic cycle, this problem has two sets circular logic). I don't know which side will win however the outcomes for anti-gun failing are far, far more likely to be horrible than if pro-gun is wrong.
Regards Sinesurfer A Nerd is someone who lives for technology, A Geek is someone who lives for technology and loves it
He died knowing he stopped two of his three murderers. This act also stopped them from moving on to new victims -- not to forget the possibility of past victims, if any, getting retroactive justice. I doubt it was there first effort.
Now try to imagine being afforded that same dignity in your own unjustified death to the millions of people in Europe during the last World War; or the millions of people in Thailand during the 1970's; or the millions of children and their parents being beheaded in present day Africa.
Of the US could not have fewer gun deaths. People might buy less guns, which would lead to even fewer people die!
Oh the horror!
How will gun manufactures and salesmen pay for their private jets? (Yes I think americans are this stupid)
SCOTUS also ruled in United States v. Cruikshank that the First Amendment right to assembly was not intended to limit the powers of the State governments in respect to their own citizens. Reaching back to a case before SCOTUS began enforcing fundamental rights protected by the Bill of Rights doesn't really carry much weight these days.
United States v. Miller could also be read with "reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia" indicating that the "arms" most protected by the Second Amendment are those which are in use by the military. After all, how can the militia get training in use of those weapons if they are not available for use?
The actual text from United States v. Miller of "The Court cannot take judicial notice that a shotgun having a barrel less than 18 inches long has today any reasonable relation to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, and therefore cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees to the citizen the right to keep and bear such a weapon." seems to support the position I mention above at least as well as the one you put forth.
I'll see your reference and raise you one:
http://www.spiegel.de/internat... http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05...
So what's your point? Both situations are possible. And unlikely. Oh and for the love of god, please strip out the "m." in your website reference.
But when I did wear one, like most right handed people, I wore it on my left wrist. This gun interlock supposedly has a 10 inch range. Why is no one commenting on that?
Why would you shoot a gun with one hand? Are you trying to miss?
Just because I doubt myself does not mean I find your position compelling.
In any discussion about gun control, the kind of people who oppose it inevitably show themselves to be the prime example for why it is needed. Bunch of Adam Lanzas and Anders Breiviks waiting to happen.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Not one of you gun touting spineless bastards, should be allowed to live. Big brave man you are with your gun trying to quantify your own useless carcass.
Be a man and settle it accordingly, but oh no! The spineless turds that you are hide behind you fucking pathetic gun laws. More people killed in one year that a whole war lasting years children gunned down wives husbands killed over a fucking bag of popcorn. You useless dicks not one drop of courage in all of you with your pop guns. The world laughs at you and how sad an pathetic you all are. Guns yeah that will solve it . Fucking Morons.