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Gun Rights Groups Say They Don't Oppose Smart Guns, Just Mandates

Lucas123 (935744) writes "When two gun stores attempted to sell the nation's first integrated smart gun, the iP1, gun advocacy groups were charged in media reports with organizing protests that lead to the stores pulling the guns from their shelves or reneging on their promise to sell them in the first place. But, the National Rifle Association and the National Shooting Sports Foundation say they do not oppose smart gun technology, which they call "authorized user recognition" firearms. "We do oppose any government mandate of this technology, however. The marketplace should decide," Mike Bazinet, a spokesman for the NSSF, wrote in an email reply to Computerworld. However, the argument for others goes that if stores begin selling smart guns, then legislators will draft laws requiring the technology."

9 of 584 comments (clear)

  1. Yes! No more mandates! by plopez · · Score: -1, Troll

    We shouldn't mandate that cars should be safe or rape should be illegal. The world is perfect and we do not need building codes or have them enforced. Doesn't everyone see the flawless logic there?

    --
    putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
    1. Re:Yes! No more mandates! by Grishnakh · · Score: -1, Troll

      The world isn't perfect, it's free markets that are perfect. If we just got rid of all regulation and let the free market work, buildings would be well-built because people would simply not walk into buildings that are poorly-made or have defects, and women wouldn't get raped because they'd exercise their free-market rights and avoid talking to acquaintances or relatives who might rape them.

    2. Re:Yes! No more mandates! by RyuuzakiTetsuya · · Score: 0, Troll

      If you could point and click a car at random people and start maiming or killing them with no risk to the user, aside from someone retaliating, then sure.

      Until then...

      --
      Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
    3. Re:Yes! No more mandates! by plopez · · Score: 0, Troll

      That was horribly stupid and simplistic.

      Conservative poster

      Conservatives have deep feelings and shallow thoughts.

      --
      putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
  2. You can't please gun nuts. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    These people are mentally ill. They are afraid that at any moment they will be killed, raped, and tortured. Therefore they must have a great surplus of high-capacity weaponry and ammunition at all times. They are convinced that if they aren't armed, when civilization inevitably crumbles within the next few days they will be unable to defend themselves in our apocalyptic hellscape of a future.

    Now as you probably know these are ludicrous ideas. But their fear is so palpable that they must have a weapon on them at all times. When they get coffee, when they pick up their kids from school, when they use the bathroom, they must be armed. At any moment they could be assaulted, so they must be armed. They choose to believe that rather than being normal people who have small glimpses danger now and then, they are constantly in danger and have only small glimpses of normalcy now and then. They never feel safe, ever, and live with a constant threat of violence that only ownership of a gun can solve.

    Trying to understand gun nuts is like trying to understand drug addicts, or self-medicating schizophrenics, or Republicans. They are delusional people trapped in a prison of their own creation, living in unending and perpetual fear. There are no logical or reasonable solutions to an irrational problem, other than changing American society to be more helpful and understanding of the kind of mental illness that plagues gun nuts.

  3. ...but that doesn't explain... by RyuuzakiTetsuya · · Score: -1, Troll

    The rape threats, the murder threats, the wildly violent language...

    if gun fondlers want to be thought of as reasonable people, then a lot of the people who took to the internet to harass and terrorize gun violence victims and those who are peddling smart gun tech need to be culled from the herd.

    It's scary these people are *armed*

    --
    Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
    1. Re:...but that doesn't explain... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

      That's the catch. The people who are most vocal about gun ownership are also the most unhinged. And those are the people that the NRA caters to.

  4. How gracious of them by gnasher719 · · Score: 0, Troll

    They want the right to carry stupid guns, and they are gracious enough to not oppose other people's right to carry smart guns. That's really nice.

    However, they do oppose people's right not to be shot by a stupid gun that someone takes away from the stupid owner of said stupid gun.

  5. except your products are killing children by SuperBanana · · Score: -1, Troll

    4,000 or so people in the US die every year because they're accidentally shot by children, ranging from toddlers to pre-teens.

    Youtube is full of examples of the idiocy - many videos of "awww look, he's playing with...*BANG* OH GOD OH GOD"

      Smart guns may not be perfect, but would they lead to 4,000 situations a year where someone's life was in danger and a gun owner couldn't activate it? Probably not, given that there are only about 230 justifiable homicides a year, and 60,000 cases where the gun is presented but not actually used: http://takingnote.blogs.nytime...

    So, gun owners: either start being more responsible with killing devices, or face increasing regulation of said killing devices. You want to have your own kids shoot you, that's fine, and I welcome your genes coming out of the pool. The problem comes when my kid comes over to play at your house, you lied or didn't tell me you had a gun in the house, and your kid shoots my kid in the face.

    But hey, keep on showing up at restaurant chains loaded for the apocalypse, freaking out people, and helping us pass more gun regulations!