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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."
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+
That's complete bullshit, if the marketplace decided (through some sort of divine inspiration) that guns should be illegal, you bet your sweet ass they would call the marketplace anti-american and send it death threats. That already happens to anyone trying to build a smartgun, and apparently to anyone trying to sell a smartgun too. These folks basically just want everyone to _only_ build old fashioned guns and _only_ stick by old fashioned gun laws (that were drafted with muskets and cannons in mind).
downmod hell? Yes please.
Once the police are happy enough with the technology to use it exclusively, then a mandate is appropriate.
I'm not holding my breath.
However, the argument for others goes that if stores begin selling smart guns, then legislators will draft laws requiring the technology.
Let them pass the laws. A few days later, when headlines erupt about stolen "smart" guns being used in murders, or some cop getting killed because his "smart" gun wouldn't fire, the laws will go away soon enough.
Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
Funny how the most virulently anti-gun people tend to be the ones who know the least about 'em.
The unknown is skeery.
And I have no problem with these smart guns for anyone who wants to buy one. In fact, I could see advantages for these guns under certain circumstances if I was in situations where there was a risk my gun would be taken away from me in a struggle. However, personally I would not want one of these. The main reason being that it is another point of possible failure or breakdown that could keep my gun from firing in the event I need to use it. When people need to use a gun in self-defense they usually have less than a second to make that decision and pull the trigger. THere is no time to be fiddling with some gizmo or something that might prevent the gun from firing.
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.
This tech has no merit as a safety device. /.ers especially should be able to imagine the reliability issues with jamming consumer electronics into a mechanical device that experiences massive shock, vibration, rough handling, exposure to the elements, etc. Nevermind all the opportunities for spoofing/jamming/circumventing the "safeguard".
And nevermind that Armatix has been lobbying state governments for these very mandates, so that they can carve out an early lead and attempt to establish a monopoly via regulatory capture.
If you're afraid of your gun being taken away in a scuffle, you need more training.
A federal law stating - that the civilian authorities of any given city or state, be subject to the same firearm restrictions, as the civilians themselves. Yes, including the SWAT, and special response teams. Magazine limits, smart guns, etc. After all, if it is OK, for the average citizen to be subject to proposed restrictions, the the police forces should be governed by the same restrictions.
Mandates could be a great thing - to those with a lot of old tech guns!
Just think of all the money they can make selling them after the sale of new old-tech guns are outlawed!
HexaByte - he's a square and a half!
Autoloading pistols are very finicky systems as anyone who's done any gunsmithing can tell you. Adding more mechanical complexity, not to mention electrical complexity, is a very bad idea. The resulting guns almost certainly won't work reliably. Far and away the most important safety feature of a gun is that it goes bang when you pull the trigger and successfully cycles so you can do it again - thereby dealing with whatever you were shooting and making you safer. Any "improvements" to guns that don't facilitate that aren't actually improvements.
Don't forget New Jersey passed it's mandate before the technology had even been invented as a functional device. When it was passed it was merely a concept. Beyond that we don't even know how well the technology behind that Armatrex pistol is going to work out. The pistol in question itself is COMPLETELY ill suited for personal defense purposes. Being .22 LR, a round known for piss poor performance and reliably.
You could easily consider this as just kind of a test bed for future proper defensive arms. And we don't really know just how many ways this equipment might be up having points of failure. I personally imagine that it will be a good decade before any gun maker will consider offering this technology in a significant portion of their wares. We, as people of the gun, prefer things that we know will WORK. Reliability. Is. Critical. Case in point the 1911 is one of the biggest selling handguns on the market. A design invented in... 1911. Over a century old.
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.
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.
I dont get it.
they do not oppose smart gun technology . . .We do oppose any government mandate of this technology
They got it right. What is there to discuss?
Almost certainly true. Consider contraceptives. First they were illegal, then legal (and properly so in a free country.). Now they are mandatory that companies pay for them.
The exact same rhetoric used to get them legalized is now used to justify them as mandate.
So this is not only not a silly conclusion, it is almost a foregone one.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
And I'm sure that you believe yourself to be a rational person.
Yet you could not stop yourself from including denigrating language in a post complaining about the behaviour of others.
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!
Please help metamoderate.
Did anyone really think that pro-gun groups would oppose manufacturers giving people the option of buying guns with additional safety devices?
What's really going on is that pro-gun groups are pretty certain (with good reason!) that these smart guns don't work reliably, and likely never will. Plus there's some concern about backdoors that might allow the guns to be deliberately disabled, which could enable smart gun mandates to easily turn into forcible disarmament.
But, given a smart gun that actually works, is very, very close to 100% reliable (meaning it almost never fails to recognize its authorized user, mostly), and isn't subject to control by third parties, I'm sure there would be a great market for them. I'd definitely buy one. I train a little from time to time in techniques for protecting my gun from being taken from me, and while I have considerable confidence in my ability to retain control of my gun, I'd love to have an additional technological backstop.
But it's very unlikely they'll ever be sufficiently reliable. So my response has been from the beginning: Let me know when all of the police forces have adopted them and love them, since cops are at considerable risk of being shot with their own guns. When police are confident that the reliability is high enough they want to carry them, then I'll be interested in looking at the possibility myself.
Mandates, however, make no sense. Build good enough technology and people will buy them. If that's not possible, then mandates are obviously going to meet with stiff resistance.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Step 1, cops are required to use them
Step 2, robbers figure out how to jamb the enable from a distance
Step 3, we see a cops and robbers shootout with only one side shooting.
There may be specific places where they make sense, but in general, probably not.
Which says let the market decide is the right answer.
However, the argument for others goes that if stores begin selling smart guns, then legislators will draft laws requiring the technology."
You're too late subby, at least in the case of New Jersey it's already law.
And they've already been sued over NOT enforcing it.
I don't think that a .22 is going to satisfy the courts, it being too light of a round for common self-defense or other tasks, but it's an actual problem. I personally don't have any problem with smart gun tech as long as it's optional.
But it's a HUGE expense for not much gain - the vast majority of shootings are either by a user that would be authorized, or by a criminal having had possession of the firearm for long enough to bypass or reprogram any such system.
I don't read AC A human right
Why should I pay for your risky behaviors through my insurance?
CAPTCHA: Urinates
I'm like my technology, but there are some areas where I think it is a long way off from being reliable/robust enough to go. For example I don't want my houses thermostat wired to the internet, because its bad enough when my computer gets a virus let alone my heating system (or any other primary utility for that matter) in the dead of winter. I also like dot scopes on my firearms, but I also put them on elevated picatinny rail with quick releases should the batteries/electronics die when I am in dire need (should that ever occur).
hearing ``click'' when you want to hear ``bang''.
How many instances will there be of a firearm refusing to fire and thus endangering the life of the user?
How many of those 4,000 children had firearms safety training?
Given that shooting is the only academic sport which has _never_ had an injury in the U.S., why not mandate that it be a part of the curriculum, and that all children receive firearms safety education appropriate to their age each year?
It's just like requiring backup cameras on cars --- it might prevent a handful of injuries statistically (and 4,000 incidents for over 300,000,000 firearms is rather a small handful, no?) --- but it will increase the expense for everyone.
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
Was that sarcasm? Or just stupidity?
Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) is the relevant US law. You can't produce or sell a car in the USA without following those rules. Section 114 deals with : ...
S1. Scope. This standard specifies vehicle performance requirements intended to reduce the incidence of crashes resulting from theft and accidental rollaway of motor vehicles.
S2. Purpose. The purpose of this standard is to decrease the likelihood that a vehicle is stolen, or accidentally set in motion
S5.1.1Each vehicle must have a starting system which, whenever the key is removed from the starting system prevents:
(a) The normal activation of the vehicle's engine or motor; and
(b) Either steering, or forward self-mobility, of the vehicle, or both.
S5.1.2For each vehicle type manufactured by a manufacturer, the manufacturer must provide at least 1,000 unique key combinations, or a number equal to the total number of the vehicles of that type manufactured by the manufacturer, whichever is less. The same combinations may be used for more than one vehicle type.
S5.1.3Except as specified below, an audible warning to the vehicle operator must be activated whenever the key is in the starting system and the door located closest to the driver's designated seating position is opened. An audible warning to the vehicle operator need not activate:
Now what's your excuse? Did the 'market' decide this was required for cars?
Hard to justify government mandates on a basic civil right
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=960788
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1909617
2002 - New Jersey passed a law that says that 3 years after "Smart Guns" were commercially available, they would become the only guns legal to sell in the state.
So.. yeah. The NRA and it's members are going to push back against "smart guns". The gun control side has already said they want to use that to ban other guns. It's a case of the gun control side actually causing slower adoption of what could be nice tech for people who wanted it.
To have guns insured just like cars are, so that gun owners will always have enough funds to cover any damages that may ensue from mishandling the weapon.
If gun insurance coverage was mandatory then there'd be the right framework for a proper marketplace dynamics.
"4,000 or so people in the US die every year because they're accidentally shot by children"
So deaths would indeed be the standard you were asking people to consider, specifically deaths by children.
Are you really that stupid as to not be able to remember what you wrote?
In organized events, I shoot historically accurate reproduction revolvers loaded with real black powder. After use they are cleaned with soap and water and then aggressively lubricated to fight corrosion. Please explain how this technology being forced on me is going to help or even be anything but a nightmare.
The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
- H. L. Mencken
This past weekend I went on a boy scout camping trip. On Saturday we took the boys to a quarry where they spent the day shooting 22s and shotguns. Each gun was shot by 18 people in the course of the day (12 boys and 6 leaders). I'm wondering how that would work if each gun was equipped with smart technology. Can it be disabled to let lots of people shoot the weapon? Or would each individual need to be added to each gun?
I find it rather surprising, but generally it is a position based almost entirely on fear, and not on fact. They may well be people who are generally rational in their life, but when it comes to this issue fear and propaganda motivate their position, not facts and logic. They want guns banned because they are scared of them, not because they've done any research and concluded it would make things safer.
You can clearly see it in the grandparent post. Not only the name calling, but the complete detachment from the reality of things. The fact that he believes that a small group of crazies are synonymous with the greater gun owning population. Same deal with how people will generalize the nut jobs at the Cliven Bundy ranch to be the greater gun owning populace.
None stop to think that around 40-50% of all households own a gun in the US, meaning that you know someone who owns a gun, even if you don't know it, and that if that behaviour and thought were the norm for gun owners it would be rampant rather than aberrant.
They are the same as people who will point the finger at religious or environmental extremists and declare that all people of that religion or viewpoint must be extremists and scary.
It is sad, because an informed debate on gun control could be very useful, but it is really hard to have when so much of the "control" side is actually wanting a ban and the reason they want it is fear, not logic. They don't do any research, except maybe to try and look up numbers that support their view. They don't want information, since emotion is the driving factor.
Hence, name calling, scare rhetoric, and so on.
That post is currently mod'ed +5 insightful.
Moderation +4
70% Insightful
20% Interesting
10% Troll
Which indicates a problem with having a discussion on this issue. Some people do not see that language as offensive or trolling. They believe it to be "insightful".
http://www.nbc40.net/story/25555423/new-jersey-sued-accused-of-ignoring-02-gun-law
http://www.northjersey.com/news/new-jersey-sued-accused-of-ignoring-2002-gun-law-1.1019058
Let's us not forget that a smart gun might make it more difficult to kill children. We want our freedom; we do not want that.
If you own firearms that are for sporting use (target shooting, hunting and so on) such a device would be understandable. However, one would have to explain why those weapons aren't locked up. On the other hand, any weapon that is meant for self defence must be brought to use in the shortest time possible and should the device fail-safe, then the weapon would fail-deadly for its owner. Besides, if the technology requires a signal to be transmitted, then it can be jammed. No thanks. You can put them on police or military firearms so gang members or insurgents can't use them but that's all. Now fuck off, all of you. You're ugly and your breath stinks.
Geeks are so full of shit that "beating the crap out of them" takes a whole new meaning.
p>If you're afraid of your gun being taken away in a scuffle, you need more training.
...because highly trained and competent soldiers never have their weapons taken away in battle?
You also take away the fact that there are electronics that run high impact devices such as space shuttles, vehicles, Navy ships...etc all of which need to withstand large amounts of vibration. Unless the design is terrible, there isn't a lot of time to spoof/jam the signal. While I agree there needs to be a failsafe, your argument has almost no merit.
The main reason I can see for these types of weapons is parents who want extra security for the weapons in their house, where kids might get the combination to their safes.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/josephsteinberg/2014/05/04/smartguns/
From the article...
The State of New Jersey has already legislated that once smartgun technology is available, conventional firearms may not be sold to civilians in the State.
I, for one, think that all newly purchased GOVERNMENT firearms (excluding those for the official military services - army, navy, airforce, marines) should DEFINATELY be smart guns. There's no reason that the IRS, BLM, FDA and other NON-MILITARY government services should have guns that lack this feature. We all know that the government "loses" all kinds of things, from billions of dollars to your driver's registration form, so giving them guns that could be used by non-official personnel is clearly a bad idea, right?
In this, like in most progressive moonbat schemes, the operative words for us non-progressives needs to be "You First".
Enough said....
--Hired Net Grunt
We didn't "let the marketplace decide" whether to mandate seat belts in cars. They're a damn good idea, so we mandated them in new vehicles. But we didn't require that you retrofit them, nor that you get rid of your older car. The same will happen here.
I piss off bigots.
Pretty clear mandate.
A gun is a mechanical device. Any attempt to add electronics to it messes up the reliability and simplicity of the gun. What if the batteries were dead? Who decides if it's a fail open or fail closed design?
You know what I like about toilets? They are a mechanical device. Invented over a hundred years ago, they don't need electricity to work. Can you imagine if they did, during a power outage?
It's an insult to the careful designers of firearms to muck up their inventions with needless electronics. Even as a techie like everybody else here on Slashdot, I'd like to think we can still appreciate the elegance of a purely mechanical design that relies on physics to work, not bytes.
I've no issue with it, but I wouldn't want to buy one. The main reason is just cost and maintenance. It is very unlikely I'll ever use my guns for anything except at the range given that I don't carry and my home is very unlikely to be broken in to for a number of reasons. so that being the case, why wouldn't I want one? Well because it is something else that can, and thus probably will, go wrong and it'll add cost. Guns are already not cheap, at least not for high quality ones. I really don't want to pay more for a component that I don't find useful.
The reason I say it isn't useful is because I wouldn't trust such a thing as the be-all, end-all of safety. So I'd still need to own physical safety devices like a safe, and I'd still need to make sure to use proper firearm handling (as in not pointing it at people, not messing with the trigger, etc). I just can't see what I'd gain from it, and as such I wouldn't care to spend the money on it.
I'm fine if others see a useful situation for them and wish to own one, but I wouldn't want it forced on me because I cannot see how it would make my firearms any safer, and you can guarantee it would make them more expensive.
"The odds of using a gun to defend yourself are statistically tiny. But the odds of getting liquored-up and shooting Mom over an argument about the pot roast are rather high."
And a shitload of comments about guns. I think Dice has found the answer. Forget Beta and just post stories about guns all the time. We get about 2/week now and all of them get close to 1000 comments (250 as of now for this story but hey, it hasn't been up for 2 hours yet). Pretty soon the "this day on ./" column will be entirely populated with gun stories. And we're probably in double digits with stories about "smart guns". How many freaking times do you really have to post "It might not work when you need it"? Has new information come to light or is the CDC (whos job it is to monitor the nation's mortality) still banned by congress from keeping statistics on shooting deaths?
Posting AC because I can't yell as loud as the NRA
Anti-gun folks want this type of technology mandated as a barrier to gun ownership. This technology increases costs, and there is ZERO data to show that this technology increases safety. If this technology proves unreliable; it could actually decrease the safety of the end user.
The only people pushing for this gun technology are the manufacturers of that technology and anti-gun people. That alone is enough to make me suspicious.
The mandate argument is strictly a distraction. We gun owners live with TONS of mandates regarding our ownership and use of firearms. Comparing driving mandates to gun ownership is stupid. Driving is a state-granted privilege. The right to bear arms is a natural-born, constitutionally protected right.
Learn the difference.
This isn't that complicated is it?
One side of the debate wants to have their guns and firmly believes they have that right. The other side has made it clear that their intention is to chip away at that right little by little until it is gone.
Now everyone acts surprised that the gun rights side has drawn a line in the sand and refuses to budge on anything, whether that is appropriate or not. Knowing my opponents eventual goal, I would do the same thing.
My neighbors are welcome on my property, but if they made it known that their intention was to take small chunks of my yard through adverse possession over time, I'd tell them to stay the fuck off my property. I might even buy a broom with which I would chase them.
Stop trying to backdoor around the 2nd amendment.
Nobody wants to be shot by his own firearm, so there is an incentive to own a gun that attempts to prevent it. Once the technology is reliable, I think people would rather own a weapon that can't be fired by their assailant, their 3-year-old kid, etc. Obviously it's not there yet, and may never get there, but we won't ever get there if gunmakers don't even try.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
They will all pass a drop test. In addition, they have a grip safety that keeps the weapon from firing even if the trigger is pulled if the gun is not gripped properly.
Some rely upon a stiff firing pin spring, some rely upon one of a couple of different styles of completely blocking the firing pin unless the trigger is pulled.
All actual 1911s also have a "thumb safety" that will prevent the trigger from being pulled when it is activated.
I will not flinch if you drop any of my 1911s while pointed at me or at any other angle. They will not go off. Even those that cannot be sold in CA because they have not gone through CA testing (only one of mine).
Only people who are ignorant of firearms or are criminals will make the 1911 unsafe, and even if you are ignorant it is pretty tough to make it fire in an unsafe fashion. Criminals have been known to fumble while wondering why it will not fire because they are not used to the thumb safety and do not know how to flick it off.
When I went looking for a carry pistol, the features I wanted were things like the thumb safety, the grip safety and a few other things. I ended up getting a compact 1911 and tested it because the compact 1911s have a reputation of sometimes being unreliable, but never unsafe.
I was going to say pick on another handgun but when I thought of it I could not think of a handgun I would call unsafe that is made today.
You're using Detroit (in the top 10 for violent crime) as the basis for your argument for applying rules/laws on national scale? That's like estimating the salt needed for winter for all American cities by measuring the requirements of Duluth, Minnesota.
If it might not fire when I pull the trigger, I'm 100% against it. So I'm surprised they backpedaled. They certainly hate the idea as much as I do.
Reminds me of a Soviet joke...
- Ivan, so newspaper says "Comrades, the Communism is already on the horizon!"
- Yeah?
- What's "horizon"?
- Well, Vasily, it's an imaginary line that moves away as you come closer to it...
Let me know when all the major auto manufacturers voluntarily take the sensor technology used in these "smart guns" and puts it in their emergency brakes to prevent unauthorized passengers from pulling it. And as everyone else has said, let me know when the police and military have this technology in all of their guns. At that point, it'd be worth some consideration. Until then, I think anyone buying one of these things for protection is a fool.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
They just threaten the life and livelihood of anyone selling it:
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/...
Not that this level of honesty is characteristic or anything.
So, how does someone else use it to save my life? Or save someone elses?
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
1) "the people" is a phrasing which is a little vague but often means a group or groups not individuals; usually "person" is used for individuals (see rest of document.)
2) Militia is how it starts out- people forget that part. In context, it doesn't look like they are literally saying let people have small pop guns for hunting and feeling manly or giving cowards false security. They wrote things to be open for interpretation shifts over time rather than having to redo it frequently. Also, they didn't win the revolution because some people had guns; they acquired more weapons than what was on hand at the start.
3) The constitution is not the bible. The clever part being the patch system; which is where Amendments come in.
4) Mistakes were made, prohibition for example, slavery for another. Thinking "Arms" does jack today is laughable. Other nations handle the issue better.
Free training and access to serious guns and weapons in many controlled safe ways is possible; others do it sanely without a full time military, why can't we? Some nations make everybody get military training; which makes an insurgency extremely effective later on and those work well against bigger opponents. It needs updating for fighting machines... except most governments see that as a holy grail of control. The idea individuals can do shit is idiotic; it takes large numbers working towards a common goal - which is the proper mode of thinking here. When stuff gets so bad you have a mass resistance you need the groundwork laid for an effective insurgency; and insurgents can steal and smuggle but they need something to grab and know how to use it. Poorly defended armory bunkers is one approach... where it would take 100 people to capture it for example. Chipping weapons makes this difficult not to mention the huge profits extorting money from the buyers long term (tanks etc too; interesting they don't have preventive measures on those.)
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Hey kids, it works like this.
If they can put a gps and chip in your gun they will abolish your right to own a gun with the push of a computer button.
Your guns will be turned off remotely.
Did the NSA teach you nothing?
Stop putting computers in everything and putting everything ont he internet you bunch of morons.
In your scenario, 90% of criminals need to obey the gun laws (and have non-firing guns) for you to come out ahead, or you end up killing more people. Right now, you are assuming that 100% of criminals obey the gun laws, which isn't particularly realistic, especially when guns are not particularly difficult to manufacture. This goes double now that people are 3-D printing them.
For the record, I do not own, nor have I ever owned a gun. But I am a mathematician, so I hate seeing faulty logic. I'm probably out of place, though...
Just the fact that you have to pay them.
Once the police are happy enough with the technology to use it exclusively, then a mandate is appropriate.
I'm not holding my breath.
That makes sense... whilst the police, in the US, certainly have a legitimate need to carry arms. They also have an incentive to use these guns, if they are reliable. As it'll make it harder to use an officer's gun against him.
:)
:)
I am surprised by this outbreak of common sense from an organization that often have very little empathy for.
Don't worry I'll stop my preacher on why guns shouldn't be allowed in the first place, fixing a America is beyond the scope of a slashdot post anyways
My point was: There is too much common sense.
Regarding mandates, why don't you take that discussion when the technology is reliable. Maybe you should have build in camera too
Or maybe you should just reduce the classes of weapons available to normal people for other than sports with appropriate safety measures...
Either way, take that discussion when technology is mature.
A gun smart enough to know when not to fire. IE, the gun should be able to recognize when a kid is holding a wii remote vs a gun. (http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/02/20/3309881/cop-shot-boy-holding-wii-controller-lawyer-alleges/)
Or if the suspect is holding a cain... gun should not fire. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjufXHqJUcA)
And the gun should not fire if the cop is over 50 pounds his scientific weight. So long as the suspect isn't armed the cop should have to chase him down. Maybe he'll lose some weight in the process. http://www.kens5.com/news/University-of-police-officer-shoots-kills-driver-during-traffic-stop-authorities-say-234733951.html
I loved how he ended the article about rampant greed with a plug for his book.
Besides hunting, when you use a rifle, the is no reason to own a gun other than fear. I live pretty close to one of the most crime ridden neighborhoods in the country and have never felt like I need to carry a gun around. All this talk of self defense is really just saying, "I am a coward who would kill someone for stealing my bike". What a bunch of babies.
Come on! We're not opposed to shooting people, we're opposed to being told we can't!
Geeez! I mean COME ON!
It's OK Bender, there's no such thing as 2.
It's amazing to watch both sides here.
The right: None of us want this. It wouldn't exist without the left's interference. What business of theirs is it?
The left: Untried technology that effects only *you* is a wonderful thing. Why do you resist it.
The iP1 from Armatix uses RFID from a watch that must be nearby in order to fire. One can either steal the watch along with the gun, or read the RFID from the watch and duplicate it. The whole damn thing is hackable so it only appears to be "smart." Add to that the fact that the stupid (and very ugly) watch has a pin code. I am expected to enter my PIN code to activate my gun, and then use a .22 LR to defend myself from say, a grizzly bear? Since it has an "operating distance" of only ten inches, that means if I have the watch on my right hand and want to fire with my left hand, I cannot. Despite the marketing that this will make the gun safer, it could easily result in misfires because of the RFID technology. The idea that it will make kids safer may be true in some circumstances, but not all situations. If the watch happened to be nearby (and left armed because the owner couldn't remember the PIN) the gun could still fire when a child played with it, making it more dangerous simply because the owner was under the impression that it was "safe." I have yet to see a smart gun scheme that I thought was better than common sense and good gun safety habits that all gun owners should have regardless of the type of gun they own. What we need are smarter gun owners, not "smart guns" and dumb owners. Hell, I can't even get my "smart" phone to recognize my finger consistently so I have no desire to have a gun that won't recognize me when I need it and is very likely to fail when the battery goes dead.
The only good use for this gun is for training inexperienced shooters in a target range, because the gun can recognize a target and cannot fire when pointed away from the target. That said, part of the training of anyone who wants to use a firearm is to learn proper safety, so this could negate that value. Any other use for this gun is probably foolish.
Subtract firearm related deaths from the 5 worst inner cities in the country and the rate in the USA is as low as most European countries. Just sayin...
"Smart Guns" may someday actually be something reliable... Currently they are so far from that condition that EVERY piece o legislation mentioning them exempts police, military, and anyone else that is responsible for defending "Those In Power" from any requirement to use them
Though the death threats and ignorance so far exhibited are just wrong... my family and I deserve the same reliability that TPTB's guardians do...
Springs, levers, and some moderately accurate machining makes for a weapon that goes "boom" every time the trigger is pulled... nothing less is acceptable