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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."
Once the police are happy enough with the technology to use it exclusively, then a mandate is appropriate.
I'm not holding my breath.
No I don't. What do you propose? That all cars should also be "smart cars" which will not start without owners fingerprint for the sake of safety?
You, too, might be upset if the government legislated that all pacemakers run on a derivative of the Win9x kernel.
Sure, if you want to buy a pacemaker running Win9x then I don't care because that doesn't interfere with my choice. However, when you start telling *me* my safety critical device has to have an unreliable technology incorporated into it, then damn right you are going to encounter my indignant resistance.
If I were to buy a handgun for personal protection, I'd like to have the authorized user recognition technology so that the weapon couldn't be turned against me in a difficult situation. But I'd also not like it mandated. I might want a custom gun, I might want something that works with gloves, I might want something more reliable than a funky computer, I might want a non-crippled device for any number of reasons.
But I want to make that choice for myself, weighing each instance.
(Please note: I have never owned any guns, I am not a member of the NRA, I just happen to agree with them in this instance.)
John
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!
My 1911 is perfectly safe when used in accordance with good firearms safety practices.
This is no different that a car or a chainsaw or pool. Things of all sorts are dangerous in the hands of stupid people.
How this is news to you is what I cannot understand.
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.
Hitting pedestrians is pretty much this, yes. However, like with firearms, the vast majority of people have little interest in killing random folks.
Support more choices in goverment-Vote 3rd party.
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.
You'll love this!
http://www.newyorker.com/onlin...
Don't show Penn Jillette, though; he might start shouting at you.
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.
You already have this special secure token that lets you start your vehicle, and by willingly handing that token over to another person you are assumed to have taken some degree of legal responsibility for what they do with said vehicle.
It's called a key.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
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.
Given that the majority of injuries caused by firearms are accidents or non-defensive homicides, I would question your statement that "the most important safety feature of a gun" is its ability to actually shoot. Detroit had about 50 defensive homicides in 2012 against 500 offensive homicides; if the gun literally didn't work half the days out of the year, you would be saving 250 lives at the cost of 25, before you count accidents.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
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.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr...
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.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
4,000 or so people in the US die every year because they're accidentally shot by children, ranging from toddlers to pre-teens.
Cite?
Given that CDP numbers put the total number of accidental shooting deaths annually between 500 and 600 -- for all ages of shooters -- I expect your link to be very interesting.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Actually, most consumer vehicles are designed to minimise pedestrian injury these days, particularly given that most impacts occur in urban environments and are therefore comparatively low-speed. There are even standards they test against in Europe.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
I'm not a gun owner either and not a member of any gun related organizations.
I agree the technology sounds useful but mandating a technology that is unproven and not likely to have an impact... I have no idea what the statistics for are for a person being shot by an assailant with their own gun are but I'm sure it's really low. Gun locks are not intended to keep a burglar from using your own gun against you, they are intended to keep accidental discharges from happening and unauthorized users like kids from playing with them.
As for theft, gunlocks or any other system can be circumvented.
The rest are shooting at human silhouettes, basically fantasizing about shooting people. It's really sick.
And here, I see another person who is fantasizing that other people want to be murderers. It's really sick.
If you can't draw a moral distinction between murder and self defense, then I sure you never vote and absolutely never serve on a jury.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
if the gun literally didn't work half the days out of the year, you would be saving 250 lives at the cost of 25, before you count accidents
Though you're (deliberately, of course) not counting the thousands and thousands of cases each year where defensive brandishment stops an attack. That number hugely exceeds the number of deaths by any method. I'd be more than happy to fetch out a handgun in such a situation, but would not be happy to find that it can't ultimately work because I've got gloves on, or my fingertips are dirty, or a battery is low, or it's too cold out, or I forgot my magic bracelet. Or it happens to be my wife's gun, since her's was handier than mine.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Few mature libertarians argue that free markets are perfect. Free markets exchange one set of problems caused by government and regulation for another set of problems that people can choose to deal with (or not) through personal responsibility and voluntary cooperation. Human problems exist in both cases, but libertarians tend to prefer personal choice as a response. Painting libertarians as utopians is probably only accurate as far as the college campus goes.
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.
I'm burning a well deserved mod point to post this.
I'm not so sure the NRA doesn't use FUD as their primary tactic to keep themselves funded. I'm a gun owner, I have a carry permit, and I own scary 'assault rifles'. I joined the NRA to support my right to own firearms.
Then the NRA started sending me letters.
First, Obama was going to take away all of my guns. Next it wasn't just Obama, but the entire UN coming after my guns. Next the single greatest threat to this nation was Obama. It just kept rolling on and on. Most of the arguments presented in the letters were pure FUD, the kind that would make old Microsoft proud. It was enough to ensure I never give them money again. I've donated to state groups and I'm still looking for a sane national gun lobby.
In regards to the topic of smart guns. I personally don't want one, but I don't see anything wrong with them. I don't think that mandating smart guns will have any effect on gun violence. If I can steal my dads gun to go to school, I can steal the watch it uses to fire. If I'm going to commit a crime with a gun I bought, I bet I bought the device to fire it. That's no reason to stop working on smart guns, but this technology should remain the choice of the end user.
From http://nyagv.org/wp-content/up..., which is one of the first links that comes up:
Deaths: From 2005-2010, almost 3,800 people in the U.S. died from unintentional shootings.ii More than a third of the victims were under 25 years of age.
That's less than 800/yr total, and less than 260 are under 25, meaning that accidental shooting deaths are one of the least common causes of death in the US, especially for kids.
Conversely, preventable medical errors kill over 200,000 Americans every single year, and in fact is the third leading cause of death in this country, dwarfing gun deaths and car deaths combined.
That said, after you start advocating for stricter control over doctors, drugs, and hospital procedures, I might consider listening to you make crap up about too many gun deaths.
PS: This is what a source citation looks like. A smart-ass link to Let Me Google That For You? Not so much.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Can you name me one unregulated free market that has ever existed?
Almost every black market ever.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Unfortunately shooting a burger has very little influence on its cholesterol content.
An unfired gun is the best defensive weapon that exists. The threat of death is the defensive deterrent. Actually firing is the last resort.
If a gang of 10 people are advancing on somebody and the target pulls a gun, all 10 people stop advancing or run away. If you have a taser or stun gun, you're a non-lethal threat to one of them...and you get one shot. Pepper spray is largely in the same boat (plus you have to account for wind). In both scenarios, you have to wonder if the battery has run out or the spray has expired depending on how long you've carried it.
Bullets last pretty much forever. The device is mechanical and has no dependence on a battery. As a defensive weapon it provides the greatest threat to an attacker and the highest degree of reliability to the carrier for those reasons. The second you start shooting it becomes every man for himself.
Up until you shoot, simply brandishing the weapon is an active deterrent without any need to fire. Brandishing a gun is actually considered assault for that reason. People often forget that when talking about concealed carry. It's as if people imagine that the idea is to tote it around so you can relish the opportunity to shoot somebody. I know many people who are not willing to pull the trigger that will carry an unloaded gun just so that they can pull it out in an emergency to diffuse the situation if they need to.
Additionally, when somebody takes a gun to commit a crime or kill somebody, they have every intention of pulling the trigger and are guaranteed to be armed. When somebody is attacked there is a much lower chance of those people being armed and/or able to retaliate so of course those statistics will be skewed.
"Don't teach a man to fish, feed yourself. He's a grown man. Fishing's not that hard." - Ron Swanson
No, free markets really are good, the problem is that they very rarely exist in reality. Dumb libertarians try to apply naive "free market" thinking to everything, including roads, showing why their philosophy doesn't work.
Free markets work great when you have high availability of information, so consumers can make intelligent choices, and when there's lots of competitors and the barriers to entry are very low. So, for instance, you don't really need much regulation for things like landscaping or housekeeping; consumers can make their own choices here, there's no shortage of competition, there's almost nothing keeping someone from entering business as a landscaper or housekeeper, etc. Even better, large companies don't have any real advantages here or any way of keeping smaller competitors out of the market (instead, larger companies end up just having higher prices due to their higher overhead). But internet service, electricity service, water/sewer service is totally different because of the natural monopolies in those markets, and the very high barriers to entry, so regulation in these markets is essential. Libertarians simply cannot understand this due to their simplistic thinking, and just cling to the mantra of "free markets will solve everything!".
I shouldn't need to provide stats to an AC, but here goes...
There are approximately 300,000,000 privately owned guns in the US (estimate by NRA). And those are distributed to about 40-50% of the total households in the US. That is a lot of people owning a whole lot of guns.
Of those 300 Million guns in circulation, and those households that own guns, there were only 12,102 deaths (homicides) from firearms for the year analyzed. That same year drunk drivers killed 15,935 alone, not including other means of aggravated homicide by other means. This translates to LESS THAN 1% of all firearms being used in violent crimes. (if I divide the number of gun deaths, by the number of guns, I get 0.00004034%, which is statistically insignificant).
Of all the firearm homicides committed each year, 2/3rds of them are criminal on criminal violence (aka: gang related). And gangs in general are responsible for 50-90% of all violent crimes (with or without firearms), meaning gang members actually DO have an interest in killing folks and committing violence, but even statistics show, that they even prefer to kill other gang members rather than "random" folks.