Slashdot Mirror
The US Gov't Could Become the Biggest Customer for Smart Guns (computerworld.com)
Lucas123 writes: Smart gun developers have faced pushback from opponents who fear adoption will lead to mandates. But this week, President Obama embraced the technology, creating the biggest customer of them all for smart guns: the federal government. He instructed several departments to "review the availability of smart gun technology on a regular basis, and to explore potential ways to further its use and development to more broadly improve gun safety." Joel Moshbacher, national co-chair of a gun safety advocacy group, said the move this week is "a game changer." Smart gun developers he's spoken with need only a few million to move their prototypes to market, so $20 million would be a windfall for several developers. Donald Sebastian, senior vice president for research and development at the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), said federal dollars are the only way to advance the technology because of pushback by opposition groups. For example, when Armatix, a German startup, tried to introduce a smart handgun in the U.S. two years ago, it was met with vehement protests, including threats to burn down a Maryland store that was going to sell it. A second store in California that was carrying it also pulled it from its shelves citing pressure from those opposed to the tech.
Expect to see pushback from the agencies saddled with these. It's a solution in search of a problem -- there are already myriad ways to secure guns. We don't need a bunch of extra points of failure built into the guns themselves.
Error 404 - Sig Not Found
The police routinely ensure that they are excluded from smart gun mandates. First because they require maximum reliability from their weapons and so-called smart technology adds another failure path. Second, the technology results in significant increase in cost. Why would the civilian population want these same problems?
My phone unlocks with a fingerprint using the best fingerprint tech available. I don't know how many times it takes 2, 3, or 4 times to unlock it. "Unrecognized - Enter backup password" or "Place finger over entire sensor" is all too common.
If, God forbid, I ever have to draw my weapon to defend myself or someone else, I don't want to make sure I have a perfectly lined up grip to trigger the smart technology. Someone attacking you doesn't lend for minor finger positioning nuances very much. I expect finger on trigger + pull = bang, not a little chime telling me I need to adjust my grip.
I understand the practical reasons why peoppe object, as smart guns nowadays still have a long way to go before being as reliable as what we have now. But why do people object to the principle behind it? Does anyone here really intend on shooting at the police or the military, and do they think they would even stand a chance against a trained marine or FBI agent? They don't care about a criminal who is invading their house shooting them with their own gun, or their children blowing off their heads with it? Shooting ranges and collectables aren't even affected by them, so that's the three most popular uses of them gone right there. I don't even understand the objection to the principle of a gun with a smart lock, much less the extremely violent protests (ripping down displays, burning stores, and issuing death threats) that have come as a response to it.
"Set a man a fire, he'll be warm for the rest of the night. Set a man afire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
> Special ring? So much for swimming, showering, or any other activity you don't want to expose electronic to.
I know, it's horrible that 70% of the Earth's surface is a zone where electronics can't be used at all. Those poor bastards sailing the seas with their handheld sextants, mapping out courses with a compass and paper. If only there was some way to seal electronics in some sort of waterproof enclosure that was still permeable to radio waves. Maybe even have those same electronics energized by the device in question, like some sort of Radio Frequency IDentification tag that has no internal power source.
Naaah. That's crazy talk.
Even regular guns don't work correctly 100% of the time... plenty of soldiers died on the battlefield clutching a jammed rifle.
Not to mention that you do not want a gun that requires any type of battery to function. You can practically guarantee that it will die at a time when your life depends on it.
There's a reason why your phone can dial 911 without being unlocked....
I was going to reply to this earlier, but got the Blue Screen of Death. Good thing my life didn't depend on it.
A firearm is, at it's heart, a mechanical device; there is no way around that, so no electronic means of preventing a gun from firing can be devised that someone else isn't going to find a way to defeat. A firearm has to be reliable, and the best way to accomplish that is to keep it as simple as possible. Adding a bunch of electronics to it that get in the way of the firearms' primary function is the antithesis of all that, and in the end will just make them less useful and less reliable for the law-abiding and law-enforcing people who need to use them. Also, do they really think that all this high-concept crap is going to prevent anyone outside the U.S. from producing 'traditional' firearms? Also, 3D printing technology is ramping up quickly, now with the capability of printing in metals; how long do you think it'll be before a 3D-printed handgun is equivalent to and virtually indistinguishable from a traditionally manufactured handgun?
I'm not even a gun owner, and even I say that all this that Obama and others are trying to do to further limit firearm ownership and to create more roadblocks to firearm ownership will do nothing but make life more difficult (and dangerous) for peaceful, law-abiding people. Enforce the current set of laws better, and do a better job identifying people with mental illnesses and criminal intent before they get their hands on weapons and go around shooting people.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
It looks like you want to shoot a person of colour. Would you like help with that?
The goal is to shove this down the throats of all gun owners
It will work for a while, until they find peace officers dead from gun shot wounds and they go and check the Li-ion battery installed in the gun still in the officers hand that powers this so called smart gun tech and find it dead as well.
People don't oppose the technology in theory, they oppose the fact that New Jersey had a law mandating the sale of only smart guns after one goes on sale anywhere in the country. This is basically a huge gun ban in disguise, which is why it was opposed.
You are attempting to say a banana is the same as a grazing buffalo. How are you possibly able to equate someone making sure that a carpenter is on the job site and working with a mandate that he use a particular power tool where power may not be available? It's not rational, but you just tried it.
I'll give a courtesy agreement that many of the gun advocates arguments are slippery slopes. What you just answered was not one of them.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
I don't want this technology on any gun I own, certainly not in its current state, and maybe never. But neither do I object to to furthering R&D on something that may reach beyond the capabilities we foresee now. The reason I, and may other gun owners, don't want them in stores explicitly derives from the regulatory history of Washington, DC: today's "good idea" becomes tomorrow's requirement, and like many of the solar projects, far prematurely to the technology's maturation.
The reason, however, politicians like Bloomberg and Obama want this technology likely stems from something other than a motivation other than making a gun safer: a motivation to price common people out of the market. Smart gun technology has a high price tag, and the mentality that common people shouldn't have certain things runs through Washington consistently. And this way of thinking has pervaded us for a long time. Consider Prohibition. Most of the politicians who voted for Prohibition consumed alcohol during its time. Their reasoning: the upper crust of society can suavely dodge the law and harmlessly so while the common man won't make a mess of society with drunkenness. The wealthy and influential can have their armed escorts because they can afford expensive guns, while by raising the cost quite substantially they have not technically infringed upon your rights, but have effectively priced you out of exercising them.
New Jersey probably did it for that reason, and so would Obama.
My iPhone almost never reads my finger print after a shower or a swim or sometimes even hockey and often not on the first try. It works pretty well but I sure woudln't by a gun that was this reliable.
It most likely wouldn't apply, or you'd end up with a grandfathered in clause. (which is good cause I like my Mosin)
And they honestly aren't worried about those rifles in the least, hardly anybody goes out and does a mass shooting (or commit any other crime) with an M1, and honestly that's not what this law is even about preventing.
This is all about preventing current military grade weapons used by the federal government being stolen and used. We're not really talking about small time people either, this is likely about organized crime.
Can you explain the apparent discord between your first comment and your second?
Your first accepts that emergency assistance cannot be relied upon: i.e., the state's emergency apparatus is imperfect.
The second assumes that self-help will be possible with "smart guns", i.e., the gun computer will be perfect.
The problem is your constitution's second amendment.
Instead of working an end run around what is meant to be a fundamental right to bear arms, what you should actually be discussing is how you amend the constitution. The framers of that document put in place specific mechanisms recognizing the need may arise to do so in the future.
This has been done in the past, even the recent past. (e.g. prohibition).
Why can't it be done now?
If the amendment is not possible, then you will have a discussion about weapons, and as a nation, accept the consequences of those actions - it may will be that the defense of liberty is such that the collateral damage is acceptable to many. This seems fundamentally more honest than the approaches being put forth by the executive branch.
I haven't heard this in the discussion, and it's puzzling.
$0.02 cdn.
..don't panic
If "working" means "starting" you're probably right.
However to those of us with an IQ greater than the largest number on the gear lever it includes functions like "turning" and "stopping" which can be invaluable in certain circumstances.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I drive a CVT .... my IQ is infinite!!!!!!!
While I haven't researched this specifically, I have been industrially certified to design and install RFID systems. And I am also quite familiar with magnets and electronics. Something you don't seem to have that much knowledge on or you'd know that a magnetic ring isn't going to do anything to your computer or your handheld device. In fact many handheld devices and tablets have cases with strong magnets in them to allow the screen to be turned on or off depending on the proximity of the case cover. I have a Nexus 7 with such a cover sitting right next to me. And how strong do you think the permanent magnets inside your laptop's hard drive are? You'd probably be quite surprised to find out, and those magnets are sitting a few millimeters from the platters all day long.
Computers having problems with magnets was largely a floppy disk and magnetic tape era problem. Though you still had the occasional clod who screwed up their CRT with one. But then again many of those monitors had a degauss button that put out a hell of a magnetic field all on its own - while it was sitting right next to your tower PC....
I had GM rental few years back, going around a highway turn at 60 mph in North Carolina the Chevy shutoff. Power steering locked solid as result. I applied breaks, but road straighten before car completely stopped. I ended up in a corn field about 15 feet off side of road. My wife and I were lucky, produce not so much. Turns out that was the problem GM hid that killed other people. Thanks for example proving how dumb smart guns are.
PS - I wrote this while open carrying an extremely reliable S&W in Texas. God Bless.
Respect the Constitution
I would disagree with that. You can't know A B and C until you have actually tried it and used it. You are assuming. and gun owners have NOT voted with their dollars because smart guns are not sold anywhere. Any store that tried to stock them was threatened and intimidated.
If Obama really thinks this tech will make things safer, and is reasonably reliable, he should first instruct the secret service members that guard him and his family to adopt these smart guns. Then we'll talk.
However to those of us with an IQ greater than the largest number on the gear lever it includes functions like "turning" and "stopping" which can be invaluable in certain circumstances.
Braking is a mechanical system, sometimes with additional electronic features. Steering is more likely to have electronic components in the system, but they do not inhibit operation of the steering wheel when they fail. And yes, that's WHEN, not IF. These electronic features are known to be prone to failure, so the systems are designed to function, even in a degraded state, when they fail.
Now, if we're talking about self-driving cars with no manual controls, that's a different story. But I wouldn't trust one of those with my life.
Aside from the possibility of auto-banning non-smart guns, pricing the plebes out of the gun market, starting a de facto gun registry, and other items mentioned above, the 'reasons' why this regulation is being pushed is unadulterated propaganda.
If you look at Obama's press releases the first thing mentioned is a list of mass shootings. Most of which weren't stopped because current law was poorly executed - mainly the fact that mentally ill people gained access to guns because NICS didn't know they were mentally ill. The rest weren't stopped because there was no record of them being mentally ill OR we would have to define people who have extremist views as being mentally ill.
He knows this yet promulgates this 'save the children' shit anyway. Even worse, while he uses all these big scary numbers he misrepresents them. 30,000 gun deaths a year![1] More people die of gun violence that cars![2] 1,800 children gunned down in 2014![3]
[1] 2/3 of these are suicides. Firearm homicides were 0.43% of all deaths in the US last year. About 10% of those were (justified or not) police killing citizens.
[2] Since the late 60's there has been a steady and dramatic decline in not just rates of automobile deaths, but ACTUAL numbers of deaths all the while miles driven has steadily increased in the same time. Gun violence has also been declining in the last couple of decades, just AT A SLOWER RATE.
[3] THINK OF THE child... Fuck you and your appeal to emotion. And thanks for not mentioning how many are gang related (with illegally obtained guns), suicides, or accidents. Because that would give us the whole picture, right? Fortunately for Obama, the CDC hasn't released 2014 death stats yet so I couldn't look this one up.
If they are actually reliable, I'd see any technology that would remove the cop's standard excuse of "I thought he was trying to grab my gun and shoot me with it, so I shot him!" as a big win. Probably something that should be mandated for law enforcement, but again, only if it really works.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Guess you haven't heard of steer by wire, sure today it's limited to luxury brands that want to remove the mechanical linkage between wheel and drivetrain to improve cabin sound deadening but soon it will spread to more vehicles as a way to save weight (and possibly cost since many cars already include everything needed for steer by wire which makes the mechanical linkage redundant and therefore expendable).
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Imagine the government mandated safety regulations, even though they cost money. It would be horrific. Kids wouldn't be allowed to ride around in the back of pickup trucks. Lead paint wouldn't be sold in stores. Radium would no longer light up our watch faces. Seat belts would be mandatory. Slashdot, we CAN'T let this happen!
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
Not just cops, when the Secret Service detail who protects Obama after he leaves office starts carrying only 'smart guns' at his request... I still won't consider it, but at least then we will know he's not the sort of total hypocrite he is today.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
To paraphrase the late Steve Wright:
Have you ever wondered about the BATF? Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. Does that even make sense? I called them and asked them what kind of wine goes with an AK-47.
They responded by asking me "What have you been smoking?"
So make them smart. IoT your pistol today!
The goal is to shove this down the throats of all gun owners
It will work for a while, until they find peace officers dead from gun shot wounds and they go and check the Li-ion battery installed in the gun still in the officers hand that powers this so called smart gun tech and find it dead as well.
Put the battery in the magazine? Most handguns that I am familiar with have magazines with some kind of base plate that serves as part of the grip. You could have a slightly thicker base plate that holds something like a watch battery (even better would be a small rechargeable battery). Put a connector in the grip so that when the magazine is in the gun is powered. When the gun is not being carried the magazines can be stored in a rack that also acts as a charger for the batteries.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Nah, then the cops will get an exemption and be allowed to carry regular guns, but the rest of the populace won't.
The weapons they have aren't much better than the ones we have, and it's not the "military-grade" stuff that's gonna get stolen and used here anyway, it's pistols. Handguns make up 80+% of homicides, rifles make up about 1%. Pistols are pistols, you can buy a Beretta that is literally identical to the ones the military uses with no trouble.
It's got nothing to do with guns being stolen from the government, it's just an attempt to make owning guns more expensive so that less people choose to do it. Same as Cali's efforts to ban online ammo sales and the current meme of requiring insurance like a car.
get attacked often while typing then?
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
"Smart" gun means two things:
(1) it will fire when it is supposed to fire
(2) it will not fire when it is not supposed to fire.
These are the classic types of errors, type-1 error and type-2 error. The lock on your door, for example, has two failure modes: not opening when it is supposed to, or opening when it's not supposed to.
As is always true, you can make the rate of one type of error arbitrarily close to zero by making the other type of error higher. You can lower the failure rate of your door not opening when you want it to, for example, by removing the lock entirely. That increases the failure mode "will open when it's not supposed to," since it now opens to anybody who wants to enter, whether you want them to or not.
The question for "smart" guns is, can you improve the option "won't fire when it's not supposed to" without seriously increasing the probability of it failing to fire when it is supposed to?
The failure mode "gun fires when it isn't supposed to" covers cases such cases as, your 4-year old finds it and shoots somebody, or somebody grabs your gun and shoots you, or even you drop the gun and it fires.
Right now, the recommended solution to the failure mode "make sure the gun doesn't fire when it's not supposed to" is "keep the gun in a locked gun safe", and, if you want to make it even safer against that failure, "store the ammunition somewhere else." This does have the problem that when you do want to make the gun fire, you have to unlock the gun safe, take out the gun, and then go to the separate location to load the gun. This solution is so cumbersome that--surprise--a lot of people don't implement it.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
just like they 86'd every other technology that came along and failed at one point or another.
that's why my local PD sticks that old reliable: cap and ball muskets.
oh dang, the powder got wet.
well, time to switch the force back to swords.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
I'm seeing two main arguments put forward from those who are against smart tech: weapon reliability and the 2nd amendment. To the first, it is insufficient to argue that a weapon is not worth having if there is some (additional) probability of the weapon failing due to the tech. One major safety concern is children getting their hands on guns. Some argue that safes are a sufficient solution but if one truly wants a gun as a means of defense, I doubt keeping it locked away will allow it to provide much protection and reflecting that children do get their hands on them. Now, suppose the probability a child gets their hands on a loaded weapon resulting in death is 10% and the probability of the tech causes the gun to fail when needed for defense is 1%, then the benefits of the tech outweigh the cost. These numbers are arbitrary to make the point that an increased chance of failure is only part of the equation. It's like saying sometimes an airbag deploys in such a way as to cause extreme harm to the driver that otherwise wouldn't happen so we should remove all airbags from cars. Relatedly I would guess that there are many different kinds of smart tech incorporating very different levels of functionality and control of the weapon meaning that the rate of failure will also vary. Product variety is good and there will be those who want more tech, those that want some, but less, and those that do not want any. The second concern is about the 2nd amendment but that's why we have the courts. If smart tech were to be mandated and it is indeed unconstitutional, as many argue, then guess what, the mandate will not be allowed and there is nothing to be worried about. I'm guessing NJ's law has not been tested because nobody has standing yet as there is no smart tech to mandate. Unfortunately, the law in NJ is still in place because it allows for this kind of divisiveness against developing the tech in the first place.
If criminals didn't frequently obtain their firearms by stealing them from legitimate users I might buy your argument a little more.
There's an insurance classification for swimming pools and other things that attract outside attention, it's called "attractive nuisance." Homeowners with swimming pools are forced to pay extra for their insurance because of the insurance companies' position that a property with a swimming pool will attract unauthorized use, and that this unauthorized use will open-up the property owner to liability, and thus the insurance premium needs to cover that liability. The homeowner can do things like install fences and covers, or if wealthy, to have an indoor pool, as means to reduce the attractiveness of the pool and to reduce liability, but they cannot completely get rid of that liability so long as there's a pool.
I would not be surprised if, some day, liability for firearms had an attractive-nuisance provision associated with it, and that the legitimate owner of the firearm would have to maintain insurance on that firearm that covered the liability of that firearm's misuse until that firearm were legally transferred to a new owner or until that firearm were documented as destroyed. Firearms owners could reduce the liability by having a proper safe and by taking firearms safety courses, but they could never absolve themselves of it. And worse for the firearm owner, if that firearm is stolen, unlike vehicles that are generally stolen to be disassembled for parts, the liability of the firearm would probably never go away and if they discontinued insurance then they would still have a degree of liability for what transpired for a firearm that they let get out of their possession.
The biggest problem is the lack of personal responsibiltiy at every stage of the process, right up to the legitimate owner. Absoutely there are owners that are quite responsible, but on the other hand we routinely hear of incidents where children have shot people, be it a young friend, young sibling, a parent, or in extreme cases a firearms instructor with an UZI, because firearms have been left out where people too young to understand their usage manage to get ahold of them. We routinely hear of people's homes being broken into and their firearms stolen. We routinuely hear of spousal shootings. We routinely hear of gun-cleaning accidents where someone didn't clear the chamber after removing the magazine. That we have all of these incidents among legal firearms owners is shameful, and that's before we even get to the issue of firearms used publicly for violence.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I can inspect and replace mechanical parts if they look fatigued or damaged. They're also essential to the operation of the firearm. A 'smart gun' is a lot of extra parts that *can* fail, and they're NOT essential for a gun doing it's core task - setting off a bullet and sending it down the barrel. Inspecting electronics is not something that a standard user can do. Also, if you make the electronics easy to swap out, you're also making them easy to bypass.
I'm not going to say that it can't be done, but it's a change I'd be hell-cautious about. I'm not actually against a 'smart gun', but I don't want to be the test case - give me a call when police departments are *voluntarily* adopting smart guns.
That being said, what makes me oppose them at the moment is New Jersey - which passed a law saying that 30 months after the first smart gun is available for sale in the USA, that ALL firearms sold in the state must be smart.
What do you think car enthusists would say about self-driving cars if a state had a law that said that 3 years after the first self-driving car is available for sale that ALL new cars sold must be self-driving?
I don't read AC A human right
I wonder how they would make my Mosin Nagant "smart"? Or the millions of other antique, collectable, and still perfectly functioning 19-20th century military weapons?
They'll do what they did to machine guns: ...
- Ban sales of new production to civilians. That limits the supply to what's currently out there (and registered), minus any that wear out, are lost, stolen, confiscated, rust out through poor storage, are damaged by fire,
- Put draconian rules (disguised as tax paperwork) in the way of transferring existing instances to new owners (including inheritance). That binds them to their current owners, who won't live forever.
Sure you're OK with your current gun - until they find some way to hang a felony on you, or file a restraining order against you (either of which bars you from continuing to own or control that gun). But those who don't have one of their own when the rules go into effect, and future generations, are S.O.L. How do THEY exercise their rights?
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
States like NJ who already have laws on the books mandating all guns sold in the state must use smart tech once it becomes widely available
NJ's law isn't even "widely available". It's "30 months after ONE model is available for sale". Police are completely exempted, of course. So let's say that I create a system that works, sort of. It's $2k for a .22lr pistol, and the pistol can't be anything stronger because the shock from firing calibers .380 and up is enough to destroy the electronics.
30 months after that, even if NOBODY else has released such a pistol, legally speaking, my firearm would be the only one legal to sell in NJ. Restricting everybody to a $2k .22.
I don't read AC A human right
PS - I wrote this while open carrying an extremely reliable S&W in Texas. God Bless.
The fact that you feel the need to openly carry a reliable S&W while typing on a computer for your safety speaks volumes about Texas and your belief that God is looking out for you.
PS - I wrote this without carrying a gun. I survi
I would not be surprised if, some day, liability for firearms had an attractive-nuisance provision associated with it, and that the legitimate owner of the firearm would have to maintain insurance on that firearm that covered the liability of that firearm's misuse until that firearm were legally transferred to a new owner or until that firearm were documented as destroyed.
An attractive nuisance is defined as anything that could be considered to attract children onto someones property, for example pools or fountains. Unless firearms owners are storing their weapons by strewing them about in the back yard or have a sign up saying "Guns are here" I doubt a case could be made that it is an attractive nuisance.
And worse for the firearm owner, if that firearm is stolen, unlike vehicles that are generally stolen to be disassembled for parts, the liability of the firearm would probably never go away and if they discontinued insurance then they would still have a degree of liability for what transpired for a firearm that they let get out of their possession.
What you think will happen here is tantamount to charging a car theft victim for a bank robbery committed by the thief, or a phone theft victim for a drug deal arranged with their stolen cell phone. That is not how liability works and unless the courts go pants on head retarded it will not work that way in the foreseeable future.
The biggest problem is the lack of personal responsibility at every stage of the process, right up to the legitimate owner. Absolutely there are owners that are quite responsible, but on the other hand we routinely hear of incidents where children have shot people, be it a young friend, young sibling, a parent, or in extreme cases a firearms instructor with an UZI, because firearms have been left out where people too young to understand their usage manage to get a hold of them.
Leaving weapons out where children can access them is actually already a crime and negligent owners are being prosecuted for it. Case in point is thiscase where a father left his weapon rolled up on top of the fridge and the child wanted to play cops and robbers. It is a tragic story but the father is responsible and should be charged. I am not sure how you think this shows a lack of responsibility.
We routinely hear of people's homes being broken into and their firearms stolen.
I am not what responsibility you are expecting burglary victims to hold for the theft of their belongings, do we hold big screen owners responsible when their house is robbed as well?
We routinely hear of spousal shootings.
Again we hold people responsible for that as well, shooting your spouse is against the law and people go to jail for that.
We routinely hear of gun-cleaning accidents where someone didn't clear the chamber after removing the magazine.
If a person injures someone while cleaning and is found to be negligent they can and have been charged. However if it is a true accident then there may be no charges because it was an accident, same as if a person accidentally hit a child with a car. Honestly it seems you want gun owners to be under a different standard under the law than is applicable to any other group. I would caution you that unequal treatment for groups was done in the past and it was as wrong then as it is now.
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the (supposed) good of its victims may be the most oppressive