White House Releases Report On How To Spur Smart-Gun Technology (computerworld.com)

Lucas123 writes: A report commissioned by the White House involving the Defense, Justice and Homeland Security Departments has begun a process to define, for the first time, the requirements that manufacturers would need to meet for federal, state, and municipal law enforcement agencies to consider purchasing firearms with "smart" safety technology. They've committed to completing that process by October, and will also identify agencies interested in taking part in a pilot program to develop the smart gun technology. The DoD will help manufacturers test smart guns under "real-world conditions" at the U.S. Army Aberdeen Test Center in Maryland. Manufacturers would be eligible to win cash prizes through that program as well. In addition to spurring the adoption of smart gun technology, the report stated that the Social Security Administration has published a proposed rule that would require individuals prohibited from buying a gun due to mental health issues to be included in a background check system.

Comments

Errrrrrr, NO

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

NO, I do not want a gun that relies on a battery.

When I pull the trigger I want it to go "bang" instead of displaying a "low battery" message.

No thanks.

Re:Errrrrrr, NO

[Drethon]

A multitude of ways. Such as not having a round in the chamber, leave the safety on, don't cock the hammer, don't put a finger on the trigger, don't aim the gun at something you don't want a hole in?

Re:Errrrrrr, NO

[He Who Has No Name]

Those avenues have been heavily investigated, largely to the point of exhaustion, some methods going back over 100 years. Most major handgun manufacturers already incorporate mechanical safeties that prevent discharges from dropping (Glock and others), inadvertent snagging on the trigger (Glock, Springfield, Walther, others), and pressure on the trigger without deliberate grip on the weapon (John Browning in 1911). There are also transfer bar safeties for hammer-fired weapons, disconnectors for striker-fired weapons that only disengage when the trigger is deliberately pressed, and others.

The bottom line is that firearms have been an extraordinarily iterative product for over a century and their use has always demanded reliability as an absolute design factor, which has driven development to perfect elegant mechanical simplicity and dependability. There is no widespread desire by their actual users to introduce the kind of added complexity and "usage blockade" functions that are being advocated by this political effort. The impetus for that functionality is entirely political from people who genuinely loathe firearms and intend to make them as difficult, cumbersome, and unreliable to use, because in their warped impression of firearm usage, making guns that way will somehow decrease "gun violence". It's an irrational and fallacious notion with no basis in fact or evidence, but the people who hew to it are powerful, well-financed, and zealous, so it continues despite having no basis in the real world.

Re:Errrrrrr, NO

[jafiwam]

A usee in this case are the people shot at, or actually shot. I think, correct my logic if I'm wrong, that since some users shoot more than one person, there are more usees than users.

You're wrong. Most users shoot nobody, for the same reason that most fire insurance policies don't result in fire insurance payments.

Also, when the person being shot is a criminal being shot in self-defense, I don't care to give them a say.

That's the thing. MOST people shot are criminals. (Something like 60% have a criminal history, and around 80% of those know the person that shoots them.)

So called "gun violence" is really "crime violence." Or more specifically, "inner city (run by democrats) black and hispanic gang violence."

If you aren't doing stuff that includes all of those groups (just being black isn't enough to increase your risk) you magically, somehow, mysteriously are very unlikely to get shot.

It's pretty clear the folks pushing this stuff actually WANT those criminals to be shooting each other because they can then be used as tools and voting livestock to further their agenda of _control_.

If you don't believe me, go find one of the many charts that outlines what happens when the data is filtered for criminal activity. The easiest way is to take out Detroit, LA, DC, and Chicago (you don't even have to take you NY anymore) and the numbers drop precipitously... resulting in the USA dropping down to the lower middle of the pack for gun violence for industrialized developed countries.

Not only is the "we can make smart guns to solve this" a goddamn fucking lie, but the narrative democrats push about WHO and WHY there are shootings is also a goddamn fucking lie.

Lastly, there are already 400 million guns (notice, the number is up, people are not falling for this shit and buying them like crazy) and already 20 million of them have been stolen in decades prior so they will continue to float around in the inner city democratically run gang-n-violence centers for decades... where the people that have them are already forbidden by law to have them, where they regularly get caught with them and are simply released (by again, the democratically run justice system in charge of those cities). Where the "folks" there will continue to use them to shoot each other for decades to come.

Smart guns will do nothing to fix what the democrats lie about when they say there is a problem.

There IS a problem. The problem is democrats. democrats that don't give a shit when their kept and fed inner city voting livestock kill each other.

LOL WTF no.

[He Who Has No Name]

This administration is about to get a very rude lesson in the difference between their imagination of the market desires for firearms, and the actual expectation of those who use them in the real world.

Firearms as devices have been deliberately pressing for mechanical simplicity and minimal failure points for over 150 years. Adding complex electronics that are potentially vulnerable to deliberate subversion from a distance is a non-starter.

The only police forces that might even consider this are highly politicized ones like NYPD, CHiPS, and the New Jersey State Police. The military will not touch these. They've already done experiments and research on this tech and didn't want to touch it with a 40 foot pole that belonged to somebody they didn't like.

If this tech can't get funded and become mandatory for private citizens even in nations with hideously civilian-disarmament fixated politics like Germany, England, and France, it's going to be a non-starter in the US.

Re:LOL WTF no.

[Orgasmatron]

We learned that you ghouls have no shame and that there is absolutely no tragedy that you are unwilling to gleefully spin to your political aims. That count?