And when I say “violently opposed,” I mean it: those who try to make or sell “smart guns” (those guns that can be fired only by authorized owners, usually wearing a special ring or watch that unlocks the trigger) have been subject to horrible threats of murder, rape, and destruction of their shops. And both individual gun owners and the gun lobby—including the National Rifle Association—oppose smart guns, for that paranoid segment of society sees such restrictions as putting us on a slippery slope toward (gasp) tighter gun regulation, and perhaps the complete elimination of privately-owned guns.
Yet I think smart guns are a good idea, for by allowing only the owner or other authorized people to fire a gun, they’ll help prevent the following tragedies:
- cops or soldiers being shot by their own guns that have been grabbed by bad guys
- kids accidentally killing each other or their parents with guns that are fired accidentally
- suicides with other people’s guns
- the many crimes committed with stolen guns or other guns acquired illegally
This won’t completely eliminate the problem of gun violence, of course, but the idea of smart guns seems eminently sensible. Yet you can’t even buy a smart gun in the United States, and no manufacturer is making them! Why? See the video below, which is sad and horrifying.
The 13-minute segment was part of last Sunday’s 60 Minutes, the only television show I watch save the evening news. This bit, reported by Lesley Stahl, tells about smart guns, how they work, and what happens to those who try to sell them. (Hint: they’re threatened with death.) Do watch it: it’s a few minutes well spent, for it will tell you how dire the gun situation is in the United States, and how wedded the firearms nuts are to their weapons. They will oppose any measure that regulates guns out of their sheer petulance, a misunderstanding of the Second Amendment, and their paranoia that anything making weapons safer to use must represent the gub’mint trying to take their guns away.
Click on the screenshot to go to the segment; you’ll probably have to watch a brief commercial first, and I’m not sure whether those overseas can see this. You’ll be amused to see the arguments trotted out by the gun nuts to oppose the sale of smart guns. Try to guess them before you listen to this:
The National Rifle Association is an evil and immoral organization.
Essentially part of the American government has been taken over by the gun lobby.
1977 – The gun lobby made up of ammunition and guns manufacturers take over the gun safety group National Rifle Association. What the NRA opposed, it embraced like lax laws or no laws restricting any purchasing or owning of weapons.
The NRA is fear itself. Despite the backlash, I would be surprised if many gun owners would not secretly covet at least owning one smart gun.
Advanced civilizations are neither built nor protected by weapons, they are destroyed by them. A smart gun is an engineering control that removes a small subset of unnecessary violence to our societies.
I probably wouldn’t buy a smart gun; I have little faith that the technology would be as reliable as the gun itself.
Scratch that. I might buy one just to piss off the gun nuts. Not sure I would take it to the gun range, though. 🙂
I would be delighted if some new entrant to the market created a popular smart gun. It would be a slap in the face to the industry.
The NRA’s opposition to the sale of these weapons is another example of how the conservative faction in the US isn’t the libertarian, small-government, free-market supporters they claim to be. They’re ideologically conservative, and just like the far left, they’re perfectly willing to impose top-down regulation on people and businesses in order to bring about their ideology.
Libertarianism is mostly a fraud. Everyone likes, in principle, the government not interfering with their own personal freedoms, but they’re fine with government interfering with the freedoms of others.
“Freedom for wolves is death to lambs.”
Libertarianism started in Europe and was Liberal. When it was created by Reich Wing rich men it was decidedly Right Wing and still is.
“Ricochet, Confessions of a Gun Lobbyist” by Richard Feldman, who was the lobbyist for NRA before La Pierre and the group took over, spells out quite well how the manufacturers run the show. And, he even went on to work for them for a while.
Something that worked with the Apple Watch. 😉
I saw this on 60 min. last week. It is proof the gun crazy country we live in is really a disease without limits. There is no reasoning or logic to any of it. Next up, we will be issuing hand guns to every new born baby – a kind of starter gun to get them going. Maybe have a pacifier on the handle so they can get use to the gun slowly and not be afraid of it.
Like the deluded Ben Carson/brain surgeon says, the second amendment was so we will be able to fight government and there should be no limits. After they elect him I wonder which side he intends to fight for?
I also saw it on MSNBC with that gun shop owner was interviewed.
What is the problem? It is not the guns or the NRA, or some lobbyists who have misguided beliefs of curing the ‘gun problem’. by using the constitution to take second amendment rights away. Ben Carson states a simple truthful idea. Quoted as saying that he wouldn’t just stand there and let someone shoot him. I call that COMMON SENSE. Let me tell you who’s lap it all lands in. When growing up it was and is the parents who are responsible for the education of the kids on the subject of guns. None of us ever even considered messing around with guns. My father was a veteran. I distinctly recall him saying there were guns. Loaded. Pointed out everything. Said not to touch at anytime. Then only if he said so. (Meaning fat chance) 😀 We were taught to shoot, safety etc. And being a farm kid need arose to dispatch critters or varmits. We never had issues with firearms. They were for defense of home, family and self as a last critical choice. This simple task seems to have long disappeared from society. Criminals will always have guns.Why do you think taking my only legally binding rights to be able to at least shoot back at the people who are trying to kill me? Never take a knife to a gunfight. Putting those new electronic things are a bad idea. Sounds like a good way to get dead. What happens when you get the weapon plucked away from you? The bad guys kill you dead. While ROFLOL at the stupidity of it. Nuff said
“What happens when you get the weapon plucked away from you?”
Well if it’s been plucked away from you, smart or not, you sure ain’t gonna be shootin’ nobody with it, are ya, genius? 🙂
cr
Why are Americans so stupid? It’s totally beyond me.
If you asked most people they’d say that the US is the centre of all capitalism and yet a bunch of gun toting cowboys can stop a gun company from producing guns just because they are worried that the new guns will stop the sale of the guns they love.
I get the second amendment argument and, seriously, why wasn’t it repealed along with the one about someone holding a red flag in front a moving vehicle…
Yet one more reason why I’m glad I’m not an American!
After reading your post, I’m also glad you’re not an American.
It shows us that they aren’t entirely free market Capitalists either if they are against a better product. But then in a way it is an organized conspiracy also. As to their motives.
I just wanted to mention that you stated glad you are not American. LOL then why are you even sharing your opinion on the subject? You’re not even involved? Meaning no offense to anyone. LOL! Just a funny thing I noticed.
It is a staple of SciFi films. I cannot understand the opposition. It suggests – gasp – that the US gun lobby is only interested in killing people. Preferably those opposed to guns.
The NRA goes on and on about their members being safe, and it’s the criminals that are the problem. Given that so many criminals use illegally obtained guns, surely smart guns is a solution to that. In fact, that was the first thought I had years ago when I first heard of these.
I’m also concerned by the phrase, “People don’t understand just how passionate we are about our guns,” or something similar. It smacked of obsession to me, and that scares me.
Sounds even worse when expanded to it’s logical conclusion.
STARTING with those who oppose gun liberalisation. I’m sure that their “little list” is longer than that.
In the first “Judge Dredd” film with Stallone the street judges have smart guns that read their DNA at the trigger. Someone else picks it up they are electrocuted. They also respond to voice print for loading rounds.
I don’t think the safety electronics are uncrackable (any more than any piece of electronics hasn’t been cracked) so smart guns would probably only prevent accidental firing.
Also, knowing people, they’d lazily store the key of their key-based shooter with the gun, or close to the gun in the cupboard just beside. (That objection is of course void with fingerprint-based ones.)
All in all, I’m afraid they’d give a false sense of safety.
Only?
In the period 2005-2010 there were about 3,800 deaths due to accidental firing, a third of those deaths were people under 25 years of age. In 8% of those deaths, the gun was fired by someone six years old or less. Imagine the family trauma in those events.
As far as I’m concerned, if the adoption of smart guns lowered the accidental death number by a factor of 10 or 100 but did nothing else whatsoever in terms of changing gun use statistics, they would be a huge social success and benefit.
Agreed, but such results can be reached only if those guns are either person-bound (fingerprint or such), or if people can be taught to store the key way apart from the gun.
I’m weary of that last thing, if people can’t even be bothered to store their guns in a child-safe place.
And, lastly, I suspect a certain number of those accidents happened in the presence of the gun’s owner, possibly even holding it. Would be nice to see the numbers on that.
I’m less wary, because I would expect that in the cases of the six year olds they wouldn’t think to put on the ring or whatever and it may not stay on their finger anyway. Similarly if an owner is, for example, showing a sibling or family member how to handle the gun. Or a teen who just wants to show his friends that his dad has a gun. In none of those circumstances would we expect someone to put on the ID component.
We certainly aren’t there yet but in terms of safety training this could very much be like checking for rounds in the chamber; the very first thing you do when you pick up a firearm “for example purposes” is to check and make sure nobody has the ID component on.
And no, not even that will stop all accidents. But perfect isn’t the enemy of better, and like I said, even a reduction by a factor of 10 (heck, a reduction by a factor of 2!) would be great.
Exactly! Any life saved, especially of an innocent has to be a bonus.
The gun jewellery that unlocks it could easily be something that’s nice enough to wear all the time, whether or not you have your gun. I can see some companies like Hugo Boss designing something like that. A Rolex watch? All these things would come with the technology.
That is a peculiar argument against smart guns. Life boats on ships don’t give passengers a guarantee of survival if the ship should sink but they certainly improve the odds. Likewise smart guns may not guarantee that a gun will not be fired by someone other than the lawful owner but they will surely reduce that risk. If an intruder wrestles your gun from you and it has this technology fitted, you are in with a chance but if it is a traditional one, your only hope is that the criminal sees fit not to pull the trigger on you.
Personally I’d prefer a society in which most people do not own or keep guns but if it is inevitable that people will have guns – as seems to be the case in the US – I’d think that smart guns are an innovation that could make this just a little bit less scary.
I’m sure a smart gun could be hacked – just like an iphone can be jailbroken (‘jailbreaked’?) – but not at a moment’s notice by some guy who’s just stolen / grabbed it off you.
They may not be perfectly safe or foolproof, but then nor are airbags or ABS brakes. That’s not a reason to do away with those things.
cr
You could make most of the same arguments about front door keys or (more comparably) the entry and ignition keys for modern cars. Particularly those cars where the entry key is a mechanical key, and the ignition switch key is also a mechanical key, but the immobiliser key is an RFID chip (mechanically buried in the mechanical key, normally, but not necessarily).
I would suspect that the model of “Mom and Pop have keys to the gun, which live in their pockets with the car and house keys ; when they reach appropriate ages (and educational attainments), the kids MAY get house or car keys. Or gun keys.
Now here is an idea – there are enough gun owners (mostly hunting, not hand-guns) in some European countries to develop and test the systems here, as part of a mutli-year plan to invade the USA and destroy (economically) the USA gun industry. How is that likely to go down amongst the NRA? (Too lazy to search for video of a lead balloon – Mythbusters did one – or a normal balloon filled with xenon.)
Smart guns are a good idea in principle, but the actual implementation is sure to be bad, if history is any guide. With very few exceptions, all computerized security measures have severe implementation flaws that allow others to remotely take over the device. This is often true even when the device is not wireless, as electrical signals can be induced in a wire remotely with a magnetic field.
Furthermore, the proprietary, secret nature of the implementation means that it won’t be trustworthy. It’s fairly likely that in addition to the unintended security holes which are sure to exist, there may be a deliberate backdoor allowing the gun to be locked remotely by law enforcement and everyone else who discovers the key to the backdoor, which they eventually will. This isn’t wild paranoia: many corporations work with law enforcement behind the scenes to build backdoors into their products or otherwise compromise the security of their users.
In what circumstance do you envision it to be a bad thing that police ‘lock’ a suspect’s gun?
I can understand and would even support a 4th amendment argument against the police doing so (specifically: no electronic seizures allowed without a warrant based on probable cause). But I have a hard time thinking about when that back door would be a bad thing.
In fact I think it could potentially reduce the number of accidental shootings of civilians by irresponsible police officers, because if the police know the people behind the door can’t possibly be armed, they have absolutely no reason to go in to a building guns at the ready. All that SWAT technique and equipment overuse and overkill? Its justified by the claim that the suspects are heavily armed. Take that justification away, there is no reason for the police to use such tools and techniques.
The main problem is that there’s no backdoor that’s only usable by the “good guys”. Eventually the secret to accessing the backdoor will become known to the bad guys too. Maybe that’s not a big problem with smart guns compared to communication and encryption systems.
I don’t know if they would have a backdoor, but given the widespread collusion with the government revealed by Edward Snowden and cars that can be shut down remotely etc., it’s a definite possibility.
You’re probably right that it’s better if police can lock anyone’s guns. But then gun enthusiasts wouldn’t be entirely paranoid to fear that smart guns could be used to disarm them. I also don’t think they’re paranoid to believe that if smart guns gain a foothold, laws will follow making them mandatory.
Anyway, I’m not against the idea but I wish it was implemented using simple, verifiable, and open technology so that it would be under the user’s control.
Yes, a gun that’s lockable by the authorities, and therefore by hackers as well, could be a problem. Another is that if your gun is stolen, hacked, and used in a crime, it might be more difficult to prove your innocence.
It would be interesting to see this subject come up on Bruce Schneier’s site.
That’s an interesting point. I’d considered that security holes would make it very likely that criminals could steal smart guns and use them without much difficulty, but I hadn’t considered the possibility that you could be blamed for their crimes (or even deliberately framed) due to a mistaken belief in the technology’s infallibility.
“Many corporations …” Agreed ; Another reason for European gun manufacturers to view this as a marketing opportunity. Why should they install any deliberate backdoors other than the publicly declared ones.
I think that smart guns should be widely marketed nationally. Let the consumer decide whether he or she wants to purchase one (or more). I’ll bet smart guns will capture only a small slice of the gun market. Consumers who are purchasing guns for self defense will not want to rely on a technologically fragile, temperamental, needlessly complex, and slow to bring into operation firearm.
It’ll be a cold day in hell before you take away the NRA’s right to anti-capitalist monopolistic regulation!
Yes, I have heard of this, and about a gun shop owner who tried to sell them. He was forced to ‘recant’, else he would have been widely boycotted.
Thank you, NRA, for protecting us. [sarcasm mode off].
Well, like any social movement, I believe that repeatedly bringing it up and showing the rot inside the core of the NRA will be the only way to slowly turn this tide. The sad part of course is that many on the gun safety side will be made to suffer. Such is the price for eventual social justice.
The price of the NRA’s resistance will be countable in human lives.
Which is OK – better than a price countable in dollars and cents. [/sarcasm]
One gun nut told me “the government is able to hack, and remotely disable smart guns”. If that were true it counters what he sees as the most important reason for an armed populace.
Well but the answer to that is: so go ahead and keep your “dumb” firearms. Lock them up in a chest in the attic in case the day comes when you want to join the revolution. Let the smart gun be the weapon you keep in your bedroom closet, the one you use for your home defense, target practice, the one you use to teach your kids how to shoot, etc…
And when the revolution comes the gun nut can happily fire away at the tank that’s in the process of flattening him.
Why do these people think the government is coming for them? It’s just plain weird.
1 part: I just plain want that gun useless-for-hunting-or-self-defense semiautomatic…now I have to figure out a psychological justification for having it.
1 part: I listen to crazy pundits who tell me the government is after me.
1 part: narcissism. If the government wasn’t coming after me, that would mean I’m not important, I’m nobody special, they don’t consider me a threat. That can’t be true! I’m a big important person! Ergo…
1 part: yeah we Americans are just plain weird in some ways.
Sounds good to me. 🙂
Pffft. Tank. More like drone bombs the, without them even seeing it.
“Why do these people …”
Probably because they know they’re doing something wrong.
Need a gun in case the government tries to take over? Too late. It has already done so; it is a government! And it, in turn, has already been taken over by big money, including the NRA. Too late again.
Try to guess them before you listen to this
I guessed many of the reasons of opposition (all very paranoid), but one I wouldn’t have guessed is the 10 year battery going dead. What are you going to do on year 11? OMG! I have to change out a battery every 10 years. NOOOOOOOO!!!! You’re infringing on my rights! Pathetic.
One would think that the NRA and gun manufacturers would be all for planned obsolescence. More repeat purchases that way.
Yeah – the longer the interview with him went on, the more ridiculous he looked.
And the guy who tried to sell smart guns thinks the opposition wasn’t organized, but it clearly was. There are clearly people with alerts just waiting to attack as soon as someone says they’re selling smart guns.
I had the same experience when I supported fluoride in the water for my town on my website. All of a sudden I was getting trolled by antis from all over the country, and I was getting supporters from all over the place too. They clearly all knew each other, and it was just that on this occasion I was providing the platform for their arguments.
Just as anti-gay rhetoric on the part of anti-abortion groups prove their agenda is not really what they say it is, this seems to indicate that the NRA’s agenda is not what they say it is.
Good book that addresses the Second Amendment from before its birth to the present day.: “The Second Amendment: A Biography,” by Michael Waldman. It is fascinating how the “well regulated militia” seems to have lost its way.
Of course I would also recommend Joseph Ellis, The Quartet. Pages 211-212. Even the statement in there about the “well regulated militia” was specifically to ease the discomfort several states had with the idea of a standing army. You know….like the King had. Madison was always the politician and he was doing this bill of rights to shut people up so they could move on to more important things. Funny that something Madison did not even think necessary became so damned important to a bunch of gun idiots today. Actually not funny.
Madison may not have thought it necessary (because he did not think the federal government had the power to regulate guns anyway), but the anti-federalists sure thought the bill of rights was necessary.
Is it too intrusive to point out (once again) that the UK is very nearly as civilised as the US, yet we manage quite well with very intrusive gun-control legislation; and that the US firearm homicide rate is about 11,000 a year whereas ours is about 30-40?
I try to steer clear of Jerry’s gun posts, because he’s not rational on the topic, and is subject to such strong confirmation bias that I really find it amazing he hasn’t spotted it himself. And I don’t like the idea of insulting our host.
But the answer to the question of why anyone would oppose a “smart” gun is simple: No one wants to own a gun that has a good probability of not working when it’s needed.
Technology fails all the time. I would no more want a “smart” gun (to complement my collection of zero – I don’t have skin in the game) than a car that could be automatically shut down. What if I’m being chased by some psycho in another car and it malfunctions? Or if I need to get either myself or someone else to a hospital quickly?
A lot of what I do for a living is computer programming. One of my main design philosophies is to never try to be more clever than the user. With few exceptions, there’s always a way for the user to override what I’ve programmed in as a protection against error. I can’t quantify the vast expanse of software I’ve used which doesn’t allow that kind of human intervention, and as a result gets stuck in a situation where the logic “thinks” it knows better than the user when it clearly doesn’t, which produces as the inevitable result a completely broken program that doesn’t accomplish what it was designed to do.
Just one other observation. The scenario is suggested of a bad guy getting the cop’s gun. What about a good guy getting the bad guy’s gun, then not being able to use it to stop the bad guy? That’s the problem with the viscerally anti-gun people. They are constitutionally incapable of seeing two sides of any argument involving guns.
You are aware that most cars are fitted with an immobilizer which is almost the exact equivalent, right? It is an electronic device that prevents unauthorized persons from using your car e.g. by hot-wiring it.
And if the reliability of the immobilizer in cars is any indication about the reliability of this technology, there is no reason not to adopt it.
Not sure about the U.S. but in many European countries every car needs to be fitted with one.
I don’t think there are any regulations that require vehicles to be fitted with immobilisers. But the insurance companies charge appreciably more to insure older (non-immobiliser, pre- about 1992) models than similar age models with an immobiliser. Similarly, there’s nothing (in law) to prevent you from removing or disabling an immobilizer. But it would be considered a significant change to the vehicle, and require you to inform your insurance company (who will then bump your premiums, or show you the door).
I had a 1994 Fiat which came without the master key, so I couldn’t get new keys cut. The immobiliser system still worked fine, but when I lost a key down the inside of the raincoat lining, I had to investigate options. They were uneconomic. Then the missing key resurfaced.
There were problems with early implementations (e.g. FIAT’s master/slave key idea), but we’re talking about 20 years ago now. Reliability of the immobiliser system is up there with the mechanics of explosions that move metal cylinders inside other metal cylinders. That’s piston engines, not guns.
We have had compulsory immobilisers here since 2007.
I had a quick look at some requirements for components.
Example: for components inside the vehicle they must work without failure in a temperature range of -40c – +85c
Your argument is a good one for why a person would not want to own a smart gun themselves but less convincing for why anyone would be against the sale of such guns to other people (who might weigh the odds of accidental death differently to them). Which seemed to be our host’s point.
“And I don’t like the idea of insulting our host”.
Since you accuse him of being not rational and ‘viscerally anti-gun’ and ‘constitutionally incapable of seeing two sides of any argument involving guns’ I’d say you are doing poor job of avoiding insulting him!
He can no doubt defend himself but I’d point out that JAC and those who have posted on here in favour of smart guns have presented a variety of perfectly rational arguments and the simple fact that you disagree with them does not by itself make them irrational.
You propose two particular arguments against smart guns. One, that they have a high likelihood of not working is I think answered perfectly well by Compuholio who points out that immobilisers in cars work perfectly well, day after day in millions of cars across the world. Second, you suggest that the possibility of the good guy wrestling the gun out of the hands of the bad guy also needs to be considered. I concede that this is a possibility but I don’t see why you think this negates the benefit of knowing that one’s own gun will not work in someone else’s hand. Neither you nor I have data, I suspect, to indicate in which direction (good-bad/bad-good)guns are more likely to be snatched in struggles but my suspicion is that it is on the whole more probable that criminals will take the guns of law abiding gun-owners (one way or another)than the other way around. In any case – since AFAIK no-one is yet proposing that only smart guns should be permitted – your argument does not explain why a law abiding gun owner would not want to make his/her weapon exclusive to him/herself.
Aside from the struggle-with-a-bad-guy issue a number of other cases have been suggested in which smart guns could help to prevent killings including the obvious one of a child gaining access to a parent’s gun and accidentally firing it at someone. I presume that you are not so viscerally pro-gun that you are going to suggest that there is some scenario in which it is good for children to find and fire off their parent’s guns? Of course you can point out that the gun could be kept in a locked cabinet out of a child’s reach and I would agree but the statistics indicate that too many people are not very careful so an extra layer of precaution can only be beneficial, surely?
I just have a tidbit on the immobilizer issue regarding cars. My Buick has the GM “PassKey” system, where the key has a chip that an RFID reader (I believe) in the car reads and allows the car to start.
This system is known to be very buggy, and GM has always refused to replace keys or fix the RFID reader (unless paid to, of course). My car had actually stalled on the street due to this “security” feature.
Maybe the GM system is buggy but that doesn’t apply to immobilizers in general. Every new car in Europe has an electronic immobilizer and they are extremely reliable. I have been driving cars equipped with them for more than ten years and never had a problem – that’s many thousands of engine starts. I also don’t know of anyone who has had a problem. If cars in Europe started stalling because of immobilizers issues the EU regulators would be over it like a rash.
So, GM are 1.5 to 2 decades behind European manufacturers. Sounds very credible to me.
I’m hoping they’re behind Japanese manufacturers too, since my wife’s Mazda wagon has one.
Which, so far, works as advertised.
cr
Aren’t GM a branch of Opel, the German manufacturer? (I treat cars as lumps of dangerous metal for getting from point A to point B ; I don’t try to keep up with mergers and acquisitions).
I thought it was more that GM owned Opel. In any case, I don’t touch GM. I’m a Ford man. (European Ford, that is. Think Escorts and Cortinas. Their relation to Ford US in technical matters is loose).
cr
My second car was an Escort. It wasn’t quite “Fix Or Repair Daily”, but it did have it’s moments. Losing the line that powered the ignition relay at traffic lights in the rush hour was … “interesting.”
I’ve had a few experiences with my Escort over the years. But as compared with BMC (MG Midgets and Austin 1100s) I found the small Fords much simpler, better engineered and more accessible so far easier to render running repairs by the roadside. I could write reams on the topic but better not!
I’m a firm believer in ‘keep it simple’ so I can sympathise in principle with that objection to ‘smart’ guns, but not the other contrived ones.
cr
KISS – leaves less room for @complications.
So, for a “smart gun”, the gun would need battery power to fire, and the controlling computer would need LOWER voltage to fire up and detect the *enabling* device (RFID, whatever). But that is “gilding the turd”.
“What about a good guy getting the bad guy’s gun, then not being able to use it to stop the bad guy?” Er…… the bad guy doesn’t have a gun anymore so why the hell would you want to shoot him? Doesn’t sound like self-defence to me!
Because bad guys can’t have two guns. Or a gun and a knife. Or a gun and brute strength.
Surely your imagination is not so paltry.
Not as paltry as your reasoning skills, evidently. I don’t like to spread insults, but hey you went first! I will concede however, that I find it difficult to view the world with the paranoia of an average gun enthusiast.
So anyway, let me get this right, you are struggling with a criminal and have managed to wrestle his gun off him. Rather than run off or pistol whip him you decide to shoot him, hell you might as well do the job properly! But it’s one of those bloody smart guns, bah! While you are pondering about what to do next the overpowered criminal pulls out his other gun and shoots you. Yeah I bet that would happen all the time. The kind of guy that goes on a murderous crime spree with two guns would always make sure they were of the smart variety. Hey he may be a criminal, but at least he’s safety conscious. He might have a knife true – but a pistol round his head would at least stun him. He might have brute strength but you managed to wrestle his gun off him, so he can’t be that much stronger than you. But why should you settle for that when you could put a bullet in him, that would be much more satisfying. What sort of world do you live in?
Sorry forgot to say that I would be really interested if you could provide data on how often this actually happens – a victim wrestling a gun from an assailant and shooting him before the victim is then killed by the assailant’s other lethal weapon. That would be most interesting.
Technology does not fail all the time.
A well designed, hardened electronic device can be extremely reliable.
Millions of cars are subjecting electronic parts to harsh continual use year in year out. Including mobilizes and engine management systems and the solid state ignition systems.
If the smart gun worked with a ring, you’d sort of feel like Green Lantern when you held it!
In brightest day, in blackest night,
No evil shall escape my sight.
Let those who worship evil’s might
Beware my power–Green Lantern’s light!
You’d think the NRA would be all over that!
It seems to me there’s two different degrees of ‘smart’ involved here.
One level would be a gun ‘keyed’ to a particular token – a ring or similar – such that it wouldn’t fire without the presence of that token. The system only needs to have an effective range of a few inches. It’s hard to see how a third party (cops or anyone else) could interfere with that system.
The other level seems to be what the alarmists are fantasising about, which is some sort of long-range internet-aware hardware. I wouldn’t want anything of mine (other than a computer, GPS or cellphone which is expressly made for the purpose) to have that capability.
cr
a simple EM pulse generator can disable an electronic gun.
An EM pulse generator energetic enough to blow components in a remote device would be too big to be portable so would not be practical for a criminal to carry around. I’m also confident it would be possible to design a smart gun so all the susceptible electronics would be inside the gun which is a very effective Faraday Cage.
And if someone or some organisation did go to the trouble of frying all the electronics in your vicinity they are committed and equipped enough to make your smart gun or any other guns you have irrelevant.
Just think of this happening happening on an even bigger scale. Say the US government want to fry all smart guns in an area. The rest of the electrical infrastructure would be fried too, the damage would be extensive and hugely expensive. You might still have your conventional firearms left but good luck shooting those drones, tanks and Hellfire missiles with a shotgun.
“rest of the electrical equipment in the area fried too” …
Well that’ll make it hard for news of the police attack to get out to awkward people like journalists, lawyers and outsiders.
Help, I’m thinking like a gun nut. Nurse – the medication, quickly!
This is a toy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38kIK33TKyo
Expand it up to the size of a 3 d-cell flashlight and you have some thing that will knock out electronics with in 10 to 15ft. And yes I know about Faraday cages, they have a flaw, they isolate the electronics from your key. you need an antenna or external sensor connected to your electronics, abrogating your Faraday cage.
Not true. For a start that little device is within a few millimetres of a low energy lightbulb and is only generating a weak electromagnetic field strong enough to light it – it doesn’t even damage it. Ever heard of the inverse square law? To blow robust and protected components at that sort of distance would require something more powerful by many orders of magnitude, and wouldn’t be portable. It might conceivably be possible to make one with advanced engineering but the cost would be prohibitive. Even if the multi-millionaire super-criminal could afford to commission someone to develop a mega powerful portable EMP device I doubt he would. It would make his crimes very easy to trace and would also fry all his own electronics including disabling his car if it was close by. It would be a ridiculously expensive, troublesome and traceable way to disable someone’s smart gun.
This is all a bit academic actually as there are ways to unlock a smart gun without exposing components outside the Faraday Cage of the gun itself. Grip patterns, fingerprints and blood vessel detection (which requires only unidirectional low-energy infra-red – all other wavelengths of EMR would be blocked) could all be done from inside the safety of the gun’s casing. The latter – blood vessel scanning in the fingers – is already used as a biometric token in many high security access control systems.
This brings to mind the James Bond-ish scenario whereby the enemy, having grabbed your gun, then has to cut off your hand (with their handy laser cutter, of course) so they can wrap your fingers round the butt and use it to shoot people with.
Ummm….
cr
That device is irrelevant to the topic at hand.
The only thing happening there is the electromagnetic field causing the fluorescent tube to fluoresce.
You can get the same effect standing under high voltage lines with fluro tubes
Cars drive around and through that stuff all the time as do phones continue to work.
That was not an emp.
Lightning can produce a strongish emp and we survive that all the time.
For a really good emp you need a nuke where the Gamma radiation will knock the electrons far away from the nucleus ionising and when they come hurtling back together, generate a really big pulse.
That may not be exactly right, but still that demo was not relevant.
Yes, I was going to mention the most reliable producer of a strong EMP, a nuke.
So after the enemy have nuked you, you can’t shoot them back with your now-useless handgun.
This does seem to be a serious design flaw.
cr
Perhaps gun enthusiasts think the second amendment calls for individual gun ownership because they have trouble understanding a compound sentence.
If we are talking grammar, then you have to acknowledge that the first clause of the second amendment does not contain any limitation on the second clause.
I am not American and live with strong gun laws and think all those gun deaths a tragedy, however, the second amendment is not clear in what it means.
It does say specifically, the right of the people to bare arms shall not be infringed.
The precursor statement separated by a semi colon doesn’t make it clear that only militias were being talked about.
It says it right there in black and white.
the right of ‘the people’ to bare arms shall not be infringed.
Who are ‘the people’?
You guys really need a constitutional amendment.
“And when I say “violently opposed,” I mean it: those who try to make or sell “smart guns” (those guns that can be fired only by authorized owners, usually wearing a special ring or watch that unlocks the trigger) have been subject to horrible threats of murder, rape, and destruction of their shops. ”
To be fair to the “gun lobby”, your headline is a bit misleading when followed by this sentence. You imply that it is the “lobby” itself making the violent threats, when it is really just idiot gun owners.
To misquote an old slogan, “Gun lobbyists don’t kill people. Crazy gun nuts who pay for gun lobbyists kill people.
No one was murdered, raped, or assaulted. His business is still standing and he is still conducting business there. Depending how the “threats” were worded, which I have never seen, could just be an expression of displeasure, protected speech under the 1st amendment, and his reaction merely paranoia to perceived “threats”.
Devil’s advocate 🙂
Paranoia to invent rape threats?
Then again the mileage certain internet feminists get out of the internet trolls and alleged threats, could make one wonder.
I’m going to add a token “Gun Nut” comment to this post. This comment is really to address the “why wouldn’t you want to own one?” –type of comment that I’m seeing. Though I’m not opposed to smart guns or their development, I’m personally not interested in owning one at this point. At the end of the day the day the number one thing that I want the most out of a firearm when I use it is predictability. That is, when I put my finger on that trigger and pull it, I want it to go bang. Adding more complexity to the firearm reduces the likelihood of that happening. Could there be a time where the technology is sufficiently developed and advanced that I would actually consider one? Maybe. It would depend a lot on what I want that particular firearm for.
I have basically 2 issues with the technology and why it doesn’t work for me: 1) as I mentioned, it introduces another layer of complexity to the firearm which impacts reliability, and 2) reliance on safeties can result in complacency in firearms handling. One of the golden rules that you’ll learn in a firearms safety course is “don’t rely on a safety” but people do it all of the time. Good habits are your best safety. I’m a Colt single action pistol collector and the safest way to deploy/holster that gun is 5 rounds loaded and hammer-down on an open chamber. In that configuration you won’t have a safer loaded firearm and that’s 19th century technology.
For the person who wants a gun that has an electronic safety net to backstop their poor firearms-handling/storage habits? A smart gun might work might work for them, but personally, I think the no gun option might be preferable. That starts to put me into Sam Harris territory in terms of my opinions on gun regulations and makes me unpopular with both sides of the debate but so be it.