Some incredibly obvious ideas:
- Plus, the weapon is automatically disabled if the magazine is removed -- a time when many accidents occur thanks to the remaining round in guns' chambers.
Another company, Yardarm Technologies, showed its system, which can track a gun's location, movement, and even whether it's holstered or unholstered, via smartphone. That is interesting to law enforcement, said Yardarm's Vice President of Marketing Jim Schaff, because many agencies are eager to be able to tie the use of weapons to specific officer action.
♫ Misty water-colored memories…♬ The auto industry fought seat belts tooth and claw. One of the reasons Robert Macnamara became Sec of Defense was he was on the verge of being forced out of Ford for introducing seat belts. Every other manufacturer said "see, look! Fords are less safe than Chryslers!" The seat belt was invented in like 1812. It didn't show up in cars until 1950. The earliest mandatory seat belt law listed here is 1985. We'll only briefly touch on airbags And that's an industry that uses safety to sell their wares. Not so much the firearms industry. You can't buy Chinese steel-core ammo any more because Thompson Center refused to stop selling their Contender match pistol in 7.62x39 - thereby making rifle ammo "pistol ammo" which can't be armor piercing according to the NFA. Why didn't they? "Because Constitution." We're also talking about an industry primarily driven by military and law enforcement… and wannabe companies that aren't high enough quality to sell to the military and law enforcement. Neither the Army nor the cops are going to buy a gun that needs to be within ten inches of a watch to work, which means any company that makes one is essentially robbing itself of a market. Seat belts were adopted because the NTSA wanted them mandatory by 1973. It was another 11 years before any state agreed. If 'smart guns' became mandatory tomorrow, it'd be decades before they mattered… and 'stupid guns' would still predominate. That's the thing about guns - they're stupid simple and mechanically durable. You can still buy Enfields made by Canadians in 1918 in expectation of WWI lasting through 1925 that ended up serving the Commonwealth in the Pacific that were then sold to Egypt and used in the Yom Kippur War that were then funneled to Afghanistan for use by the Mujahideen against the USSR until Charlie Wilson finally got his Stingers in 1985. Know why they call it 30.06? 'cuz it's .30 caliber, introduced 1906. Colt 1911? Yeah. Introduced 1911. We're talking about a handgun that is literally over a hundred years old. What's Bluetooth going to look like in 100 years? The really dumb thing is zip guns are stupid simple to make. You need some brass tubing, a nail (or centerpunch - centerpunch is better), a block of wood, some rubber bands and some bullets. Friends of mine made .9mm parabellum zip guns in shop class in High School. I don't care how 'smart' your gun is - the bullet's gonna stay stupid for a long time to come.To start, Conway continued, some of the top venture capitalists in Silicon Valley have committed to investing in new companies and products in the gun safety sector. And, they agreed to fund the new innovation challenge, with the hope that the firearms industry can follow the example set decades ago when the auto industry adopted the seat belt and driving soon became far safer than it had ever been before.
Call it a "candle holder" and anything is possible. Smooth bore, chunky aluminum, questionable ornamentation, take it home, strap some rubber bands in and BANG. Shit, one of my friends damn near bought it Freshman year because one of his buddies kept throwing a .22 rimfire at his feet to see if he could catch it just right and pop the primer. Yep. Yep he could. Funny thing is, in an era before Columbine the sound of .22 rimfire going off outside Social Studies was not cause for so much as a teacher poking his head around and wondering WTF.
#no. DRM doesn't work on physical objects even more than it doesn't work on digital objects. that's why "smart guns" and DRM cars are both terrible ideas. you can't prevent someone from circumventing all your carefully crafted defenses if they can just cut into the machine. in general, systems like this will also increase the potential for failure at any time of use, and for guns in particular, the consequences for that may be exceptionally dire.
link fixed. sorry, Slashdot has a funky mobile interface. anyway, accidental killings by children or people who aren't supposed to have the gun are better prevented by things like not storing guns loaded, storing them disassembled, or simple trigger locks. these methods are cheap, can be used with any gun, and are also less susceptible to hacking. mishandling accidents are a different beast altogether that should be remedied by firearm training because a smart gun can't prevent most of those kinds of accidents anyway. and for the given example of disabling the weapon when the magazine is ejected, the gun doesn't need to be "smart".
No of course not, that's a separate issue from the owner-sensing stuff which is clearly overkill. I only want opinions on the bit I quoted, really.and for the given example of disabling the weapon when the magazine is ejected, the gun doesn't need to be "smart".
I used to be convinced by this argument, but then I realized that Chicago is the counterargument: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/30/us/strict-chicago-gun-laws.... Prohibition of any good doesn't seem to work, usually. Smarter gun restriction laws would be nice, but what does it take for an effective gun law to work? That isn't to say that I agree with the argument that letting everyone carry guns is a better solution, but it's kind of a pick-your-poison situation.
I rather have smarter gun owners. But that is my personal preference.