I just saw the following article.
Company’s personalized ‘smart gun’ aims to make firearms safer – ABC News (go.com)
I’ll say the same things I said when I last posted about smart guns:
This solves nothing. If a person wants to kill themselves, they’ll find a way. Folks are so focused on making smart technology that doesn’t allow folks to commit suicide by gun. What of the various other quick suicide methods? A person can quickly jump off a bridge or out of a window or balcony or anything that is several stories upward. A person can cut themselves. A person can jump in front of a train, car, or bus. I’m saying that folks can do this but folks HAVE done those things and no one bats an eye, yet if they commit suicide by gun, people go apeshit.
Additionally, the last time I posted about this subject, the mentioned smart gun was approximately $2,500 in price. WTF!?
What happens when the tech somehow glitches? If it has electronics, there will always be the chance of glitches and other electrical issues. If it malfunctions when needed (ie, emergencies such as self defense), the gun is useless.
All guns eventually need to be cleaned and oiled. How does the electrics within the smart guns withstand repeated cleaning and oiling over the life of the firearm? If it malfunctions because of cleaning and oiling, the gun is useless.
The gun can be activated via smartphone app…WTH?? There could be a crack/hack that could circumvent the “smart” aspect of the gun. Any app can be hacked. This would probably be one of the first things the hacker community does. Also, if an app is communicating with any module that’s installed within the gun, the gun could be susceptible to outside malicious attacks (the gun would probably be listening for any commands that the phone might send and it would probably do it over NFC, WiFi, or Bluetooth…all such things have been hacked in the past).
Smart guns with all that tech can probably also be traced. What’s to say that such a gun isn’t beaconing somewhere and sharing information (like location)? Most gun owners I know don’t want such information piped to Big Brother. Even if the government weren’t involved, an app means that the selling company is aware of who is using their app, which means they can track every user of the smart gun. Yeah, F that.
There are many aspects of smart guns that folks think solve a particular problem but, IMO, it causes more problems.
Let’s say I buy this particular handgun. What’s to stop me, the owner, from committing suicide with it? Nothing! Folks commit suicide with their own firearms all the time…they don’t typically use someone else’s.
This could solve the issue of folks leaving their guns where non-owners can find them, yes, but if folks locked up their non-smart handguns, that could lessen kids shooting themselves or prevent adult folks using the discovered gun to commit suicide, but again, such things could be lessened by locking up unused guns.
As well, when has a cook not been burned? I find it highly unreasonable to expect there to be no firearms mishaps ever, especially in a country where 2A and (millions of) firearms are prevalent. Shit will happen. That’s not an excuse for negligence but there are an awful lot of humans in the U.S. To think that folks will always follow laws and common sense is a very bad expectation.
There’s another problem. Guns in gun safes aren’t readily available. If someone breaks into your home and attacks you before you can get to the safe to obtain the gun, owning the gun is useless. At some point, you’ve to have a gun on standby (at the ready) to properly be prepared. A violent felon won’t stop to give you the time you need to get to your gun that you put in your safe for safety’s sake. Imagine if cops kept their guns in safes until ready to use…but wait, they don’t do that…they always have one readily available. I carry a gun 90% of the time, even in the house. If I’m asleep, the gun is in the nightstand drawer that is next to my bed. When I shower, it’s in the bathroom with me, on the counter next to the sink. While driving, it is either on me or in the console. I don’t typically go places that don’t allow guns, so I don’t normally leave it in my car unattended (for someone to steal). Any unused guns are locked in my large safe. All of this works for me. I’m not sure why it’s not working for other folks, but I won’t be forced into a smart gun just because some folks can’t get it right.
The only folks that are going to buy such a gun are cucks or Liberal-minded folks that think that inanimate objects kill. You can own a gun and also teach your children to not play or touch the guns. We teach kids about how to avoid pedophiles and how to not play with fire (or how to avoid or not do anything else that can hurt/maim/kill), yet there are kids that still don’t pay heed. That’s not the fault of the kid, but that isn’t the fault of said inanimate object or the object’s owners, either. Sometimes kids will do stupid things…we ALL have done stupid things as kids. Kids aren’t infallible, but neither are parents (yes, some parents do some dumb shit, even smart ones, because most parents aren’t taught to be parents…they learn on the fly). At some point, we should stop blaming inanimate objects or even the parents of kids, since many kids WILL find ways to do things they’re not supposed to do.
Our society is always attempting to find solutions to problems that could be better solved by doing things that most folks think is the difficult way. When you see someone that’s having mental difficulty, speak with them and alert folks that can help. We also need to provide better mental health services. We always pretend that there’s an issue but never put the money aside that could assist in making mental health services better. It seems folks always want to avoid or ignore that aspect of things, but gravitate toward the seemingly easier and seemingly quicker solution to things: banning or restricting gun usage or creating “smart” weapons.
If we applied the same efforts and fortitude that we’ve been throwing at gun control to things such as finding cures for mental health issues, cancers, or dementias (examples of illnesses that tend to be ravaging us), I truly think we’d have found a cure or at least found several illness blockers. Look at how folks with HIV are now surviving for decades (and there’s recently been someone that received a stem cell treatment that apparently cured their HIV).
Until our society as a whole grows the backbone to face the issue of mental health and it’s related issues that currently affect this country, this problem will NOT go away. Don’t expect me to give up a right or buy a smart gun to “remedy” mental health issues when no one has tried to bolster our mental health system. There are enough laws and so-called solutions (in fact, there are too many). Biden and his cadaver supporters like Pelosi keep chanting that the 2A isn’t absolute. No shit…there’s been no other amendment that has so many conditions or qualifiers. This country would’ve burned to the ground if we’d ever done such things to any of the other rights within the Bill of Rights.