Using Technology To Make Guns Safer 1013
Hugh Pickens writes writes "Farhad Manjoo writes that there are a number of technologies that gunmakers could add to their products that might prevent hundreds or thousands of deaths per year. One area of active research is known as the 'smart gun' — a trigger-identification system that prevents a gun from being fired by anyone other than its authorized user. Researchers at New Jersey Institute of Technology created a working prototype of a gun that determines whether or not to fire based on a user's 'grip pattern.' Gunmakers have been slow to add other safety technologies as well, including indicators that show whether a gun is loaded, and 'magazine safeties' that prevent weapons from being fired when their ammunition magazine is removed (PDF). That could save 400 lives a year. So why aren't gunmakers making safer guns? Because guns are exempt from most of the consumer safety laws that have improved the rest of American life. The Consumer Product Safety Commission, charged with looking over thousands of different kinds of products, is explicitly prohibited from regulating firearms. In 2005, Congress passed and President George W. Bush signed the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which immunizes gun makers against lawsuits resulting from 'misuse' of the products. If they can't be sued and can't be regulated, gunmakers have no incentive to make smarter guns." Note that gun safety features (not universally loved) like loaded-chamber indicators, grip safeties, and magazine disconnects are constantly evolving and have been available in some form and in various combinations for many decades, so gun makers seem to have some incentive to produce and improve them, and that the PLCAA does not prevent consumer safety lawsuits, but does shield gun makers from suits based on criminal conduct by gun buyers (though imperfectly).
Reliability, reliability, reliability. Left hand? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Missing the point. (Score:5, Informative)
I know NOTHING about guns, being a Brit
Congratulations, you know more about guns than most of the anti-gun crowd, as well as a disappointing number of gun owners. What you go on to describe is basically the first 3 pages of the NRA basic pistol safety manual - always treat a gun like it's loaded, always point it in a safe direction, and always keep it unloaded until you're actually using it. You're absolutely right - "accidental" shootings are virtually always negligent.
Re:The most important rule of gun safety (Score:2, Informative)
If you're a pedant, sure. However, you can verify it's not loaded if you have disassembled it, ass.
Re:Lousy ideas (Score:4, Informative)
Secondly, if you want a larger spread, you don't get a larger barrel--it's 12gauge (or 40, or whatever) all the way down. You can get barrels with different chokes, which constrict the opening at the end of the barrel to various degrees.
Re:Missing the point. (Score:3, Informative)
"you don't point a gun at people EVER"
Fixed that for you. Always assume a gun is loaded - even if you have absolute, undeniable proof that it isn't. It's the kind of crap they teach before kindergarten in rural areas.
Guns are not unsafe... (Score:4, Informative)
There are more, but those are the most basic and most important. Guns aren't responsible for violence anymore than cakes are responsible for fat people.
Re:Missing the point. (Score:4, Informative)
Norway, at least.
A provision for servicemen keeping weapons at home is that they store the bolt away from the weapon itself. Similar for handguns with removable firing pins.
Re:Missing the point. (Score:5, Informative)
NRA basic pistol, rifle, every single hunter's education course in the nation (and many other nations) as well as thousands of safety websites, videos, and general use books. Jeff Cooper put it this way, and this is the way it's taught in safety courses world wide.
RULE I: ALL GUNS ARE ALWAYS LOADED
RULE II: NEVER LET THE MUZZLE COVER ANYTHING YOU ARE NOT WILLING TO DESTROY
Rule III: KEEP YOUR FINGER OFF THE TRIGGER UNTIL YOUR SIGHTS ARE ON THE TARGET
And yes, the shouting is on purpose.
Re:Missing the point. (Score:4, Informative)
They will often say that someone accidentally discharged a weapon while cleaning it in order to keep the family thinking that their loved one is damned to hell for all eternity, or that they were responsible for the mental anguish that caused his suicidal thoughts.
Re:Reliability, reliability, reliability. Left han (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Missing the point. (Score:5, Informative)
I can tell you that you don't point a loaded gun at people EVER,
Whether the gun is loaded or not doesn't matter at all. Just pointing a gun - loaded or not - at someone is considered "assault with a deadly weapon". It's a felony that can put the gun wielder in jail for a year or two (or more, depending on the circumstances), if convicted.
Supporting anecdote: An old friend of mine caught his wife cheating with someone at his house, freaked out, went to get his gun, and pulled a gun on him - ordering him to get out of their house. He left (quickly), and the police showed up in short order. The net result: the friend did 2 years in jail - and the cheating wife and lover walked away.
Moral(s) of the story:
Re:Missing the point. (Score:5, Informative)
The 2nd amendment was only for the purposes of the formation of a militia.
Actually, it's purpose, like the rest of the "Bill of Rights," was to get the Constitution ratified. The public wanted assurances that a new, stronger federal government wouldn't be able to reinstate the abuses of the British (who would do things like quarter troops in private residences and confiscate guns). There is also the implied, though not explicitly stated, implication that citizens would maintain the means to revolt again, should the government abuse its new power. Of course, that didn't help out the Whiskey Rebellion revolutionaries, but what do you expect from Pennsylvanians?
Re:Missing the point. (Score:4, Informative)
RULE 1 is not violated when you clean a firearm. If you understand it means operational firearms. Aways disassemble before cleaning. Rule 2 is the same. Until the weapon is in pieces that pose no more danger than bits of metal, do not point the end that goes bang at anything you don't want destroyed.
Besides, shot "cleaning a gun" often means no one wanted to admit to it being suicide.
Re:Missing the point. (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/policy-report/2004/3/cpr-26n2-1.pdf [cato.org]
A lot of people play games with statistics. Statistics in the US are pretty much meaningless, when it comes to an armed population. Anyone who manipulates numbers seems to have an agenda, so they manage to make the numbers say whatever their agenda demands.
The fact is, most of our most dangerous cities are the very cities with the strictest gun control laws.
Go ahead, read the report. Tell me how safe it is to live in a country with very strict gun control laws.
Re:Missing the point. (Score:4, Informative)
The Bill of Rights of 1689 said otherwise. To quote Wiki, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_of_Rights_1689 [wikipedia.org]
It reestablished the liberty of Protestants to have arms for their defence within the rule of law, and condemned James II of England for "causing several good subjects being Protestants to be disarmed at the same time when papists were both armed and employed contrary to law".
Re:We can make complex AND reliable things (Score:5, Informative)
"The more complicated the plumbing, the easier it is to clog the drain." -- Scotty, Star Trek III
There used to be an engineering strategy called the "KISS principle". KISS was an acronym for "keep it simple, stupid." Today's nerds, especially those who work for Microsoft and at most web sites, have thrown this concept out the window.
But look at an iPhone or an Android -- their designers did what they could to make the sevice as simple as possible for the user. No good coder will write a thousand lines of code when fifty will do the same job.
Maybe it really is up for debate, but it seems to me that cars have became vastly more complex over the decades, but reliability is on the rise, and cost of maintenance has gone down
Yes, they're more complex and more reliable, but unlike firearms, automobiles were always complex. Firearms are simple machines requiring little maintenance... and BTW, cars are a hell of a lot more expensive to maintain these days. There was no such thing as a "brain box" or a "climate control module" in a 1970 Ford, and if one of these goes out it will cost you hundreds of dollars to replace. If your water pump went out you could fix it yourself in twenty minutes with a $20 part. Today? Good luck even finding the water pump, you're going to have to hire a mechanic. Gun owners don't want to take their gun to a gunsmith every damned hunting season.
My point is, we can in fact make complex AND reliable things when we want to, and when we spend the time and resources required. Why are guns exempt from this?
Just because you can do a thing doesn't mean you should. This topic is kind of a straw man anyway; none of these measures would have stopped the bloodshed last week; these measures mostly make the liklihood of it going off prematurely and killing the owner. And if a hunter's gun doesn't fire when that nine point buck is in his sights, you're going to have one pissed off hunter who will never buy that brand of gun again.
Re:Missing the point. (Score:5, Informative)
I believe that disarming the general population causes criminals to feel safer while committing crimes. Did you read the PDF?
Re:Missing the point. (Score:5, Informative)
The term "assault weapon" is a nebulous term based upon the presence of features that do not affect actual firearm function. Most "assault weapons" are in fact civilian sporting rifles featuring a pistol grip and at least one other defining feature that are most commonly seen at target ranges and occasionally in the hands of hunters.
The term is applied for the specific purpose of confusing those unfamiliar with firearms into believing that common civilian sporting firearms are actually military weapons.
Re:Computers in Guns? (Score:2, Informative)
Why and when do you have to dry fire to clean? Why does the gun have to be assembled to do that? If not why are you not depressing the catch with another tool?
Why can you not purchase inert ammunition for dry fire exercises?
Dry fire activities should be taking place only at the range or other place safe to fire said weapon and pointed at a target. Please tell me you are doing that. ALL GUNS ARE ALWAYS LOADED, RULE #1.
HS Football: (Score:4, Informative)
While a lower rate (football alone) isn't American Football responsible for approximately 25 deaths or catastrophic injuries per year?
(4+ direct deaths such as severed spines, 9+ indirect deaths like heart attacks, and an average of 13 injuries such as total paralysis)
I'm not saying this as a plea to ban football in HS. (However, I think we do put our HS players in too much danger), but to illustrate that I believe people are wildly overreacting to the actual threat. Mass shootings average 100 deaths per year. That is an astonishingly small number when you factor in the population size, and when you also consider the risk due to things that are completely avoidable like HS football.
The hysteria just bugs the hell out of me.
Re:Missing the point. (Score:4, Informative)
Marlin .22 LR semiautomatic rifle [cabelas.com] + 10 round magazine = Assault Weapon under the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban.
Ruger .22 LR semiautomatic rifle [cabelas.com] + 10 round magazine = NOT an Assault Weapon under the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban.
The difference? The Marlin has a vertical magazine, rather than a rotary magazine that fits flush into the receiver. Legally, an "assault weapon" is a largely a cosmetic definition.