House Bill Would Mandate Smart Gun Tech By U.S. Manufacturers 750
Lucas123 writes "U.S. Rep. John Tierney (D-Mass) is pushing a bill that would require all U.S. handgun manufacturers to include 'personalization technology' in their weapons. Tierney said he got the idea for The Personalized Handgun Safety Act of 2013 from the latest James Bond film, Skyfall. In it Bond escapes death when his handgun, which is equipped with technology that recognizes his fingerprints, becomes inoperable when a bad guy picks it up. 'This technology, however, isn't just for the movies — it's a reality,' Tierney said. Tierney pointed to a myriad of cases where the smart gun tech could prevent children from being harmed or killed in firearms accidents. Jim Wallace, executive director of the Massachusetts Gun Owners Action League, the official state association of the NRA, said he knows of no gun owners who would want smart gun technology on their weapons. Wallace said any technology that may impede the proper function of a weapon is a problem. He pointed to the fact that any integrated processor technology would also require a battery of some kind, which could pose a system failure if it lost power."
Re:Movies are real! (Score:5, Interesting)
Judge Dredd's gun 'executes' anybody else who tries to fire it. Are they going to implement that feature, too?
Re:But I like guns! (Score:1, Interesting)
Cars kill people by accident. Guns kill people because that's what they are supposed to do.
Re:Movies are real! (Score:3, Interesting)
Years ago, I took the attitude of "vote out the people you don't like", but came to the realization that if you do that by electing the other party, you just have to vote him back out in the next election. That's why I have almost exclusively come to exclude Democrats and Republicans from my voting selections. Every so often, an individual candidate changes my mind, but only a solid track record is sufficient for me to do it.
Common Laws and Common Sense (Score:5, Interesting)
That's part of the problem with this debate, indeed with our current system. That is, not that you personally are unfamiliar with guns and do not have a use for them. You have a life of your own and come from a different culture than I do, and I do not blame or begrudge you that. The problem with the debate is the demand that you and I should be able to come up with a uniform legal system which both of us find agreeable and neither of us find oppressive. You say, " A child never has to hold a gun for any reason". I grew up in a culture where not having guns around is unthinkable, where the chief means of ensuring gun safety is teaching children to respect them, where we never touched them without permission partly because we knew what they could do and partly because we knew with supervision we would be allowed. I was considered old enough to shoot a gun for the first time while I was still young enough that my grandfather stood behind me lest the kick should knock me down.
Your experience is as alien to me as mine is to you. Put simply, lacking common experience we do not share and cannot share any notion of common sense. In practical terms, a country the size of ours is many different cultures, foreign to one another to a greater or lesser extent, all under one polity. I would have subsidiarity [wikipedia.org] be a guiding principle in this debate. Common laws ought only to be made on a level where there is a shared common sense.
Re:Movies are real! (Score:4, Interesting)
You willing to bet your liberty in a self-defense case on microcircuitry that is never checked or maintained, a lens that might be obstructed or smeared, and the assumption that if there isn't a perfect picture, you're hiding some kind of guilt?
"Mr. Johnson, how do we know you didn't put your blood all over the end of that gun before your wife used it to murder a poor, helpless transient you two had lured to your home for deviant sex? There's no picture. You must be trying to hide something."
Re:Movies are real! (Score:4, Interesting)
If you're boycotting air travel, you're missing out on the fun.
ALWAYS opt out and ask for the free massage.
Giggling and moaning while they pat you down is half the fun of air travel. Either the TSA agent "gets it" and has a laugh along with you, or it REALLY pisses them off, which can be even more fun. Bonus points for having an erection.
Re:A Better Idea (Score:4, Interesting)
I grew up in a house with many firearms that I had access to, I knew where they were and where the ammo was. I was never inclined to play with them. If I wanted to go out shooting, I'd let my dad know and we'd go out when we had time. I was given a .22 LR for Christmas when I was 6, but was told and knew that even though it is mine, I can only use it when my dad was around (my mom has shot, she's OK with guns, but she's not a gun person).
Never had a problem, I was raised right.
Hell, I was even bullied pretty hard in elementary school, and friendless since I lived in the wrong part of town to be going to that school. Getting even sure crossed my mind, but having been raised right and thinking things through I faced the endless escalation that may result, and wound up realizing that whatever happened I could kill any of these kids causing me problems. I didn't want to, obviously I never did, but there it was. A little kid realizing that they had the capability to use lethal force wantonly, and also realizing they had the responsibility to never do so except in the defense of life.
It actually turned out well, having those guns where I could get to them. I did have to grab a shotgun one time when I was about 12, because some guys my idiot-asshole cousin owed money to found out we were related and came looking for him. They didn't believe he wasn't at my house and tried to just open the door and walk in to look for him, after I told them he wasn't here, and to leave, and closed the door on them (they're 17-18, what's some preteen gonnOH SHIT SHOTGUN!).
One of the most terrifying moments of my life, honestly. Not that they might have meant me harm, or could have caused me harm -- that simply wasn't going to happen, and I was afraid of what I would need to do to make sure that wasn't going to happen.
That somehow turned into a story, not sure how.
Re:Movies are real! (Score:5, Interesting)
I know I'm tempting the flame gods here but you never explained what was a lie. Per capita are the suicide rates not very similar? Are you claiming that suicide attempts are similar and with easier access to guns they are more often successful? Because the GP seemed to be claiming that suicides (I would interpret that as successful (bad wording?) ) occur at similar rates regardless of easy access to guns. Which is in direct opposition to your claim and your statistics don't actually have anything to do with that.
Going off like a lose cannon does not help your argument.
Re:Movies are real! (Score:0, Interesting)
You've never used a gun professionally then. What these weekend rambo's don't seem to realize (but us trained soldiers do), is that serious gun "users" are capable of counting how may rounds they have left in a 30 shell cartridge. So we are perfectly capable of ensuring a charged battery is fitted. Also, there are plenty of good reasons a good would not fire with nothing to do with circuitry. However, having used a number of larger weapons which did rely on circuitry (anti-tank for instance), they were far more reliable than the SA-80 assault rifle I was issued to defend my life and that of others.
Weekend rambo's. Morons.