Saturday, March 29, 2014

Letter: Prospective Gun Safety Thwarted by NRA

Letter to the editor of the Topeka Capitol-Journal

Equipping autos with technology that makes them safer to use has greatly reduced the number of Americans killed in automobile accidents. Yet, if gun owners want to take similar precautions with their firearms, they might find themselves thwarted by some gun rights advocates.
Such was the case recently when Oak Tree Gun Club in Santa Clarita, Calif., dropped its plans to sell a .22 caliber pistol with smart gun technology because of the opposition of gun rights advocates. A “smart gun” is one that cannot be fired by anyone other than the gun owner. (One criticism is that the technology is unreliable “because anything mechanical can fail.”)
It’s regrettable enough that, although 74 percent of the National Rifle Association’s members support requiring universal background checks prior to purchasing firearms (John Hopkins poll, January 2013), the NRA leadership opposes background checks and lobbies against such safeguards.
But if gun owners want to protect young family members from accidents in the home by electing to avail themselves of such technology, they should have the right to do so. I hope gun retailers in Topeka won’t be intimidated by those whose politics and policies are out of step with the majority of Americans.

18 comments:

  1. As we said when this story first broke, laws that your side passed in some places and were trying to pass elsewhere were what caused the opposition to the sale of that gun. The technology is not ready for prime time, but these laws could have still forced its use.

    Without those laws, the gun would have been a novelty that nobody opposed, and might have contributed to further development of the technology.

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  2. This is something that drives me to distraction about gun control freaks. You refuse to educate yourself about the subject, so you believe in all these fantasy devices that don't exist in the real world or that don't live up to your demands. And then you try to force us to use your unicorn horns and fairy dust.

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  3. The gun industry has equipped their products with safety devices. Remember that video I sent you on transfer bars? And accidental gun deaths have gone down- way down over the years.

    "Smart gun" technology in automobiles would be more like government mandating breathalyzer interlocks on all cars- and that would be met with opposition.

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    1. One edit, TS--the smart gun technology still has a high error rate--it would be like mandating poorly designed brethalyzers that sometimes locked the engine if you had been eating Indian food.

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    2. Very true. I don't know what the failure rate on breathalyzers is, but if they are constantly making people late for work because they just used mouthwash, people are going to have a huge problem with government mandating "auto safety".

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    3. I don't know about the failure rate for the ones used in vehicle interlocks, but I do know that many continuing education seminars I've been to have talked about how to get them thrown out of court because the ones the cops use are finicky, and if the police don't follow the instructions EXACTLY they can get unreliably high or low results.

      This next bit comes from wikipedia, so take it with that grain of salt, but when it talks about the detector in interlocks, it says that the "technology is not as accurate or reliable as infrared spectroscopy technology used in evidentiary breathalyzers, they are cheaper and tend to be more specific for alcohol."

      So, it looks like the automated system has been designed to avoid the mouthwash issue and be a bit less sensitive for the sake of reliability. Of course, whether this reliability is at the level that the general public would accept having to use it is another question.

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    4. How do you know that "smart gun technology still has a high error rate?" Does cell phone technology still have a high error rate? How about hybrid cars?

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    5. How do you know that "smart gun technology still has a high error rate?

      Oh--I don't know. Perhaps the fact that one can expect it to fail once in the course of firing every 10-shot magazine?

      Enter Armatix, which has developed a firearm that can determine, with 90 percent accuracy, whether a gun was being held by a person wearing a watch meant to pair with the firearm.

      By the way--this is interesting. A spokesman for the Fraternal Order of Police--one of the biggest police unions--
      expressed opposition to "smart gun" mandates, even with an "Only Ones" exemption. The reasoning is a bit . . . surprising (emphasis added):

      “In a combat situation, a shooting situation, there’s real confusion and chaos. It’s not like TV,” Pasco said. “Often times they’re very close quarters. We want a police officer to be able to take any gun, his partner’s gun, a criminal’s gun, any gun, and use that gun to his advantage. If he is in a scuffle, and he gets a criminal’s weapon and it’s useless to him, we’ve got a safety problem.”

      In other words, "smart guns" endanger police, because the cop needs to be able to take a criminal's gun away and shoot him with it.

      Not an argument I would use against "smart guns" (and there are so many much better ones), but if the "Only Ones" are arguing against a mandated reduction in capability for private citizens' guns, I guess I can't complain.

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    6. Kurt, thanks for the link. There's your failure rate, Mike. And that impressively reduced 10% is better than the previous models. However, it's only available on a .22 which has nice light recoil.

      Also, before you start claiming that 10% is just fine, we're talking about a system that fails safe--that is, if it screws up the read, it won't fire. This isn't horrible on a novelty gun intended for plinking, but the laws, as we discussed before, would make this the only gun available, and a 10% failure rate is not acceptable in a tool intended for self defense--not any more than a 10% failure rate would be acceptable if interlock systems were placed on everyone's cars,

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    7. Yes, Mike, cell phones have a high error rate. I'd like to know what carrier you use that you never experience dropped calls.

      I have a biometric safe that works about 10% of the time. I bet I could bring it up a bit by programming in multiple instances of my fingerprint, but it's so pathetically low that I gave up on it.

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  4. All he wanted to do was sell the gun, it was not MANDATED, nor would anyone be forced to buy it. The best way to find out if new technology works, is to let the public use it in everyday life and usage.

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    1. Exactly, anonymous! The thing is, there is a law in Jersey and was one being proposed in Cali which would have MANDATED the tech once it was brought to market. That bit of Government Meddling was what warped the marketplace and made it in people's interest to oppose the gun.

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    2. Incorrect. It is mandated in the state of New Jersey, and the law says once one hits the market, all other handgun sales are banned. And it's only available in .22LR no less.

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    3. ??????
      This is in Calif. and the club said it was pressure from the pro gun side.

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    4. Again, Anon, California was considering passing the same law.

      Also, the gun being on the market in Cali could have caused the Jersey law to come into effect. Some folks try to look out for each other even if something won't affect them.

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    5. "Some folks try to look out for each other even if something won't affect them."
      I wish your pro gun side would take that in to consideration when trying to do something about gun abuses.

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    6. You want to propose something that punishes criminals more harshly when they use weapons in the commission of their crimes and that doesn't harm my rights? Go for it. I'm with you.

      Want to propose something that lumps me in with them and limits my rights because of their criminality or irresponsibility? No Thanks.

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    7. One example, and there are many:
      I support background checks, even if that means a waiting period.
      That does not infringe our second amendment right to buy, own, or use guns.

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