And it catches other weapons, too, like knives and pipe bombs!
[PET PEEVE]
That’s not executing people. An execution requires due process of law. Said random psychos are murdering people, not executing them.
[/PET PEEVE]
Not to mention cast iron skillets.
No, the point is that reducing the number of guns by force of law almost by definition only affects those who deign to follow laws. Those who don’t will still have their guns and do as they please.
I don’t think anyone was saying that one gun would have to do all the crimes. The point is that criminals pretty much do what it takes to get what they want, and if legal guns are somehow banned (I have no idea how in a practical sense in America), then the fact that their guns cost an extra 100 dollars a piece won’t slow many of them down. They’ll just buy one less sharp looking jacket or wait longer to get their car subwoofers. The gun, that they need now.
Just to show that I’m aware of the overall situation, just today I was telling a student how my buddy’s uncle waited at home for buddy’s aunt, convinced she was running around on him. He had his rifle with him, and he’s doing time now for 1st degree murder. I admit that he might not have killed her if he’d had to wait with a bat, but the fact remains that banning the gun would not have solved the situation.
The costs involved to do so little about the situation are just mind boggling. We here in our non-criminal-inspired minds have already thought up ways to get around the system, and statistically how little a problem it is, and how little this would do to solve it. The shooters at Colombine would not have been stopped by anything like this scheme. They would have read online how to flash or destroy the RFID chips in their guns, and they would have taken the very little trouble to climb a fence in a deserted part of the school yard. Haven’t we all seen the effectiveness of fences in keeping out determined people? Teenagers with murderous intent would climb a 20 foot fence and consider it a minor inconvenience.
Statistically, you have less to fear from a legally owned gun than a legally owned car, and I wouldn’t be shocked personally if more people weren’t killed in America by hospital mistakes than legally owned and fully registered guns. There’s a place to put in time, effort and money, because at least the people doing the killing are trying to work with you, not dodge every obstacle.
Actually, I just found cites for my guess. Collating the numbers from these three pages: http://www.allaboutmassagers.com/app/content/top_ten_causes_death
http://www.nsc.org/library/report_injury_usa.htm
Entheology.org - Preserving Ancient Knowledge
I get 44,800 deaths from auto accidents, 225,000 from doctor error/drug reaction/hospital-sourced infection, and ~18,300 murders of any type, per year in America.
I remember that in 1997, there was torrential rain in Los Angeles, and wouldn’t you know it, a couple people managed to get themselves into the “rivers” that you’ve seen in the movies (giant concrete canals, at this point swollen more than I’ve ever seen them, threatening to overflow), and I think one of them was not saved from the ocean. There were calls to put in nets, etc, but the fire departments made the point that this hadn’t happened in recent memory at all, and the costs being asked for were ridiculous per life saved. That money could actually do some real work somewhere else.
I’ve seen the routine, and it is funny, but the reality is that it’s not that hard to make gunpowder- or a bow & arrow.
I’m surprised no-one has developed the heat-detecting safety catches like they had in Westworld, whereby a gun would not fire if the sensor under the barrel detected bodyheat.
Of course, such a device could be easily bypassed or deactivated, but even so, it is a pretty nifty idea nonetheless, IMO.
I don’t understand. It wouldn’t fire at living things or it wouldn’t fire at living things at point blank range? Both are fundamental features of a handgun that I would rather not give up, thank you very much. I don’t need another paperweight.
Not to mention easily defeated with an ice cube or a cold beverage.
I’m just saying- I’m surprised no-one has come up with one anyway. I realise it’s not practical, but considering some of the crap people with too much spare time invent, it just struck me as odd that no-one had invented one anyway, even just for show.
BTW, there are plenty of places in the world- Australia & NZ, for example- where ownership of a handgun for self-defence is illegal.
Pistols do have other uses besides personal protection, you know…
But I don’t understand the idea, I’m not mocking it, I genuinely do not understand. Do you want to prevent it from being fired at point blank range - i.e. suicide prevention. Or do you want to prevent it from beign fired at a living being? i.e. any type of non-target shooting prevention?
The latter- basically, rendering a pistol (theoretically) capable of only being fired at non-living targets.
As has been pointed out, I realise such a device would be ridiculously easy to bypass, but it still surprises me no-one’s made one anyway. I mean, they still region encode DVDs, even though pretty much every DVD player on the market can play multi-region DVDs anyway.
Yes, but the people who region encode DVDs, at least in theory, benefit from region coding. If you can make a gun like that, imagine the liability issues with it - what if the mechanism malfunctions, what if people feel overconfident and forget about ricochet? This isn’t like adding seatbelts to cars here, you’re restricting the primary function (and pretty much the only one I care about when it comes to civilian firearm ownership) of the weapon. Why would you make it? Who would buy it when they can buy a quality gun that actually lets you shoot yourself in the foot if you so desire for cheaper?
We’re coming at this from different angles- you, in the US, where Handgun ownership is more or less an absolute right, and me in Australia where an Act of Parliament could render my chosen sport and hobby illegal with the stroke of a pen.
On the other hand, having such a device in existence might mean that the anti-gun lobby back off a bit. “See? Look? I can’t shoot people with my new gun, it won’t fire at heat!”
That was the theory under which the (American) National Rifle Association actively participated in drafting the Gun Control Act of 1968. Three decades later we had significantly more stringent (and vastly less effective) gun control laws on the books.
Stranger
And anyone that supports this kind of ‘safety’ can be the first in line to check it out to see if it really works.
Martin You can’t be serious. Was that a whooosss.
I’m not seriously advocating it, I’m just surprised some backyard tinkerer hasn’t tried to build one anyway, just to see if it could be done.
And for the record, the guy who invented Kevlar vests as we know them today was indeed prepared to be first in line to test them…
gun_crime = k(criminals*guns)
Thus, as guns decrease, gun_crime decreases.
Consider instead…
gun_crime = k1(criminalsguns) - k2(victimsguns)
The values of the proportionality constants change relative to guns based on the criminal’s perception of the victim’s ability to defend itself. Generally speaking the relationship between k1 and guns is direct, and between guns and k2 is inverse.
Just not in the rain…
Fine Martin. Sorry, I came off kind of snarky.
There are tools that provide a pretty accurate temp measurement by pointing at something, but I suspect that factors like clothing, shade, sunlight would really screw it up.
That’s quite alright! Nuance doesn’t always travel well in text form.
And for the record, it’s Martini, with an I. 
Aside from your mathematical logic, has anyone tried this out? Or is this just more babble from the scaredy cats and cowards who feel that they have to have guns to protect themselves from the bad guys? Ooh, if the bad guys know we don’t have guns, they’ll commit more crimes. If that were so, why don’t gun-toting guys just run havoc over people in communities where it’s less likely that people with have guns? They don’t.
Hi, CC.
I don’t own a gun. Unfortunately, you will have to actually make a coeherent argument and not snicker about how I use boomsticks to compensate for my tiny micropenis and lack of sexual prowess.
I’m dismissing out of hand your apparent claim that criminals do not do cost/benefit analysis in choosing victims. If you’d like to explore gun_crimes as f(guns) using the model provided for different behaviours of k1,k2 as f(guns) and/or f(gun_crimes) go for it. Or present you own thoughts on how gun_crimes = k*guns is woefully simplistic.
Or tell the whole story: “See? Look! I can’t use this gun to protect my kids from that bear, or my livestock from that coyote. I can’t use it to defend my property from an armed burglar. Heck, I can’t even use it to shoot the dark spot in the middle of a target on a hot, bright, sunny day!”