The really fascinating element of this subject isn’t that there are brain-donors running around who’ll threaten violence to try to get what they want … we know there are too many of them out there. The interesting part of this event is that, rather than allow a new state-of-the-art weapon design to be offered to consumers, and to be tested under real life conditions, and be allowed to compete with traditional firearms in the marketplace, certain lawmakers decider to attempt to sneak around the 2nd Amendment by replacing “arms” with “just one kind of arm that has our approval … for now”. It’s such a blatant and shameless assault on the Constitution, it’s amazing these politicians have the nerve to attempt it. That’s frightening in a way. Next, they’ll be limiting freedom of assembly.
OOps, they just did. Maybe they think we’ll all be safer if we don’t gather in large groups. You know who else gathered in large groups in private homes.
It would be useful keeping kids from playing with Mommy’s/Daddy’s gun and accidentally shooting themselves or someone else. Since this is a neglible stat anyway, the benefit (ETA: while real) is minimal.
It would be useful for eliminating firearms obtained by theft from homes, cars, etc., provided the lawful owner keeps the secret decoder ring/bracelet stored seperately.
It may help prevent accidental discharges/injuries, especially for gun handling during routine maintenance/cleaning when the owner “knows” :rolleyes: that the gun isn’t loaded. But only if said owner isn’t wearing the ring/bracelt/watch/etc.
It won’t stop straw purchases. It won’t stop criminals who obtain guns through straw purchases; the “key” (whatever shape it comes in) will either be sold with the gun, or bought as a separate purchase, and then illegally transferred whole to the street criminal.
It won’t stop suicides; the owner simply puts the ring/bracelet on, and then shoots themselves with their smart gun.
It won’t stop clever people from hacking the lock. They can unlock phones and bypass the chip protected cars’ security system. It won’t be but a few days before they solve the gun lock.
Tell the parents that their child who was killed this way was neglible.
Seems like the logical way to store it. Or we could say “Waaaaaah! People could steal the guns AND the ring and we’re no better off!”
Seems like most people would remove the ring while doing maintenance. Or we could say “Waaaaaaaah! If people don’t follow a common sense step the gun does no good!”
But you do have the criminals now tasked with keeping straight which keys go with which guns. Or we could say “Waaaaaaah! Crime will still happen!”
In other words, “Waaaaaaaaah! It doesn’t stop suicide! It isn’t perfect in every way, so we can’t possibly make use of it!”
This is what happens to the “no, no, no!” crowd. They claim they are all for common sense gun laws but in reality they flatly oppose all gun regulation. Every fetus should be issued a machine gun at birth. Earlier if they could manage it. So what happens? The world moves on. Society moves on and passes what seem to be common sense laws. Then the gun rights types cry about it. Well, they have a seat at the table. It’s a big seat too, but they stick with “no, no, no!”
So we move on. Constitution doesn’t say what type of guns are allowed. Most of these constitutionalists don’t carry muskets. Gun technology changes and gets safer so if you want a gun, keep up.
The fact they’re expensive is because they’re new and contain lots of tech progress. Wah. Constitution doesn’t say the free market can’t jack its prices up. Welcome to freedom.
Must we legislatively mandate changing an entire industry for negligible benefit? Especially since the technology is not only immature, but easily bypassed in most cases?
This isn’t analogous to auto safety features like seat belts and air bags, safety glass and crumple zones, which have a scientifically proven (through crash testing and analysis of anatomically correct test dummies) positive net benefit for people.
Smart Gun technology, while somewhat beneficial for the reasons I mentioned above, is still tenuous, and relies upon cause-and-effect assumptions which IMO are in most cases wrong, and at best, unproven.
I have nothing personal against smart guns or the technology behind them. If it weren’t for NJ’s law, I’d say let people vote with their wallets. Even if I think it’s mostly useless for the reasons I mentioned above.
But…as stated before, there are currently very few providers of smart guns, while there are literally dozens, if not hundreds, of manufacturers of regular guns. If the U.S. (folllowing NJ’s example) mandated “smart guns only” via legislation, then that gives anti-gun lawmakers intent on obtaining total bans on firearms a much smaller target to control, intimidate, legislate, litigate, etc.
So yes, we should dismiss/boycott smart guns while enforced legislation of sole source/“smart gun only” is on the table. The negligible benefit is not worth the risk to our rights.
Constitution doesn’t say what type of guns are allowed … Welcome to freedom.[/QUOTE]
Well, I’d say the Constitution implies that the People may bear arms appropriate for the establishment of a “well regulated militia.” From what I’ve read, the new smart-gun doesn’t fulfill the roll of a militia weapon. It’s clearly not reasonable to replace the currently available weapons with experimental specialty guns that fill a small niche. This is simply a Constitutional issue, and it has nothing to do with hunting, or muskets, or anything except that Amendment 2 prohibits the State from infringing on the Right of the People to bear arms. Redefining arms doesn’t redefine the Constitution.
But it is just New Jersey for now, which means that if things go bad there because of this law the NRA and other pro-gun lobbyists will have actual data on hand to fight against it becoming a national standard.
More stupidity. No one is saying it “smart guns” may not be useful. But it is an egregious violation of the Second Amendment to mandate that ONLY “smart guns” may be sold.
It’s like infringing on people’s right to buy and operate dangerous polluting cars. It sucks we can’t buy $500 dangerous cars, but thems the breaks. The fact this is religiously embedded into the constitution is an anachronism that needs updating.
Why can’t militias use smart guns? It’s designed for police and military use. How is a militia different? The tech doesn’t work perfectly? Too bad, not all new technology is perfect. I’d recommend lobbying harder to make the tech better, not try to drag us back 240 years. That’s not going to work.
In a “grand strategy/this is chess not checkers” sense, and in light of recent favorable pro-rights ruling from even the 9th Circuit, it may indeed be ultimately beneficial to allow this POS legislation to play its course. But that’s “rolling dice,” not playing chess.
And, I am not in the habit of tossing other people’s rights under the bus for expediency’s sake.
And, I categorically reject (as being unworthy even of discussion/debate) the argument that, “if it saves even one life!” By that reasoning, we can ban/control anything and everything that represents even the slightest danger to anyone’s health or life.
The anti-gun crowd’s persistence on demonizing guns/villifying gun owners over gun deaths, while ignoring our government’s near total lack of enforcement of federal firearms laws, while ignoring gun deaths demographics/statistics, while ignoring the deaths that are orders of magnitude higher from other common sources, while conveniently overlooking, dismissing, or outright ignoring any conceivable positive benfit of guns/gun ownership, is stupefying.
And telling, of both their mindset, and ultimate agenda.
Cars have nothing to do with the 2nd Amendment. The Constitution isn’t a religious document. The obvious solution, if a sub-class of Americans fear firearms, is to repeal the 2nd Amendment. If you can successfully do that, problem solved. I don’t have a problem with a push to amend the Constitution, or repeal existing amendments.
If you’re an expert on the operation and abilities of the currently available smart guns, please provide a cite that the specific model gun potentially offered for sale at the store in question is currently in use in a militia, or slated to to be adopted for such use in it’s present form. I don’t bear arms, and I am not a firearms expert. My research suggests to me that the smart gun is a limited technology that isn’t originally intended by it’s designers to replace all other extant weapons.
If the lawmakers wanted the smart gun to eclipse other weapons in the marketplace, they would allow it to be introduced as a new product without a legal booby-trap in place to outlaw other gun sales.