I can see well enough to see the person in the doorway 8 feet from my pillow. Although I will admit that the argument ‘it might be your husband/roomie’ sounds compelling, I know both of their movement sounds, and they both tend to do specific things when they come into the house, and I doubt the illegal entrant would announce themselves with a hearty Hey Honey or Hey Rue. I do have a switch by the bed that turns on the living room lights [the bedroom light is a touch lamp by the bed] I will also admit the last use [other than target shooting] of my gun was to shoot a dog harassing my sheep. I used what people would consider an assault weapon. :rolleyes:
Nope. Though I would prefer if the tweak fails it not brick the weapon and just let anybody shoot it.
Most contact wearers I know also have glasses, and the few that don’t use extended wear lenses they don’t take out.
Bricker - try a Titan Gun Vault. Quick access, no batteries, all mechanical. I opted for this because the failure rate of a biometric is not acceptable.
Nonsense. A 1% failure rate alone cannot possibly tell us whether this feature is acceptable.
The proper calculus is: (Odds your or a family member will be killed in an accidental shooting) * (Odds biometric safeties will prevent an accidental shooting death) - (Odds you will need to discharge a firearm to save a life in your family) * (Odds your weapon will fail when you need to discharge it)
If the result of this calculation is positive, then a gun with this feature is “more effective”–that is, on average you will die less often owning it than owning a regular weapon–regardless of whether it fails .1%, 1%, 0r 10% of the time. I found 851 accidental gun deaths in the US in 2011 (though my cite is, admittedly, not unbiased). If electronic safeties can prevent even half of those deaths, then you’d need 40,000 justified defensive shootings per year to claim that such safeties are “unacceptable.”
If I were killed because my gun didn’t work due to faulty safe gun technology, it would at least be comforting to know that I was a statistical anomaly.
I don’t disagree that it may be possible at some point – but not for the reasons you speculate. The engineering problems for a firearm differ in no small measure from the engineering problems associated with a gun safe. The physical footprint of the gun safe allows for a great deal of room, compared to that of a firearm.
So – no. Merely because it’s possible to do with a gun safe does not compel the conclusion it will be possible to do with a gun.
But I agree with the larger point: as technology continues to advance, it will become possible, simply because I expect technology to advance in ways that make all sorts of amazing things possible.
Is 99.9% good enough? 99.99%? 99.999%? (presumably, because you haven’t given up on guns completely, yet you’ve had at least one failure in 100,000.)
In any case, if you don’t want one, don’t buy it. The arguments you presented don’t apply to (a) research or (b) availability of this technology. So, it must be based on the idea that if it becomes possible, it will become mandated.
Since that’s the only argument that makes sense, it would be best to just come out with it rather than dancing around irrelevancies.
Wow, there’s some very well thought out responses here. I think Senor Beef answered my question the best, even addressing some underlying assumptions I’d made, with this line:
Reyemile also had a good point about the risk comparison, though there are a few subtle (i.e. muddying) factors missing.
And I now understand the backlash against S&W for their cooperation with the Clinton proposal. There’re quite a few ridiculous requirements in there that wouldn’t be conceivable for any other industry, like:
For some of the haters posting here (both for and against guns), try to open your mind a bit and understand why the other folks feel that way. You can still disagree or disapprove, but understanding your counterparts viewpoint makes persuasion and compromise a LOT easier.
:rolleyes: Ah, the Responsible Gun Owner we hear so much about in action, shooting half-blind.
“Sorry honey, I thought you were someone else.”
You do realize your sarcastic comment applies just as much to the accidental killing part of the equation?
This is typical; gun owners as a group simply don’t care about the danger they put their family in by having a gun. They hyperventilate about the miniscule chance that a safety system will fail at the same moment they are in the highly unlikely situation where they are using it to defend themselves. But if somebody gets killed just because the gun is there? Too bad kid, family is expendable; guns are important.
Bad comparisons. We use brakes frequently, and require that they work. Not having breakes at all is ridiculous. Safety belts are a better analogy: what failure rate would we accept on an “improvement” in safety belts that somehow saves lives in non-accident cases?
Again, meaningless analogy.
When we cite bad analogies, we reveal weaknesses in our logic.
Good point.
Yikes. OK, now I understand the objections.
Finally, someone who can do the math! (It should be divide, not subtract, but since it’s a yes/no decision, subtracting yields the same answer.)
The problem with this argument is that it would be useless against a Libertarian, who doesn’t accept government control to reduce overall deaths, where personal responsibility would avoid personal deaths (at least, hopefully … not so much for the gun advocate lady cited above who got shot by her husband!)
To convince the Libertarian, you’d have to recast that in personal terms: how likely HIS children might be killed, etc. Even then they’d say “Well, that applies to the average guy, which I’m not.”
Yes, i’m arguing on both sides of the fence here. That’s because I’m not arguing for what I want, but trying to clear the air so we can arrive at a rational answer.
I’m neither pro-gun nor anti-gun. I grew up hunting; took years of NRA classes at the Y, and got an NRA Distinguised Expert in riflery. I don’t currently own a gun, but wouldn’t turn down an offer to visit the range or go on a hunt. I question whether laws to restrict guns in the US would help avoid the use of guns in volient crimes, but I think it behooves us to carefully examine all reasonable options.
Man, prices have gone up. I paid $180 for mine. I see from the same vendor it is now $300. Look at safehomeconsulting.com.
As to the topic at hand, I have no issue with smart guns, if people want to use them. I would oppose any effort to mandate them. I believe my state has a law on the books already mandating them should the technology come to pass. Stupid CA.
Mine is the Gun Vault 1000. It’s price hasn’t changed in the years since I bought it. They are about $125-150 depending on where you look. It’s been reliable and I recommend it. But it is battery powered.
I meant that the Titan I got was 180, at the vendor I mentioned. If you’re interested in buying it that is. I have an aversion to electronic lock systems for guns, especially since there are alternatives.
Really, this is well known and keeps getting brought up in these threads. The pro-gun side clearly simply doesn’t care that they are endangering people. They care much more about their guns than they care about any human being, including their family.