“All the gun safety technology in the world is no substitute for absolutely serious and careful practice. What these techy guns really prevent is fast deployment in the very moment that they are most needed. The only moment that matters.” – Tom Hartsfield in Smart Guns are Stupid Science [at realclearscience.com]
Good lord, it looks like the abortion between RoboCop’s gun and a heavy pistol from Mass Effect. DO NOT WANT
Hey, it looks better than a Glock!
+1 lol
EVERYTHING looks better than a Glock.
Now if it only WORKED like a Glock, this would be a product worth discussing. As it is, it’s perhaps useful for weighting down your trash bags and not much else.
GLOCKS – “They’re boxy, but good.”
Metamucil: It helps you go to the toilet. If you don’t use it, you’ll get cancer and die.
— Crazy People (1990)
A very funny film! I would never have imagined it would provide some useful quotes until today. Gonna see if it’s on NETFLIX.
That’s how I thought of my Volvo.
Crazy People reference. Well done.
My favorite CP quote is, “Jaguar… For men who would like handjobs from beautiful women they hardly know!”
amen
Personally, I buy guns to shoot, not look pretty. To paraphrase Mr. Fred Rogers: “Can you say ‘SAFE QUEEN’? I thought you could!”
Both are excellent reasons to buy a gun.
I have guns in both categories, and some that are in both.
I really hope that piece of crap is just a proof of concept and not something they’re thinking of trying to sell as is.
that trigger looks like a doorbell
It pains me to see what they’ve done to that Beretta
+ 1B
I they’re hell-bent on converting something that might help mankind, they could become fertilizer.
Even after you put a slide on it, I’m guessing it’d be more effective to throw that gun at someone in self defense than trying to fire it.
Don’t forget the potential of an armed attacker busting out into laughter when that weapon is deployed. Might give a nimble person time to escape, or at least to be turning away when the bat crashes into the back of their head.
Smart guns only make sense to people who are afraid of guns and have no experience with them. I would only trust my life to a simple mechanical tool that is well maintained and well tested. Lets see the secret service or another force take them up and show us how great they are. They won’t because they can’t. Smart guns are utter hogwash, meant to dupe those who would read cosmopolitan. Feelings matter in that worldview not fact.
Here’s my quote of the day
More thinking – Less feeling
I am very confident with firearms and I would like a smart gun. It’s not to prevent a negligent discharge, it’s to control who can fire it. I lock up my guns and follow proper safety rules, but I still want to control the firing mechanism.
I want a reliable smart gun that only I can control (not the police or the government) and I don’t want other people to be required to have one. If it doesn’t meet those 3 requirements I wouldn’t waste the money. Let capitalism prevail.
And in a few decades the electronics may be so reliable and robust that you can have that. But we sure aren’t there yet.
I mean Apple has spent $billions of dollars and has tens (hundreds?) of millions of user experiences to draw upon, and they’ve managed to make a phone that is mostly reliable most of the time. Which isn’t good enough for a gun.
Ugghh. This article is click bait. The concept of an electronic technology being integrated into an intentionally purely mechanical contraption which has stayed purely mechanical for 600 years for a reason is only evidence that the people concerning themselves with discussion of “smart guns” as something that should exist have gone only so far as to give another example of Dunning-Kruger at work.
Paint ball guns have electronic triggers with amazing fire rates. I think a robust technology could be designed into a firearm. There are a lot of cool things you could do with a firearm if you didn’t have to pivot a hook to release a spring.
A selenoid operated firing pin comes to mind to resolve all or most of the problems with mechanical triggers, but if I’m not mistaken the government says that is a big no-no. Not to mention you then require a battery to operate the thing and all the uncertainties that come with that.
I’m not a paintball expert by any means, but I’ve played a few games and I’ve seen a bunch of e-trigger failures. There’s a reason that serious woodsballers still use mechanical markers.
I have a biometric bedside safe I keep my bump in the night gun in. I leave it open at night so I don’t have to fumble for my pistol. Locked and stored away when I go to work. Sometimes it takes a couple tries to open if I slide my finger wrong the first time. Technology is great but simple has stood the test of time.
If they can make the Judge Dread gun then I’m in
or the gun from Continuum
Just as no amount of legislation will prevent stupid people from doing stupid things no amount of technology will either. Unless that technology comes in the form of shackles. The best benefits are in lessening the impact of stupidity as with airbags and seatbelts. Maybe states that prohibit non-LEO use of less-lethal ammunition could permit their residents to own and use such ammo if they so choose? That’d be a non-intrusive, non-totalitarian way to possibly decrease deaths due to firearm use/misuse. How about bringing firearms safety to the classroom? Education defeats ignorance after all. That would of course assume the “smart gun” proponents were genuine in their desire to reduce injuries and deaths and not just jump on any bandwagon they perceive as as attack on gun ownership/owners. Are there any sincere advocates for safety? Since MDA hates Eddie Eagle I doubt it.
If only stupid people make smart technology, then only criminals will have guns.
Gun-grab lifeclock at 2.75 seconds to midnight.
Nice article. Made some interesting observations. The sort of thing one does to justify not developing the internal combustion engine; it can’t be perfect today, so it will never be worth pursuing. Better to rely on the most error prone element of any system…the human.
I think you are conflating some issues there. If a system is designed to save lives, it is inherently poor if it causes you to die and will not be adopted. If an engine breaks down the car stops, but then you can fix it and make it better, if this breaks down, you die.
A better analogy would be a prescription drug that gets pulled off the market for killing more people than it helps. According to your logic you would still use it because perfect is the enemy of good enough.
In terms of systems, the human element is not always the most error prone… but Im glad to see you would promote a system that would try to prove that point 🙂
The Luddite philosophy of not progressing is the same, regardless of the technology. Because a technology is in its infancy, is deeply flawed, is attempting to do something unproved, then it is a waste to even think about it. If the current state-of -the-art is not nearly 100% safe and effective, the pro-gun supporters declare there should never be any attempt to push the technology toward maturity.
And because pro-gun people reject the ideas of caring and compassionate people who merely seek to protect themselves and their families from negligent death at the hands of gun owners, we are returning to the days of Dodge City and the Earp brothers. America was safe until the last 50 years, when the unregulated sale of guns to the public began to be popularized. The result has been an epidemic of death by handguns and the like not seen since the 1880s.
Don’t forget, the original Patterson revolver had no trigger guard, or any other safety feature. But that didn’t stop research and development of safety features while the “unsafe” guns were on the market.
‘America was safe until the last 50 years, when the unregulated sale of guns to the public began to be popularized.’
Here’s where you lost me. Before the Gun Control Act of 1968 there was no federal licensing for gun dealers. You could order a firearm out of a Sears catalog and have it shipped straight to your door. There was no such thing as a ‘prohibited person’. The only way that statement could possibly make any sense is if you’re referring to the black market the GCA of 1968 created, except there was exactly zero regulation before. The only restrictions before 1968 were on weapons that were deemed to have no military value and they could be had with a $200 tax stamp.
As far as your Luddite comment, you’re not completely wrong, but you fail to understand that resistance to smart gun technology is not out of fear of technology but political. And it’s not political because of gun owners, it’s political because the gun control crowd seek to use the technology to impose their agenda on gun owners. Give up your agenda and resistance to the technology will evaporate overnight.
Do I understand correctly, if smart-gun technology were divorced from any political action, Left or Right, then pursuing the technology would be acceptable, but regardless of the good such technology could do, just because the support comes from a political camp you reject, that technology should be buried, forgotten?
Yes. There are two problems with the technology. First, there’s no market for it. The only people who want it are the people who are the least likely to buy a gun. Second the left has politicized it and made it a threat to the rights of gun owners. It was the New Jersey law that killed the first ‘smart’ gun to reach the market. At this point it will take at least a generation to undo the damage the left has done. If you really want this technology to be developed, shut up and when one goes on the market run out and buy one. If I’m still around in a hundred years when the technology is perfected I might even buy one.
You vastly underestimate the acceleration of technology these days. The 3-D printer came out of nowhere, and had probably the shortest market acceptance of something so mundane…a printer. Yes there is a market, but it did not exist until the first printer arrived. That first unit was unaffordable to the general public. Now those printers are no lager that desktop printers, and sell for under $1500. A case of the public not knowing they needed something until it was in front of them…sorta like Post-It Notes.
Here’s a thought…if the pro-gun crowd really wanted to cut off the march to confiscation, they would support smart-guns as a way to stifle the gun control supporters. The claim, after all, it that safe guns would protect everyone from negligent shootings. I’m surprised you guys don’t just slam-dunk this in our faces.
Dear 2ATroll who will not be swayed by anything any of us write in response to your comments:
The point that is made over and over again on this site and others whenever the subject of “Smart Guns” comes up is that it is being mandated by government/politics, not driven by market demand or acceptance. Just like your example of 3D printers, if a manufacturer were to devise a true smart gun, find the financial support to bring it to market, and have it reliable enough to gain market acceptance, the product would sell in quantities sufficient to justify its production.
At this time the market, that is, those of us who know a little something about the product we seek and what performance standards it must provide, does not believe that the smart gun technology is adequately reliable to fulfill our needs. So the actual target market for this consumer item has said that they do not want it and they resent any attempts by politicians or any government agency attempting to force us to buy something we do not want (see all opposition to Obamacare over the last 7 years).
As stated over and over again – mandate these smart guns to local, state and federal law enforcement agencies, including each and every member of the Secret Service. If after a suitable testing period they prove to be reliable and accepted by these professionals in actual field trials then, and only then, will the POTG begin to accept them.
Here’s an idea – have POTUS write an executive order mandating that every small arm and/or rifle utilized by JSOC (Navy SEALs, Delta Force, MEU SOCs, etc.) must use the best available “Smart gun” technology, starting now. Let’s see how that plays out.
Agree that an industry solution would be best. The government only mandates when hard-heads refuse to adopt reasonable, rational safety measures designed to not only improve the safety of those around you, but the safety of the nut behind the wheel (so to speak).
No, I will not be swayed by sloganeering, bluster, ignorant outbursts, mindless mantra. But those are the very aspects of the character of the pro-gun gang we depend on for our ability to improve gun safety through popular and political avenues. You make it so easy.
What are you afraid of the free market? Pretty sure the free market has spoken about so called “smart” guns. They do not sell nor well they with anyone who wants reliable self defense. Remington awhile back came out with guns using batteries and the market spoke. You do not see them anymore for a reason.
What about the 330 million estimated firearms already in the states? Do you intend to retroactively try and fit the technology on them?
As for your last comment, again I say let the market decide. If your afraid of the American people’s decision making than I would guess you have an agenda.
You underestimate how easy it is in this society to render yesterday’s acceptable condition a crime tomorrow. There are many who argue that making the use of a firearm for any reason other than hunting or sport target shooting a felony of the highest order. There are some who would support making gun use a felony under any situation. The challenge is to get this done faster. The intent is to put gun owners (“some of the most law-abiding people”) into a conflict that either makes them compliant or criminals. The tactic now is to build better barriers to gun possession, one town council at a time (I will catch hell for letting you know this).
‘Here’s a thought…if the pro-gun crowd really wanted to cut off the march to confiscation, they would support smart-guns as a way to stifle the gun control supporters.’
Ah, the time tested Neville Chamberlain strategy of peace through appeasement. You’re not even really trying here, 2A. We have ‘shall not be infringed’ on our side and if that fails we have ‘Molon Labe’.
A phrase does not make a truth, repeating it does not make it truer, screaming it does not make it more substantial as a defense of anything.
“…shall not be infringed.” is so yesterday, and over. You are being infringed. The discussion is not by whom and how much will infringement be allowed. The clatter of chattering voices talking to themselves sway not legislator, judge, nor supporter of reasonable efforts to make society safe from reckless, negligent gun owners (and they are legion, just not yet self-identified). To belabor the point, Waco was a long time ago, but the society endorsed the actions of government agents using deadly force to remove guns from a place where children lived and played…because it was the sensible thing to do.
“Molon Labe” is so weak; based on claims of the pro-gun crowd, the time has long passed when revolution against “an out of control government” should have happened. The founders of this nation would never tolerate the reduction in personal freedoms we enjoy today; theirs was an entirely different time and place. So long as you and your kind accept without rebellion the sensible rules and policies of a modern society, there is no chance of a revolution. Keep doing what you are doing, and you will find the government (and over half the population) will be quite willing to come and take it.
Nothing that you stated is surprising. The NRA (among others) has been calling out that line of argument for decades. Here is something for you to chew on, firearms ownership has grown at tremendous rates under this president. If anything there is two America’s in regards to firearms. The big leftist urban areas and everyone else.
There is nothing to disagree with, here.
I’ve always found it odd that the people who claim to be so concerned with the safety of others seem to want to start a civil war. Of course, they don’t have the courage to come and disarm us themselves, they want others to do their dirty work, but still, a lot of blood in the streets if they get their way. ‘Make America Syria’ – could be the new Democratic slogan. Beats anything Trump’s come up with.
My side is not threatening to rise up and war with the government. My side is not foaming at the mouth with “Molon Labe” (which is a declaration of war). My side is not claiming that guns are all that stand between limited freedom (which you have), and full-scale government tyranny. My side has no illusions that citizen soldiers will on day be called on again to overthrow sensible laws.
BTW, a call for individuals to come take your guns, is a call for a different kind of civil war. Now where on the gun control side have any threats like that been made (yes, I mentioned that a government can resort to coercion to enforce the will of the majority of people expressed through laws). My side has always said we will seek to make our lives and neighborhoods safe through the political process, your side is saying “You can’t make me ’cause I’ve got a gun !”
As you have previously stated, the technology is not perfected. Feel free to perfect it – in the meantime the current offering of smart guns suck, and there is approximately no market for them.
I agree there is no market for what is offered today. Pro-gun people do not want to even consider for a moment the value in moving forward. Thomas Edison was asked if he felt he was a failure when he tried 100 times to perfect the incandescent bulb. He replied, “I didn’t fail; I learned 99 ways not to make a light bulb.” Edison’s idea was ridiculed right up to the moment he brought forth reliable electric light. You guys seem to have the attitude, “When you have a working product, bring it to me so I can spit on it.” Would I be wrong to conclude that should an absolutely defect-free, perfectly reliable smart gun be available this afternoon, pro-gun would reject it. So, when it comes to the will of the majority to have only safe guns available for sale, government must then step in to to enforce that decision. So being a law resister calls for government action, and somehow that is unacceptable. How do you think the criminal element reasons about being regulated by the laws of the majority of the public? In a free society you do not have the option to simply drop-out and go your own way. Why? Because if your philosophy ruled, you would demand compliance of those who object, and rightly so.
Why should we put another barrier between ourselves and a useful tool? Please explain that first and then maybe we can talk. Most of us have a gun for various purposes, do you expect us to retrofit all 330 million guns that are already in circulation?
The situation here is that technology is proposed as a means to further reduce negligent death and injury by supposed “good guys with a gun” (bad guys will only obtain smart guns if they steal them). The solution is not yet at hand.
The problem is that the people who should be supporting research into how to make guns work when they should, and not work when they shouldn’t cannot bring themselves to even consider possible improvements (with that attitude, we would not have trigger guards, safeties, drop safeties, trigger safeties, grip safeties, trigger blocks, decockers, etc. All of which were determined needed to improve upon safe handling of the weapons, and these developments have prevented an unknowable number of accidents (who self-reports violations of the four gun rules?).
Pro-gun people should be doing everything possible to assure the majority of the public (gun owners are a minority) that random souls possessing guns is not a threat to the general welfare. Instead, the public sees gun owners declaring, “Stuff it, I got my gun and that’s all I care about.” It is the public face that energizes to insist (to the point of “forcing”) that guns be rendered so safe as to be almost unusable.
Molon Labe is NOT a declaration of war. It’s a challenge. If you dislike the fact that I’m armed so much, go ahead, come and take my arms. The onus is on you. And if you come to disarm me and the other 100,000,000+ gun owners in this country we will defend ourselves. If your concern was the welfare of your fellow Americans you’d leave well enough alone. The fact that you’re not willing to leave law abiding citizens alone exposes the fact that your intentions are malicious.
And if you think you’ve got the majority on your side, repeal the 2nd Amendment. Otherwise there’s no such thing as a ‘sensible’ unconstitutional law.
History tell us (recent history), that no, 100 million people will not defy the law, 100 million people will not rise up as one and throw-off the chains of serfdom. You and yours issued the challenge, Molon Labe, if ever the time comes to confiscate every firearm (an impossibility) your Molon Labe is the precipitation of bloodshed, not the law-biding majority who legally determined to confiscate what would then be illegal firearms. You have no real idea of just what people will forego in order to protect jobs, futures, financed, reputations. Again, and again….your tyrannical government already took your measure and found you lacking. Waco was a test of resolve, and the anti-government, constitutionalist crowd did nothing.
Why are you actively try to embrace a despotic tyrannical system of government?
Not my intention. Just describing the likely outcome when the majority of the voters decide that confiscation is the least complex and least accommodating solution to gun owners. A majority of responders on this blog seem to believe that slogans and dreams of revolt will prevent any loss of “rights”, any attempt by government to enforce discipline on its citizens. If one’s answer to any discussion of how to improve safety, reduce the number of homicides by gun is “come and take it”, that is a formal invitation for the worst political elements of a society to do just that. Not my idea of the best possible outcome.
Actually if you want to play the long game civil war is probably the best possible outcome.
It would settle the matter with a degree of finality.
When a system becomes too broken the only way to fix it is to destroy it utterly and replace it.
My studies in law and international relations would tend to support your conclusion. Interestingly, that last civil war in this country only permanently decided secession.
Your thoughts, while not considered polite in my circles, are certainly in sync with T. Jefferson and some of the other founders.
I don’t travel in those circles on purpose.
This discussion is finished.
Which circles? Gun safety supporters, or Jefferson and the founders/
Even a compliment to your comment is too difficult to withstand.
‘…law-biding majority who legally determined to confiscate what would then be illegal firearms.’
Uh… you do know that the Constitution is the highest law of the land? You and you’re imaginary ‘law-biding majority’ who you think are going to dissolve the Constitution, try it. Sure 100,000,000 won’t fight, but 50,000,000 will. Then what?
Majority this majority that. If you don’t properly recall history and civics, our Constitution, Bill of Rights, and form of government were put forth and designed to protect the rights of the minority from the tyranny of the majority. Our country is not majority rules.
Your “rights” are subject to majority rule. Every element of the constitution can be changed through the amendment process. The second amendment can be repealed by majority vote of the states (3/4s). Prior to that, congress can pass legislation restricting your rights (and they have). When the majority of voters want increased gun safety, gun control or confiscation (or something in between), they have the right and ability to try to influence their congressional representatives to implement legislation for that purpose. If you think the second amendment hasn’t been successfully infringed (according to the definition of pro-gun advocates), then you haven’ purchased a gun in decades, have not applied for concealed carry, have not visited most schools, hospitals and city/state owned parks. Ammunition taxes have been implemented, requiring a required background check to make a purchase, or an ammo purchase identity card (like concealed carry cards, additional safety taxes on gun purchases, laws and ordinances about what you can carry, where you can carry, when you can use your firearm and where. All of this successfully accomplished without altering a word in the constitution. All these “infringements” were done with the consent of the “majority” of the citizens voting.
“Consent” or merely lack of opposition?
Rape is when she doesn’t say “yes” not just when she says “no”
Consent, acceptance? The outcome is the same. The longer the consent, the greater the degree of acceptance, until what was unthinkable becomes the norm. The old values are eroding, the old ruling class is dying-off, the wave of new immigrants is unstoppable. Their values will become the norm. Ours is best a waiting game, but some loud elements want tomorrow today.
You pushed me beyond my level of control. I no longer respect you.
This discussion is finished.
‘The longer the consent, the greater the degree of…’
Resentment.
You think you’re being clever, and I’ll give you a certain degree of latitude for just being some douche on a computer. But what you’re really bragging about is a very dangerous situation. Waiting for waves of illegal immigration to change the demographics of the country so the current minority will can be imposed on the majority. Why don’t you take a look at Europe. Why don’t you stop and ponder why Trump is doing so well? Inviting a clash of cultures is a recipe for violence. Europe is ripe for genocide. Trump’s only real appeal is his outspoken views on immigration. You pretend to be concerned with people’s safety yet promote bloodshed.
Providing information and observation is bragging? Am I wrong that encouraging more immigration from places that don’t have old American culture or values will provide more political leverage to change the way America works? All along, I have said time is against the pro-gun supporters…and they are doing nothing about it. Why shouldn’t your opposition take advantage of your political weakness? You have ideas about what you think America should be all about, the anti-gun, “leftist”, “liberal” elements are free to have their ides…no matter how different from yours.
If the day comes when immigrants from non-traditional sources provide the impetus for changing American culture, they will not be imposing the will of the minority on the will of the majority.
It is not the cause or need or responsibility of people who support reasonable gun control, and a safe, kinder society to explain to people who oppose it all how to engage and persuade this new American populace to support your vision of America. That is on you. Do not complain it is unfair if you are losing by clinging to the past.
I believe Gov J has forgotten the reason for the first shots fired in Lexington and Concord. The tyrant of the day tried to confiscate the weapons and it didn’t turn out all that great for him. You talk about majorities and changing attitudes. In 1775 a mere 3% supported telling a tyrant to shove it.
Your whole philosophy of the waves of immigrants going for a gun free USA is laughable. 35-40% of our new gun sales go to people who have immigrated to this country. They love the fact that the government here can’t forbid them from owing weapons. Many of these people came from places where the state controlled their lives. They will not stand by and watch it happen here anymore than those of us who love our freedoms and were born here will.
I think we live in a time (and will for the foreseeable future) where ballots trump bullets. Ballots can modify the way bullets are obtained and used (already happened in some towns), ballots can modify purchase and possession of guns. The demographics are not in your favor.
Yea that is not what was said. But a delightful looking strawman. It is garbage, so we don’t want to use it today. Feel free to perfect it and we will consider it later when it’s done. When it’s done, please resist the urge to forcefully shove it down everyone’s throats.
As I said, pro-gun people want the rest of society to accept that leaving gun safety up to the most error-prone element in the system (people) is a rational world.
I have no problem with people having smart guns. I have no interest in them is all. Most gun owners have no interest in them either. As an electrical engineer, I have zero interest in them, currently. If one could make them so they don’t run on batteries I would be more interested, or if they were not susceptible to electromagnetic interference, or remote control, or GPS tracking, etc. In engineering, the simpler the device, the more inherently reliable. Gun owners don’t want safe guns. They want reliable guns. We are already well aware guns are not “safe” without correct practices followed. Even with a bio-metric or enabling device on the firearm – you are still leaving gun safety up to the person holding the gun. I know it’s inconvenient for you, but you can’t have gun ownership without also having this.
As an electrical engineer you should know better. There was a time the electronics we take for granted were impossible, or impossible to imagine being made manifest. If the technology is not up to the task yet, is it better to just go flat-earth and declare the idea hopeless, or join in finding a workable solution? To reject entirely an idea that is not yet proven full-grown is not science, it is rigid conformity to church doctrine.
“Smart Gun” technology is a dead horse…the only point to beating it further is to enlighten new TTAG readers who have not seen previous discussions.
The article is pretty decent, but I’m at a loss to understand the guy’s recommendation to keep a dummy round in the chamber if you’re worried about children getting hold of your unattended gun. Why not just leave the chamber empty? What possible purpose would the dummy round serve, other than to needlessly complicate the process?
Why would anyone want a layer of functionality that is specifically designed to prevent something from working when intended?
I would only want that in my enemy’s gun. That’s why only people who do not have guns want there to be “smart guns”.
“The more they overthink the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain.” – Scotty
I don’t think *even* Scotty could overcome this stupidity called “Smart guns”
They should be called “Smart UNS” because they will UNDO your ability to defend yourself.
My iPhone, a very expensive device engineered by arguably the most technologically advanced consumer electronics manufacturer in the world, doesn’t read my fingerprint accurately 100% of the time. Especially if it’s got any moisture.
Considering if I have to use my gun ever I will probably be sweating at least a little bit, even in the cold, I would never trust my life to something that needs an accurate reading of my fingerprint. My gun needs to be 100% reliable, I can count on it being consistent in it’s performance, because it doesn’t care about stress, it’s not affected (except by external factors) by adrenaline and all the effects of it.
He’s right, your safeguard should be your own training and mind for safety, and maybe an external safety at most, depending on whether you use it or not and whether your gun even would have one is up to you, but it also becomes part of your training.
So a smart gun will prevent unauthorized users from firing a gun…
So will a safe.
And a smart gun does nothing to reduce suicides or other murders caused by the “owner” of the gun. And since suicides are 2/3 of all gun deaths, and most of the remaining deaths are caused by prior convicted felons who shouldn’t have access to a gun (but could probably find a hack for a smart gun), this is a solution in search of a problem.
Smart gun technology is at the same level as the Ford model T one hundred years ago. That just means the technology needs more development until it is transparent to the authorized user and the failure rate is too small to be significant, that is, about the same rate as defective factory ammunition. To continue the automotive example, the “key” for my Infiniti coupe is a battery powered radio transmitter that I carry in my pocket. In the eight years I have owned the car, there have been zero failures.
Smart gun technology in its current, inadequate state of development is being pushed only by anti-gunners who consider failures to be an advantage.
My Chrysler uses the same “keyless entry” system, but I almost always carry both fobs, one on my key-chain, the other in a pocket, just in case one of them fails.
I guess the chances of a negligent discharge are quite a bit lower when your gun doesn’t even have a barrel. Don’t know if I’d call that ‘smart’ though.
Gun without a barrel….see we can come up with a reasonable compromise if we put our minds to it.
You can buy one. I’ll stick with ‘shall not be infringed’. That’s about all the compromise you’re about to get out of me.
To borrow one of the favorite questions of the right wing…how’s that “shall not be infringed” working out for you? Anybody won a court challenge successfully invoking that phrase as the shield?
But glad you brought it up.
Gun rights are infringed, have been infringed, and gun rights champions accept the fact that infringement is real and it works. If law-abiding constitutional citizens believe unconstitutional laws exist infringing on gun rights, should not those same law-abiding constitutional citizens defy such laws and refuse to comply? Guns are plentiful in this country. No need to “follow the rules” and buy from “legal sources”. Shouldn’t people who believe a law unconstitutional practice “nullification”? Isn’t it a duty of citizens to refuse to obey unconstitutional laws? (Sixteenth American Jurisprudence, Second Edition, Section 177. [late 2nd Ed. Section 256]; Shouldn’t true patriots be buying their guns only from sources that do not operate within unconstitutional laws?
Check the Heller ruling dude.
Not to be supportive of 2Asux, but Heller did not eliminate infringement. We still have background checks, taxes on bullets, laws about carry, laws about types of ammunition, laws about allowable ages for gun possession, laws mandating liability insurance for gun owners, laws about transport, laws about gun storage, laws about justified use, laws about removing gun rights.Are those not “infringements”?
God forbid the list above are simply “reasonable”, or OMG “common sense” measures; we would be lost, for sure.
2ATroll – Yes. But. The government that has created and the judicial system that has allowed to stand these unconstitutional laws has more manpower and greater freedom to use their weapons against us when enforcing those laws without facing legal censure.
The only current options for those of us who find the situation unconstitutional, but do not want to spend our lives fighting expensive legal battles or wasting away in jails or prisons is to continue to oppose these laws by every other legal and political means that we can. Just as you continue in your efforts to disarm us in violation of the Second Amendment without calling for overt confiscation and/or open warfare against gun owners.
The fact that politicians have been willing and able to subvert the Constitution and the courts have not been willing to rule these laws unconstitutional does not mean that we should all go into immediate rebellion since there are remedies to the issue included in the Constitution itself that are being explored. Reliance on the option of an armed populace overthrowing a tyrannical government is in itself Constitutional but is a difficult, dangerous and destructive final option only after all other avenues have been tried. Reference The Declaration of Independence. I believe it is availabe for free on the Internet.
I will grant you that it takes true courage to take on the government (but you did allow that the government out-guns the potential patriot rebels), but isn’t that what divided the founders from the “sunshine patriots” of their day? I understand and agree with seeking political and legislative changes that give you what you want (it is how we expect to eventually win all the arguments), What I challenge is all the “shall not be infringed” stuff you guys throw out as if that statement alone were enough to stop history (or the law) in its tracks. Also note the dearth of court arguments resting entirely on “shall not be infringed”. Courts are already happy with infringements, and will only entertain submissions that attempt to define one or more infringements as “a little bit too much”.
JQ and CH pretty well summed up the flaws in your line of thinking, so I’ll just point out that ‘nullification’ is a judicial process in which a jury can nullify a law by refusing to convict someone of it. For instance, say I were to go to DC and happened to forget to clean out a couple of spent .22LR shells out of my car. I somehow get my car searched and the DA jumps in and tries to put me in prison for a decade for this unforgivable sin but the the jury decides this is ridiculous and finds me innocent even though I was caught red handed breaking the law. This is ‘nullification’. It can be used any time a jury finds the law to be unjust, not just unconstitutional. You cannot on your own nullify any law.
To be completely sophomoric, how’t that “nullification” thing working out for you?
Apparently no one wants to admit to how much “infringement” (reasonable regulation?) they already agree to, so diversion, deflection, chest-thumping keep people wrapped in a blanket of unreality, unwilling to do much beyond stick their fingers in their ears and croon, “la la la la, I can’t hear you.”
It was not me claiming that “shall not infringe” is some sort of talisman, or Molon Labe is the battly cry of those armed and poised to rise up in rebellion. Your starting point is not where you believe; you are behind the curve, trying to catch up. All I am pointing out is the complete disconnect between what is and the notion of pro-gun people that pitching a fit will turn things around.
On my side of the table, we have hard-liners who want to launch a military operation to round-up all privately owned firearms in the country (including those of the gangbangers and such). And we have people who merely want to feel secure that gun owners have taken every possible step to prevent the outrageous attacks we see at schools, theaters, parks, neighborhoods. You cannot deny that 50 years ago, these type shooting incidents were rare as chicken teeth. Now they are so commonplace, pro-gun people are indifferent. You want to be trusted, but are totally unwilling to do the things that would show you take the safety of others seriously.
‘You cannot deny that 50 years ago, these type shooting incidents were rare as chicken teeth.’
So what are you saying, that all this unconstitutional gun control we’ve passed has made violence worse?
And for the record, I haven’t ‘agreed’ to any unconstitutional laws, be it gun control or otherwise. I have more respect for the Nazis you openly admit that their intent is to ‘Molon Labe’. To come and take our arms. Everything the left is for has to be veiled in euphemisms because you can’t compete on a level playing field when it comes to a contest of ideas. Labeling something as ‘commonsense’ doesn’t make it any less unconstitutional any more than an abortion is a ‘choice’.
If you legally buy a gun, if you obtain legal permission to carry a gun, if you use that gun, you are subject to the unconstitutional “infringement” on the RTKBA. If you acquiesce, you agree. If you submit, you accept. One can only defy unconstitutional laws by refusing to obey, ever, period, all the time.
Who’s being the extremist now?
Tolerate and accept are not the same thing. You can tolerate without accepting. You can accept without embracing.
You can fight a law without defying it.
I am pointing out the sad fact that gun lovers have had numerous occasions to refuse to obey “unconstitutional” laws, and they have not done so. It is inconvenient to face truth, but eventually strict constitutionalists get to where they try political and/or legal resistance forever without effect, or they are left with only one alternative. Based on comments here, on other forums, news articles, pro-gun advocates refused to rise up and overthrow the “unconstitutional”, “illegal”, tyrannical government military-style attack on law-biding citizens whose only “crime” was having guns and children in the same building. Refusal to resist that action by force (interestingly, “the shot heard round the world” was fired over an event that cannot even come close to the carnage in Waco. Crying that guns are a “bulwark against tyranny” is flaccid, untrue, outdated, moot by the lack of same since 1865. When the citizenry endures an “illegal” deadly assault on other citizens, the citizenry votes with its silence, forfeiting the remedy of revolution against an “out of control government”. Truth is politics and law keep the government in check.
Question: What is the effective difference between refusal to resist, and acceptance? Acceptance is not a synonym for “approval”. Acceptance means agreement to be bound by the terms of what is accepted.
So, let us leave this notion that somehow “unconstitutional” laws and acts can be “accepted” without “agreement”.
Well that’s the end of my emotional control. I will kill you if i see you.
I appreciate the honesty, and the warning.
This discussion is finished.
It amazes me that with today’s tech this could not be done and done well. On the other hand it’s a problem that does not need to be solved because I or nor anyone else I know would ever buy one. More feelgood BS. But some company will make millions from USG grants and never produce a thing.
Here is my take on a “Smart” gun. I wont be forced to buy anything by anyone period.
Unless.
1. They develop a gun that of course works 101% of the time.
2. Every police force in the country uses it and nothing else.
3. When our armed forces has one and nothing else.
4. Criminals no longer have access to any guns what so ever.
5. More importantly………..when Im dead from old age and it wont matter anyway.
Unfortunately for me and my “smart” gun usage. Number 5 is the most likely choice in my book.
“Smart” guns are for stupid people. Which means that there’s a HUGE market for smart guns.
Perhaps for the purpose of beta testing every stupid person in America (i.e., everyone promoting the idea of “Smart guns”), should be required by federal legislation to purchase and maintain a smart gun. This would work the same as Obamacare – the 2,000 page law passed by Congress to mandate this would simply state that it is a tax on being stupid and so the SCOTUS would have to allow that it was Constitutional.
Be careful here. Mixing guns and healthcare is not the sort of thing we want to talk about much. We are already seeing evidence that the anti-gun people are trying to make gun ownership a health issue. Once that happens, gun confiscation just may have an insurmountable means of disarming us all.
Well said. Not all the stupidity is among gun safety supporters.
There’s no doubt someone will eventually design a “Smart Gun” that is 99.99% reliable. It just has to happen. I think 5-10 years, and that’s probably way too long. It WILL NOT stop the gun grabbers, who want NO guns in private hands. It is also likely some alternative non-lethal system will be evolved that makes guns as we know them today obsolete and enables the final outlawing of traditional firearms.
So twist your undies into whatever bunch suits you, but technology will win this fight in the end and firearms will go the way of the Dodo Bird.
If I’m not mistaken the Dodo bird went the way it did because of a whole lot of people with (not smart) firearms who didn’t like the little buggers. We seem to have gotten along pretty well without them so far.
The only way I can envision firearms themselves going the same way as the Dodo bird is if a whole lot of government people with (not smart) firearms force the issue and attempt by that means to make us extinct. I shudder to think how well the world will get along without us.
The reference to the Dodo was just a reference to”extinction” in general.
My suggestion of a non-lethal system is to say that eventually technology will develop a system that incapacitates but will not kill other Humans (likely several). These developments will create results we are not accurately anticipating at this time. It is just as inevitable as were 747’s the day the Wright Brothers got their “Flyer” off the ground at Kitty Hawk.
Repeating yourself does not make it any more true. However what we do know is that firearms work, they have a 600 year track record and they have incrementally getting more effective and more reliable. Until your “new technology” becomes available we will simply continue to use a tried and true tool. If I was a betting man I would say that firearms will continue to be useful tools into the future long after we are gone.
And denying the likelihood doesn’t prove your position…don’t let me keep you from sticking your head back into the sand. You’ll feel better back in your comfort zone.
The McIntosh was once the pinnacle of personal computing.
Oh yeah. Your magic “technology” that will fix everything. Just like many promises made by modern society I will believe it when I see it. When I was a kid they said cancer would be cured by the year 2000. They said that all the oil would be gone by that same year and that everyone would have flying cars. Oh yea another one was that we were supposed to be entering a new ice age. Technology rarely get things right and when it does the technology sticks around.
Just like the modern left’s prediction of the certain death of the internal combustion engine I will believe the technology when it actually works. Do I need to keep listing the promises that people made about technology that have never come true? Sorry but when it comes to the promises of man I will believe it when I see it. So you can keep believing in your ray guns and your insta-weapons and until we see them and they are half way cost effective it remains a science fiction.
Sorry you are so disappointed, but your sour grapes have no relevance to what I suggested.
Are you aware of how much essential, reliable technology you have in your life that wasn’t even a luxury 10 years ago? Or 20 years ago?
Caution. The people you address are likely still using DOS 2.0 on their monochrome screen computers.
Thanks, that thought was beginning to form in my mind. I found-out quite accidentally that DOS 6.n (last version) will work until 2079.
I think DOS 7.0 underlay Windows98, but haven’t skulked around in Vista/Win7 to find out what it is based on.
Actually I am happy as a clam. I recognize where man came from and where his technological abilities currently sit. Like lots of leftist promises your vision doesn’t seem to work in the real world. Wind energy, solar power, a world vision of a classless socialistic society. So go ahead and keep trying to re-create a new Eden using man’s best efforts. History suggests that man himself keeps getting in the way.
It’s not the technology guys it’s the hands that use it. Your efforts would be better spent teaching the younger generation basic Christian morals like the difference between right and wrong. You want to know why there is mass shootings in this country after 1970? It is because the Christian moral fiber of this nation has been under attack by brave new world types since world war 2. No prayer, no family, no God, well your reaping what you sowed. You keep telling people that everything is relative and you end up in a society which acts like it truly is. Technology won’t solve that problem guys, its called teaching the young how to think, how to act like ladies and gentlemen and how to build a culture that values each person and recognizes their inherent dignity.
Also if you think that American ingenuity won’t find away around your smart technology if it wants to then I got news for you, anything made by the hands of one man can be changed/copied/adapted/destroyed by the hands of another. And really your attempted joke belittling gun owners as being technologically behind the times simply shows your lack of ability to defeat the argument.
Most of the people that post here are educated, have a degree or multiple degrees (many I would guess post grad) and they are engineers, scientists, teachers and businessman. They represent America as it is. They are not afraid of the rough and tumble of conflict and they appreciate arguments based on substance rather than arguments based on fear. Please try and keep up.
Thanks, this comment makes me see what has happened here, since I share all the core values you listed, have owned and shot guns for 53 years, belong to the NRA and CRPA and support them regularly. In short, I am an ardent supporter of the Second Amendment and an arch-conservative constitutionalist.
Obviously, there was a disconnect, but sometimes that just happens…so it goes.
You seem to have inferred what I said about technology was something it was not. Merely pointing out that :”smart gun” technology and new non-lethal defense systems is inevitable given the state of science, technological acumen and engineering is an observation of what is likely and possible, not an advocacy for the technology. The technology will emerge and it will change the game dramatically on many levels. That is what technology does, has done and will continue to do far into the future, barring some apocalypse that derails it.
In around 1900 the fellow heading the U S Patent Office wrote the POTUS and stated that the U S Government should close the Patent Office because everything that could be invented had been invented and there was no further need for the Patent Office. Fortunately, the POTUS had the vision to understand that was a terrible idea and did not follow that fellow’s advice. Consider what has happened in the intervening 115 years. For example, just over 40 years ago, the instantaneous discussion we are all having on this website was not possible. People will invent new things good, bad and indifferent because that is Human Nature. The things are neither good nor evil innately, but the use we put them to makes the difference. To make the correct choices we must, as best we can, anticipate what we will do with them.
Hope the air between us is clearer now and I regret there was a misunderstanding.
Not being afraid of the “rough and tumble” of life is the highest-development mankind can achieve? That’s the endgame, the goal? You unjustifiably sell everyone else so short.
Maybe you were not aware that right up until the Trinity explosion, almost all the renowned physicists of the time were beyond doubt the atom could not be split. It was a small group of determined scientists that intended to prove the world wrong who believed enough in what they were doing to voluntarily enter a a near-prison camp in the middle of the desert to pursue their quest. They were right, the rest wrong.
Flat-worlders have the best of intentions to save us from folly, but are not the best advisers on how to accomplish that which has not been done yet.
Good to see we see things similarly. Misunderstandings are very easy on this medium. I will say this on technology, it seems the ideas that shape our lives today were (other than the internet and smart phones) all invented before 1950. While we have made incremental improvements on these items, (phones, planes, guns, cars, computers, rockets) the actual Idea for them came before 1950. Unfortunately in a society that seems to reward mediocrity new ideas that change the playing field in my opinion will be less and less forthcoming. Guns just might continue to do their work very similar (with improvements) as they are today.
I have no doubt traditional firearms will be around quite awhile yet, and any transition to alternate new technology Arms will take awhile. Glad we are more on the same page than we initially thought, as well. It does not bother me if people disagree with what I say because it stimulates thoughts and forces one to re-examine their views. I do, however, dislike it when there is a misunderstanding and will always try to resolve it if I can.
We have the same goal.
+1 (I think)
Um sure dude. I like science fiction to. You a fan of L. Ron Hubbard?
Definitely not anytime soon.
Don’t hold your breath on that assertion.
Been holding it since I saw star wars in 1977.
A phrase does not make a truth, repeating it does not make it truer, screaming it does not make it more substantial as a defense of anything.
“…shall not be infringed.” is so yesterday, and over. You are being infringed. The discussion is not by whom and how much will infringement be allowed. The clatter of chattering voices talking to themselves sway not legislator, judge, nor supporter of reasonable efforts to make society safe from reckless, negligent gun owners (and they are legion, just not yet self-identified). To belabor the point, Waco was a long time ago, but the society endorsed the actions of government agents using deadly force to remove guns from a place where children lived and played…because it was the sensible thing to do.
“Molon Labe” is so weak; based on claims of the pro-gun crowd, the time has long passed when revolution against “an out of control government” should have happened. The founders of this nation would never tolerate the reduction in personal freedoms we enjoy today; theirs was an entirely different time and place. So long as you and your kind accept without rebellion the sensible rules and policies of a modern society, there is no chance of a revolution. Keep doing what you are doing, and you will find the government (and over half the population) will be quite willing to come and take it.
You don’t know about 150 million people of this country very well if you believe what you just wrote. Where do you live, let me guess the big city>? The only result of the actions you describe would be a civil war that would make the first one look like a walk in the park. Seriously you need to start talking with people outside of your little worldview, I promise it will do you good.
Are you not “infringed”, are you not “controlled” or “regulated” when it comes to firearms? That was the question. 150 million people doing what, prepared to do what?
Ok, here is the $64,000,000 question: what will it take for the people you are so certain will not tolerate a tyrannical government to actually do something other than gnash teeth, stomp feet, blast out slogans?
I have read the founders, I have read they principles of several pro-gun organizations. I have read the babble of the radical pro-gun rights groups who are arming up, stocking freeze dried, practicing tactics in the woods. Not one, no a one of the pro-gun rights litigators, pro-gun advocates, pro-gun politicians is doing anything to eliminate every bit of gun control law and regulation on the books. If “…shall not be infringed.” has any meaning, why is no one on the barricades demand removal of ALL, EVERY, ANY controls or restrictions on the right of citizens to own any firearm they want, free of any government involvement.
Don’t tell me you are starting small, and one day the repeal of government intrusion into the second amendment will end. Reading your literature, what is more clear than “…shall not be infringed”? What law, proposal, legislation could improve on that? You proposing a piece of legislation stating, “…shall not be infringed, and this time we really mean it” ?
Face life, you are “infringed”, you remain “infringed”, you have no hope of not being “infringed”. The conclusion is you will accept all sorts of infringements, even while losing the public opinion. You say you want a revolution? When, over what? You guys are just talking for bragging rights among yourselves. You do not oppose “infringement”, just that “infringement” you don’t like at the moment.
The majority of society is asking (ok, maybe coercing) you to consider steps that can instill confidence that people with guns are all trustworthy, that people walking around with guns in their pockets are not a simple error away from killing bystanders.
You act like you are the majority. I got news for you the country is evenly divided. Your keep going on and on about infringements, of course we recognize that at times life will infringe on the rights recognized in the constitution. However you can’t seem to explain how your definition of infringement suddenly requires me to buy a “smart” gun. Especially when there are hundreds of millions of perfectly serviceable guns that work just fine and our perfectly “stupid.” Unless you can get the military to support you (which as you know is not composed of your average leftist) you can pound sand.
My focus on “infringement” is not intended to persuade you to buy a smart gun, it is intended to loosen your grip on the assertion that somehow a smart gun is an infringement. My stance is if a smart gun truly is an infringement, it is no different from any of the others that you accept. So “infringement” is not the core issue. Let go of that, and join a conversation rooted in the mechanism, and how to best describe the desired end product. What can a little contemplation and “spit-balling” of ideas hurt?
The mechanism itself is not an infringement. It does however mechanically present the opportunity to infringe outside of the “legal” means.
That is all irrelevant.
The wellspring of market experimentation in this novelty has been permanently and irrevocable poisoned by the female senator from NJ. That one single piece of legislation has proved that the government is willing to enact a defacto ban on guns by using tech as an excuse. I will now never support smart gun development because I know it will be used to outlaw normal guns.
Smart gun technology is unnecessary to facilitate complete gun confiscation. Smart guns, or some other technology should be considered and investigated. People on the anti-gun side of things grow impatient daily that gun confiscation is not a done deal. Those of us looking to improve safety are sometimes shouted down because we are skeptical there is no other way to make a society that includes gun owners safer. Vicious, rabid opposition to any thoughts that something acceptable could be done to improve the situation for both sides infects both sides of the issue.
Why is the focus of safety and societal improvement a physical thing? Why not seek to correct the actual problem? People.
You can not legislate good behavior into existence. You can coerce it into existence through punitive laws, but that’s what we’ve been trying to do for 50+ years now. Seems like that approach produces just as much opposition as results.
Of course i believe humanity is fataly, fundamentally, irrevocably flawed so why bother trying?
Then human factors engineering (which is essentially dummy-proofing things) is a bogus or useless science. All safety engineering is an attempt to limit the ability of the weakest element (people) to make mistakes that might endanger themselves or others.
If they hurt themselves let them die, if they hurt others kill tjem immediately.
This discussion is finished.
Color me confused. Are you trying to fix America or destroy it completely?
As for myself, i will never vote in favor of an anti freedom law, never vote in favor of an anti freedom politician. The only reason i have not yet picked up my gun and shot those that betray our representation is I am waiting for someone of higher moral standing than I to say “Now is the time to shed blood.”
Until then i will abide by the regulations and amass my armory.
He’s trying to fix it in the same way a vet fixes a dog…which is actually breaking something, if you think about it.
Who has higher moral standing that the single individual acting out of universally accepted principle? Or is it more a matter of hoping to be anonymous in a crowd of people who have decided to take up arms? You are as moral and upright as any one in the country. If not you, who? If not now, when?
Or just maybe talk is talk, and you are actually rational enough to understand you live in a complex society. And accept that restrictions on personal preference are always going to be part of the social contract among citizens.
I am by no means the most moral individual. I’m no where near the smartest either.
If not me, then who? Malcom X, Martin Luther King Jr, Mother Theresa, Gandy, The Dali Lama, My Parents, take your pick.
If not now, when? Frankly I’m surprised there isn’t warfare in the streets already.
I tolerate infringements on my guaranteed liberties, not because those infringements are morally right in being enacted, but because I do not possess the means to either evade or overcome the consequences of defying the will of the majority.
Do I wish to hide in a crowd? Perhaps a little, but i would stand on the peak alome and take the first shot if i was reasonably sure i would not be ultimately fighting alone. I’m not ready to be a martyr, I’m an unloved nobody and my dealth would serve no purpose towards my goal.
You call us out for a hypocrisy. Us shouting “Shall not be infringed” and “Molon Labe” all while not doing anything, is visibly a hypocrisy. But I am doing something. I am educating my self on the laws, the politicians who are friend vs foes, I am gathering weapons & ammunition, i am spreading information to my network.
I may comply, actively tolerate, but I do not accept much less embrace these perversions upon the original plan. Unlike you I still believe change to the positive is possible.
You sell yourself short. The people you listed are/were not morally superior. They were all flawed persons. But what they did was take high moral principle and energize it so that others could act. You are no different.
The things you are doing while waiting on the revolution are likely prudent from your perspective. Trying to improve safety, save lives, reduce the risk of negligent death by irresponsible gun owner are the things I do.
I did admit that the gun control movement has its crazies, and they hurt the cause of promoting the general welfare of the nation. Extreme positions on either side of the disagreement hurt the efforts of those trying to find a better way. To quote L.B. Johnson, “Come, let us reason together”.
You do not know my sins or flaws (and it will remain such), i have not sold myself short. Granted no one is perfect but there is still a gradable scale in existence.
“Trying to improve safety, save lives, reduce the risk of negligent death by irresponsible gun owner are the things I do.” Safety is the responsibility of the individual and only the individual. Society’s only role is to demand through harsh punitive measures that the individual take said responsibility.
To borrow from another topic, safe storage laws. Rules to prevent accidents by limiting one to a single course of action are patently wrong. Those laws reinforce the notion that not doing blank makes on irresponsible by default, and that by doing only blank one is by default responsible.
Laws that are just mandate a result, whereas unjust laws mandate a course of action.
I have a book of moral ethics that says everyone is flawed to the core, that even thinking about doing evil is the same as the action. I may have a character trait or two that would be graded as better than some other person who lacks those specific traits, but I am not morally superior, they are not morally inferior. But that is only background.
If a society has no obligation to prevent evil, irresponsibility or other egregious act, then where is the moral authority to punish them? If society cannot prevent injury to its citizens, but only punish, you have the law of the jungle, with the state being the king of the jungle. What is that old saying, “A ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”? Or maybe a pound of punishment?
You pushed me beyond my level of control. I no longer respect you.
This discussion is finished.
Then stop repeatedly explaining to us that your safety is more important than our freedom.
Because working to increase the safety of my life is equal to your idea of freedom (which appears to be prospering the law of the jungle). You are claiming that my right to life is inferior to your right to negligently kill me.
Sorry, 2Asux, but you are just overplaying the odds on the claim anyone might negligently kill you. It is more likely you or any one of us will be criminally assaulted and killed in their home or on the street than killed by an ND, so your argument just falls apart because your safety from the dangers of an ND does NOT trump the risk of death by criminal predation.
I just cannot accept your premise on this.
Odds? That is life to you, “odds”? For every person who is dead or injured by a reckless, unskilled, untrained, inattentive gun owner, the “odds” were 100% against them. Why do you people seem so self-satisfied that 500 or so deaths caused by negligent gun owners is just a discussion of 500 events that will not happen to you, because of the “odds”?
Jeff Cooper allegedly coined the rubric, “Be polite to everyone you meet, but have a plan to kill them”. I take him seriously, and I presume every person I see (and some I cannot see) is possibly going to fulfill that last part. I take every person as a threat to my safety, else I would simply blindly fall into a man-hole. I am hyper-watchful in stores, crowds, public venues because I do not know who is a responsible gun owner. Would you trust your home to just anybody walking down the street? Or do you lock your home because you do not know who you can trust to not take everything you own? Likewise, I think it prudent to take every precaution to prevent some random stranger from negligently killing me (yes, that includes driving and all other forms of daily activity). Do you trust the pilots of a commercial airliner? Why? Is it because they look good in a uniform, or because you trust the process by which they are certified? There is no accepted universal certification process for everyone who buys or owns a gun.
Every decision made is first compared to a risk/reward assessment. Statistically speaking you are more likely to fall down a flight of stairs than be accidentally shot.
Are those deaths a tragedy? Yes.
Are they something i can do to personally prevent? No.
Should the persons be held accountable? Harshly so, but making rules/things to prevent accidents only punishes the innocent.
Thus my decision to sit in my living room, and watch TV is a “risk-reward” calculation that my neighbor will not shoot through the walls of his house and mind, killing me? Minding my own business is not my active decision to risk being killed by a negligent, reckless gun owner? If so, that is because gun owners believe their right to have guns trumps my right to be secure in my person, property and papers? Gun owners have the moral and legal right to deprive me of my life, liberty and pursuit of property (among the God-given rights noted in the Declaration of Independence? Just because I am minding my own business, offending or attacking no one? But I have no right to try to legally diminish the likelihood of that happening by supporting laws that restrict the inherently unsafe possession of firearms by any Tom, Dick and Harry?
If you are actually worried about being wrong shot in your home, armor plate your walls.
I do not fear the statistically insignificant.
Most people don’t consider the statistically insignificant, until they are no longer able to consider anything.
By what moral authority do you demand I armor my house so that your and your kind can be absolved of responsible and safe gun handling? The one who is doing something likely to cause harm to another is obligated to ensure the act is not a threat to others.
You may demand that my actions do not threaten you, you may not demand my actions to be of your choosing.
If you are truly in fear for your safety it is your responsibility to take every action at your disposal to guarantee your safety. I merely offered a course of action you had control over.
This discussion is finished.
If you really do subscribe to the Jeff Cooper philosophy why don’t you carry a gun?
Didn’t say I subscribe to the dictum, only that it exists and I am wary that someone will execute the second condition recklessly (or without provocation at all).
Just because I see unknown persons as a potential negligent, reckless gun owner doesn’t justify possibly becoming one of them.
So merely owning a gun automatically makes one negligent. Good to know
No, owning a gun makes one highly likely to misuse it and injure an innocent, or fail to ensure others cannot get to the gun and hurt someone. Once one becomes a gun owner, there is no way for the rest of the neighborhood to have sufficient information to evaluate the risk of negligence or recklessness.
Under the theories pro-gun people put forward, if a person thinks there is a gun owner nearby, and believes that being unable to properly evaluate the risk makes for an intolerable situation, the neighbor is obligated to find another place to live. Which turns the idea of living in a community of people upside down. That is, the person(s) posing no risk to the gun owner have the responsibility to upend their lives so the potential threat can live undisturbed.
You didn’t contradict me.
This discussion is finished.
I cannot genuinely feel badly because I consider the “odds” of any given situation in deciding what I believe or what I do. Everyday we throw away thousands of Human lives owing to essentially preventable causes. We like to make big about how “—-Lives Matter”, but the hard fact is “not really” . In the end. your life, or my life, only matters to you or me individually because of the meaning we give it, but not really to the greater World beyond.
So, no, I cannot agree that your concern for how a particular outcome of a particular set of circumstances might affect you should cause me to give you approval to infringe and control my range of choices more than I already am.
Insofar as the Jeff Cooper axiom you live by, you are essentially doing the same thing I am: acting in your own perceived self-interest, except I advocate no tyranny over others.
Afraid you are quite mistaken; you advocate allowing negligent gun owners to escape reasonable restrictions. You advocate your right to kill me accidentally, over my right to life.
We have much worse odds of being killed by firearms assault (1 in 368) than being killed by a firearms discharge (1 in 6,699) and much worse odds of being killed in a fall (1 in 144). So, yes, I will choose to refuse to worry too much about you being killed by a negligent discharge than me being killed in a firearms assault because I consented to further infringements on our RKBA to assuage the paranoid strawman you have chosen to worry about. If you are following Jeff Cooper’s axiom, your situational awareness should alert you to being in a situation where an ND is likely to happen, otherwise you aren’t doing it right. If you are having angst over an ND like where someone’s gun falls out of their pocket onto the street and discharges that’s probably one in millions. The premise you are clinging to is totally unconvincing. I will never agree with you on this one, and likely no one else on TTAG will, either.
citation: http://www.nsc.org/NSC%20Images_Corporate/odds-of-dying-graphic.jpg
My concern is being shot in my home by a neighbor I have no idea has a gun. My concern is sitting in a public venue, minding my business, and being shot by a reckless gun owner. My concern is driving down the street and being shot by someone’s dropped gun. My concern is being in my work station and being shot by someone showing-off their cute little .22 they can carry in their pocket/purse. My concern is being shot by a “good guy with a gun” who hasn’t had firearms training since his first BB gun. My concern is avoiding stupid places and stupid people doing stupid things is something I have a choice in. Being shot just because some macho idiot cannot resist being reckless with a firearm is something I can do nothing to mitigate. Your rights end at my nose. Then my rights are superior.
Your rights are not superior. My right to my life is as valid as yours and my right to defend my life with a firearm is as valid as yours. I cannot change your choice to be so concerned about all these scenarios you envision, but I can refuse to allow you to impose your fears as a rationale for infringing upon my rights, and I do so refuse. We are just going to have to be at an impasse on this matter, but an interesting exchange, nonetheless.
Actually, I have no interest in preventing you from defending your life, or bearing arms. Eliminating one more weapon (firearm) does not infringe on your right.
The inability to legally buy cannon, anti-tank weapons, grenades, claymore mines, automatic weapons (without government permission), warplanes that are still combat ready, artillery, live air-delivered bombs, just about any weapon that would put you on equal footing with the government you are sure you are fending off is NOT considered an infringement on the RTKBA. That is, the public quietly accepts, permits, acquiesces, submits to those prohibitions to be “reasonable” and “common sense”.
Without firearms, there are still dozens of objects that you can use in self-defense. When the public finally tires of the irrational, reckless,negligent “good guy with a gun”, privately owned firearms will just be the next logical step in keeping the public.
Rather complain that law enforcement cannot “protect” you, and is not required to do so, why not increase law enforcement capability and mandate they do more than monitor crime, gather evidence and write reports?
Thanks for the concession, but whose firearm are you proposing to “eliminate”, then? I won’t approve of eliminating anyone’s right to own a gun and I do not care if anyone chooses not to own a firearm because the right is no damned good if individuals are not able to make their own choice in the matter. That’s really the crux of the whole argument over civilian gun ownership. POTG say it’s your choice and anti-gun people want to deny that choice and impose their view on everyone.
My garage is too small for a Tank, I am not a pilot. I just don’t want an artillery piece, grenades are too messy, however, a machine gun would be nice, but I do not really want to spend the money for one, even just for fun. The only fending-off of the Government I am doing is contending the laws they enact that violate my strict interpretation of the Second Amendment are illegal and should be repealed. No argument you can concoct will budge me from that conviction. Weaponry has advanced far beyond the times of the Founders and I have no illusions about about achieving some sort of parity with the Military. THAT just ain’t happenin’. In other posts I have made it clear I do not think another Civil War is feasible in the USA, nor do I see it as desirable. I obey those laws (and others) because I decided long ago that assassinating politicians who pass laws I don’t like was not a good choice for my self-interest. There are people out there who own many of the weapons you list, and I am completely okay with that, even glad for them. For my purposes I am satisfied with my firearms being sufficient to enable me to do what I need and want to do. Others Mileage May Vary and I am good with that, too .
I own my firearms with no intention of harming anyone else, except if they initiate lethal violence against me. Unfortunately, there are and always will be, other people who do choose to intend harm to others and act on that intention willfully. There will not be/cannot be a situation in the future where no firearms are available to anyone. No one can make that situation come about in my natural life expectancy, nor probably in hundreds of lifetimes. I will, therefore, not give-up my firearms and plan on defending myself with a lesser weapon so that some other SOB can shoot me down at will. BTW the last sentence in that paragraph is missing some words because it does not complete a thought. But even so your characterization “the irrational, reckless,negligent “good guy with a gun”,” is offensive, needlessly inflammatory, grade school kid name calling. For that you are a “dooty head”.
I have not “complained” about the Police being unable to protect me in this discussion. But since you brought it up, I will remind you that in the majority of cases you can be seriously injured and/or killed in moments while waiting on the Police to come save you for at least a few minutes, no matter how many of them there are, and the Courts have ruled the Police have no obligation to protect anyone, so both points are lhard facts you can be certain about. It is infeasible to have enough Police to have one nearby enough to protect you wherever you are and they are too heavy to carry around. I do not want a Society where there are THAT MANY Police and I cannot afford to hire 7/24/365 Armed Body Guards, so I must do it myself with my firearm.
In this post your points have become pretty thin, spurious in some places and irrelevant. The discussion we were having had to do with your contending that your right to life without fear of being shot by someone acting negligently “trumps” my right to own and carry a gun for personal defense and my contention that is just not so. I would be nothing but sad should your fear be realized, but I think it so unlikely that I will not concede my right to be prepared to defend myself (or you or anyone else to defend yourself) effectively with a firearm against a much more probable criminal assault. Finally, I have a lot of fun with my firearms, safely and peaceably, and won’t give up my hobby and personal enjoyment out of plain stubborn cussedness because that, too, serves my self interest.
Respectfully, I remain unconvinced.
My review of the weapons/firearms you cannot possess was to highlight that making it illegal for citizens to possess any firearms at all is not equivalent to repealing the second amendment, nor would it be “infringement”, because infringement is a historical and accepted fact. If you will note, the second amendment does not call out guns as the only element involved in RTKBA. This is fertile ground where lawyers enjoy their pastime; parsing words. You have a complete right to defend yourself with weapons (arms). You do not have an enumerated or derived right to harm me without cause.
While probably very, very few gun owners are intentionally negligent and/or reckless, intent does little to put the bullet back in the barrel. Like many others, you are announcing that as a gun owner/carrier, you have a right to put me at risk without me knowing or being able to take reasonable measures to not be the victim of negligent discharges. It would be utter folly to claim that all gun owners are professionally, frequently trained in gun safety and are proficient in gun use. Yet you would claim that the rest of us should operate as if “intent” is sufficient care taken.
All gun owners are presumed to be “good guys with a gun”, until they aren’t. No sane society would permit a person to walkabout with a hand grenade, pin pulled, relying solely on the carrier to keep the spoon down. Yet, somehow people in this country are to be comfortable with gun owners walking around with a round in the chamber, no safety, and only an unthinking trigger-pull away from killing or injuring someone?
Would it be impossible to remove every gun in existence in this country? Yes. But that doesn’t mean we can’t get close. It has never been tried, so we have no data upon which to base a calculation of likelihood. If gun owners are “the most law-abiding” people in society, then law, legislation, court order to surrender guns will be largely obeyed, leaving us with a smaller volume of guns to confiscate.
My last paragraph in the comment you referred to was a recommendation that people (including gun owners) stop decrying the lack of police protection, and do what is necessary (increase police capability in all areas) to see to it that police can actually protect and serve. Note enough cops? Vote to fund new hiring. Not responsive enough? Vote to have police details within a 2 minute or less proximity to every citizen. Now, as an example one can look to Taiwan. It is a relatively crime-free nation (yes, it is a small island). In Taipei City, on every street you have city police presence, government police presence and military. All very visible to the public. These law enforcement agents do not harass the populace, neither do they act belligerently in contacts with the populace. Should we go to that level of presence? Might not be necessary. With enough law enforcement at the local level, cops can be more visible and present that is possible today…if citizens really valued their safety. It seems we are in a situation where we want benefit without paying for it.
Legally resisting the “infringements” (whatever that means) on your RTKBA is your right as a citizen. I would not presume to prevent that. But, how is that working out? No one has successfully brought suit attempting to overturn all restrictions on gun ownership. That is because everyone in this country recognizes that there must be some restrictions of citizens who own firearms. So pro-gun advocates are left chipping at small points, here and there. Never achieving what gun owners hold as an absolute right to own guns. If the second amendment is not absolute, then some order of restriction is accepted by everyone, including gun owners. Then, it is simply a matter of which restrictions are preferred. If you allow any restriction, you must allow all. Otherwise, you end up arguing “reasonable” based on nothing more than your choice of favorite restriction.
“You have a complete right to defend yourself with weapons (arms).” Agreed.
” You do not have an enumerated or derived right to harm me without cause.” I do not infer or derive such a “right”, rather I see an imperative to “intend and do no harm”, unless attacked first, but that does not compel me to surrender my RKBA, nor demand anyone else do so. That is why there are laws to hold me (or you or anyone else) legally accountable should you be “harmed” “without cause”. You seem to think you have a right of some sort to deny others their rights because something “might” happen. I reject that idea categorically.
“…you would claim that the rest of us should operate as if “intent” is sufficient care taken.” Intent is only the first step to taking sufficient care. A person must do more than have a good “intent”. Intention must create conscious action that is consistently and carefully executed to take “sufficient care”. We also have laws that will hold a person responsible for what they fail to do if it results in harm to someone else.
“Yet, somehow people in this country are to be comfortable with gun owners walking around with a round in the chamber, no safety, and only an unthinking trigger-pull away from killing or injuring someone?” Happens everyday in ever increasing numbers in many States. If there was a large number of ND shootings, the News Media would delight in waving those bloody shirts loudly and relentlessly, but that is not the case. Your stereotype of “gun owners walking around” is another biased mischaracterization. Most carriers’ guns may have a round in the chamber and most carry guns have manual safeties (even GLOCKS have a safety, it requires putting a finger on the trigger to disengage, which is a violation of basic gun safety rules if you are not aiming at a target you intend to destroy). Your description of “an unthinking trigger pull” is pure agit prop. So, the short-answer to your question is “Yes!”
“Would it be impossible to remove every gun in existence in this country? Yes. But that doesn’t mean we can’t get close. It has never been tried, so we have no data upon which to base a calculation of likelihood. If gun owners are “the most law-abiding” people in society, then law, legislation, court order to surrender guns will be largely obeyed, leaving us with a smaller volume of guns to confiscate.” This whole paragraph is ill-conceived and would produce widespread civil disobedience and bloodshed. Less than five minutes after you thought you got the last gun in America, enterprising criminals would be smuggling guns and ammunition over the borders smacking their lips at the huge profits they anticipate making. You would literally have to disarm the World to keep guns out of the USA and I’ll guarantee you the Russians, ISIS and the Chinese ( just to name a very few) will tell you in no uncertain terms where to go and what to do with yourself when they tell you “No!”. Oh, and making guns is way easy, so all this would do is bring truth to the old slogan “When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.”.
The next paragraph, you missed the point entirely. First, if someone attacks you with intent to hurt or kill you that act doesn’t take two minutes, it takes mere seconds. So, all you are doing is getting the Police there faster to begin to figure-out what happened. Second, it is simply financially not feasible to hire enough Police to provide the protection you think you need for everyone. Your plan would literally create a “Police State” and I am not having any part of that, nor would the vast majority of other Americans. Cripes! Bernie Sander’s grand plan to give everybody “free stuff” in his envisioned abundance would cost less than what you think is required to make everybody “feel safe”.
In your final paragraph:
“That is because everyone in this country recognizes that there must be some restrictions of citizens who own firearms.” No, not “everyone” agrees with that. I don’t even think its a respectable majority. Probably, a three way split among: “Turn ’em all in, Mr. and Mrs. America.”, ” I don’t have a strong opinion either way.” and “Pry ’em from my cold dead hands.”
“So pro-gun advocates are left chipping at small points, here and there.” That is because pro-gun advocates and organizations are too busy fighting new infringements in the Courts and Public Opinion arena that they cannot devote time and resources to repealing the Major Federal Gun Control Laws that need to be overturned. Meantime many States are repealing Laws on their books that infringe gun rights, while others are planning new and more restrictive infringements. It’s a very fluid situation and frustratingly unproductive in undoing the key Federal Laws.
“If the second amendment is not absolute, then some order of restriction is accepted by everyone, including gun owners. ” Wrong. The Second Amendment is absolute, so the conclusion, ” then some order of restriction is accepted by everyone, including gun owners.” is also wrong.
“If you allow any restriction, you must allow all. Otherwise, you end up arguing “reasonable” based on nothing more than your choice of favorite restriction.” Exactly! Which is why all restrictions (infringements) must be overturned and rejected.
Sign me, Still Unconvinced. Obviously, neither of us is succeeding at “enlightening” the other and sometimes that’s just the way it goes. If you need to have the Last Word on this thread, just post something like, “Go to Hell, DerryM, you stubborn old cuss!” and that’s it. Besides we both know we can butt heads again in the future, and likely will…
No reason to even imply to you, “Go to Hell, DerryM, you stubborn old cuss!” . If you watch this blog closely you will see that such a rant comes from the pro-gun element. I do not hold that someone should be subject to foul language, or be the recipient of curses of any kind.
You may believe that today’s society is welcoming of a “rugged individualist” (my words), strict constitutionalists (absolutists), and the notion that “intent” is sufficient gun safety (although conservatives are quick to slam political opponents for pointing to “intent” as muddled-headed when our ideas and programs are not 100% effective (more likely not 100% to the liking of “conservatives”). My analysis is society is tiring of the “sons of the pioneers” politics of pro-gunners. Your side holds maybe an even split in the “gun rights” struggle. But the slippage to majority is on the anti-gun side; the social justice side.
See ya’ on down tha’ road.
Okay, going back on my word quickly, though…We may be in a sort of agreement in your analysis of contemporary American Society. I see more evidence that the “social justice” current in the US is gaining traction steadily in lieu of the “sons of the pioneers” mentality.
It may, indeed, be inevitable. Whatever the young’uns end up making out of the Country is their business and they will live with it, good, bad or indifferent. My Generation (post WWII Baby Boomer) was dominated by our parents, “The Greatest Generation”. They are mostly dead now and we are starting to die off. Might be time for the winds of change to gust mightily.
Down the road we go..catch you later!
A phrase does not make a truth, repeating it does not make it truer, screaming it does not make it more substantial as a defense of anything. [Please pass this along to your anti gun buddies then because they sure as hell don’t understand that concept.]
“…shall not be infringed.” is so yesterday, and over. You are being infringed. [You are correct and you agree with us so know you should understand our urgency. our rights are ALREADY, you just agreed, being stifled.]
The discussion is not by whom and how much will infringement be allowed. The clatter of chattering voices talking to themselves sway not legislator, judge, nor supporter of reasonable efforts to make society safe from reckless, negligent gun owners (and they are legion, just not yet self-identified). [which is the exact thing anti gunners like you do. talk to yourself in an echo chamber that laws stop criminals and idiots. they don’t and you know it. no one goes around saying ” I WILL NOT STORE MY GUN IN A SAFE MANNER NOR USE THE 4 RULES OF GUN SAFETY” see how you yelling that is how gun owners are, doesn’t make it so????]
To belabor the point, Waco was a long time ago [ so was the founding of this counrty, your point?], but the society endorsed the actions of government agents using deadly force to remove guns from a place where children lived and played…because it was the sensible thing to do. [Using force on a peaceful religious compound, that was a little uncooth, is sensible???? so how many shootings had occurred at the Waco compound BEFORE the involvement of the government???]
“Molon Labe” is so weak; based on claims of the pro-gun crowd, the time has long passed when revolution against “an out of control government” should have happened. [EVEN MORE REASON FOR THE OUTCRY OF NOW. its amazing how little you understand. those that do not learn from history (i.e. letting the government have more control of our lives) are doomed to repeat it (i.e. the government nullifies those rights altogether)]
The founders of this nation would never tolerate the reduction in personal freedoms we enjoy today; theirs was an entirely different time and place. [really? government oversight and backdoor tyranny is nothing new, HENCE WHY THIS COUNTRY WAS STARTED]
So long as you and your kind [nice tribalism and xenophobia, i bet you call yourself a liberal too] accept without rebellion the sensible rules and policies of a modern society, there is no chance of a revolution. [????? wow logic fail. he actually just said ” as long as you accept the laws, which you say are unconstitutional, there will be no rebellion. this guy has no logical reasoning what so ever. why the hell would we rebell if we ACCEPT the laws????]
Keep doing what you are doing, and you will find the government (and over half the population) will be quite willing to come and take it. [And you actually think gun owners are a minority??? you need to check on that bud. but you are…whatever the hip thing to be is now…so you care not of facts.]
I am essentially saying you can’t have it both ways: accept sensible restrictions on gun owners AND denounce the same restrictions you willingly comply with. The rallying cry of gun owners is, “…shall not be infringed”, yet you accept that without rebelling against the infringements. What we are talking about is which infringements are acceptable, based on opinion, preference and emotion. Gun rights people are continually reminding others that guns keep the citizens free of government intrusion, when they clearly do not keep you free of acceptable infringements. The “come and get it” war cry is just silly, and it gives people the impression gun owners are irresponsible and just looking for a fight…and any old citizen will likely do.
We are long passed where an armed insurrection is even a remote possibility. Waco was a tragedy, and as a citizen I was outraged that my government (your government, too) launched a military-style deadly raid on a collection of citizens only because guns and children were in the same building. That action should have outraged everyone on the gun control side because children were murdered for no rational reason. I do not know anyone who supports improving gun safety who will propose or endorse brutal assault by the government because that is the only way to deal with a situation where children and something harmful are in the same place. However, the fact remains that the vast majority of the country deemed Waco a reasonable action, and the anti-government, pro-gun people did not rise in armed opposition to what was clearly an abuse of government power. Point being that if pro-gun people were serious that the public supports the RTKBA, Waco would have resulted in the criminal prosecution and conviction of even a sitting president. Since that did not happen, we are talking about matters of degree, not principle. Thus is is ridiculous that pro-gun advocates refuse any idea, any conversation, any question about why we can’t as a nation figure out how to make our lives safer.
Sigh.
“Smart gun” proposals aren’t usefully understood in terms of what they do for gun performance, you know, shooting things you want to shoot, and not shooting things you don’t. “Smart gun” proposals are usefully understood in terms of control: “Everything not compulsory is forbidden.”, “You live for the hive. There is no other way.”, “Welcome to the Panopticon.”, and you’ll shoot when I say you can shoot.
The “smart” they want to put in guns is their “smart” – their opinion of when you should shoot and not (which is, by definition “smart.”), enabled by some means to inject their control into what you are doing. “Smart guns” are exciting as a way for them to get further into your holster. (Hey, I’m not judging. Whatever gets your …, oh, wait, I can’s say that.)
I’ll consider any legislation for “smart gun” technology that can be field adjusted to perform however the owner wants. Electro-optical, three-camera dog-smelling print “safety” interlocks that only fire when the moon is in the seventh house – go for it. As long as there’s a “Sorry, not a water sign.” switch.
If I can’t turn it off, well, this is *you* telling *me* how I’m gonna shoot my own guns, isn’t it?
The appeal isn’t even keeping people from getting shot. The point is another increment of “You get to
do anything at allshoot when i say you can.”… or they’d be talking about banning swimming pools. For the children.
Pretty amazing seeing the troll anti-gun crowd showing up. I guess the closer we get to November the more trolls there will be under the bridges. It just gets tiring trying to talk sense to people who’s only understanding of “reality” is born out of the Marxist colleges and universities of this country.
I did not attend schools of the type you describe. On the other hand, pro-gun people seem to subscribe to the school of law of the jungle; survival of the fittest. Simple fact is a nation of 340,000,000 cannot function successful with 340,000,000 sovereign potentates.
On that I would agree with you. Please tell me how we bridge the gap. In the past we had a Christian nation with clear definitions of men and women, right and wrong. While the practice of that definition was at times sorely lacking at least it was there. If you are so set for smart guns then convince me through argument. All I hear from you is mumbo-jumbo about some group of people who know better than the guns owners about what they want for the gun owners lives. That sounds to me like your simply raising the volume and attempting to shout us down. Until you can convince us then don’t expect anything to change.
The supreme court of late has created a vision where each person gets to define what it is that makes them who they are and what their vision of happiness is. (Casey decision) I think that avenue is ultimately going to destroy this nation. Like you said 340,000,000 people who who think they are little gods. It won’t end well unless we have a shared Christian vision of what it means to be a unified nation. It might be best to some day simply divide the nation. (hopefully without bloodshed) Honestly I think within 10 years many of the blue states would beg the red states to have them back.
I liked your response. No vitriol, no shouts, no slogans, no false bravado. Thank you.
When storming the castle of willfulness and selfishness, one receives considerable irrationality in return, volumes of it. That requires being persistent and forceful in return.
The conditions surrounding pro/anti guns are displaying no clear majority, at this time. However, the thrust to introduce sanity into a culture of gun owners who can hear or see nothing that challenges their fragile images of themselves is slowly, inexorable moving the nation toward a more just society, and one less burdened (dependent on) notions that the only way to combat whatever security threat they perceive is with a gun, guns which too easily kill innocents at close and long range. People of that mind-set have no care for the safety of the populace that surrounds them, willingly allowing the least capable among us to wield a gun at will, with no prudent restrictions, or method to quickly identify and contain those who cannot be disciplined enough to be reliably safe. It is difficult to have a conversation with people who tolerate no opposition to their one-dimensioned outlook on life, and the lives of others. In the end, if a means cannot be collaboratively found to further remove the likelihood of irresponsibility and negligence on the part of those who want unfettered proliferation of guns, the majority of the population will enact measures to force sensibility on gun owners. The emerging demographics favor those with outright hysterical fear of guns, or a history of national control of guns. That demographic will provide the votes to establish “common sense gun control” (however you whish to fill-in the details), even if it means laws mandating total surrender of private firearms. The courts (below SC) are not embracing Heller, they are defying. Towns are moving inexorably to restrict private purchase and use of firearms, a 50-50 split between pro and anti-gun supporters is not a victory, nor does it portend future victory for rampant gun ownership.
While I understand the utter depravity of mankind (yes, I can be politically incorrect; “mankind” vs. “personkind”), I believe people can accomplish truly good things. We can shape the future (I know, it defies the third law of thermodynamics) to be a better place than a careless attitude about trying will give us.
But, if you’ve read the last chapter of the book, things will get truly disastrous before they get better. But we are not to go down without a fight for good things.
“or method to quickly identify and contain those who cannot be disciplined enough to be reliably safe.”
I prefer a Machiavellian style of governance. Laws simple, punishment swift & harsh.
That being said i have a means of identifying and containing the persons you spoke of. Everyone is free to carry everywhere, everyone is free to die the istant they fuck up.
To have a free society, everyone must be expected to take full responsibility for one’s surroundings, and given the latitude to self enforce.
If negligent gun owners are shot on the spot when they kill or injure another, you may be onto an innovative solution. Would seem both sides could agree to something like that. To borrow from Lazarus Long, when you might immediately pay with your life for an egregious error, people just might be hyper careful in what they do.
Thank you for the validation. I thought i was just being a right wing nut job.
Yeah, that would be the thought. But there are those on the anti-gun side who will excuse just about anything for fear they will be held accountable for something illegal or unconscionable that they like.
Doubtful. They regularly call for the execution of normal gun owners.
This discussion is finished.
Where are these mythical towns you keep talking about. If you get outside of the big cities, most of the population in small town America (including the suburbs) have little to no use for restrictions on guns. You seem convinced that there is some super majority that just hasn’t spoken on the topic. Your arguments are not changing me or anyone that I know and my bet is that you’re a little afraid that your arguments will not gain traction. Look, like it or not guns are here to stay. There are 300,000,000 + of them out there. They well not magically go away just because you want them to. They are part and parcel of this nations past and they will be part and parcel of its future. The NRA is the biggest civil rights organization by far for a reason.
I like that the citizens can speak freely and they have the ability to back it up. You do not. I prefer the great unwashed’s opinion on a matter more than any elite, big city lawyers. (Not saying you are it just seems to me that they seem to hate guns the most.) Your demographic issue is again a moot point. What may come to be in the future neither you, I or anyone knows. We live on a knives edge of the present. As you said earlier technology is what you make of it. That being said then let’s teach our children the 10 commandments and the basics of the constitution, the bill of rights and traditional values. That will make you feel safer than anything forced on your neighbors through coercion. If you are afraid of violence than stop marching down that avenue. Only terrible things I fear well happen if your side keeps trying to eliminate freedom, which is absolutely why people in the end value this nation. Ideas matter. Freedom matters. Why don’t you go out sometime and shoot a gun. I bet you well be surprised at how simple they are, how enjoyable they can be and how they demand responsibility.
You are tracking back to the thing that works hardest against you. Freedom is defined by the ability to possess guns. The second amendment RTKBA means guns, only. In any discussion of freedom, there is freedom “to” and freedom “from”. We are each allowed to hold forth an opinion because….freedom.
The number of guns in the country is not a deterrent from attempting to make it safer for people to live in a society where they do not need to fear irresponsible “good guys with guns”. The number of guns is not a deterrent to reasonable rules about possession and use, such as professional and continuing safety and proficiency courses. The number of guns is not a deterrent to eliminating them; that is merely a logistical matter (we won WW2 [the last victory] through superior logistics).
Demographics are not on your side, either.
Well, another easily blown off when the conversation becomes uncomfortable. This is why your side is losing.
Total BS. You believe you know better than we do how we are supposed to live our lives. Just like the average leftist. Your certain demographics are on your side and that ideas do not matter. Your comments speak to a deep seated racism. Just because someones skin color is brown does not make them automatically a mindless moron afraid of there shadow. We believe ideas matter and that forming the human moral system is the best way to stop violence, you believe that people are mindless drones without free will and coercion will force the issue. Even if your right the ideas will still be out there and I can promise you good ideas never die, ever heard of Greek thought?
Finally you never answer my questions, you only repeat your talking points.
For starters how about telling me what we are going to do with the 330,000,000 guns in circulation? And as I have stated before, there are 150,000,000 that disagree with you, and of that number there are tens of millions who would not go easily into the night. If you don’t believe that than once again I challenge you to get out of your ivory tower and see Americans for who they are.
That being said reading about your irrational fear of being shot would cause me to advise you to see a psychiatrist. Your fear does not outweigh my freedom.
Looks like you lost the game and are declaring victory, grabbing your marbles and heading home.
Hey 2a… Couldn’t respond to u up there but I have a simple yes/no question… Would you support Eddie Eagle curriculum and gun safety and handling classes in all public high schools? Would you support it as a mandatory class? Since this would promote safety and help reduce the human error element? To be clear these classes would not teach wether guns are bad or good, just teach safety rules, trigger discipline and the manual of arms for some guns.
You speak on compromise on our end, would you agree to it on your end?
Absolutely !
I support any training about firearms, especially that which has common universal standards (I am told Eddie Eagle is like that). I support annual or semi-annual gun proficiency training (mandatory). I support multi-media outlet advertisement of the utility and value of continuing firearms training (including live-fire requirements).
I should think the pro-gun supporters would rush to promote gun safety and competency at every opportunity. Doesn’t seem to be too attractive to gun owners, but I can see tons of benefits to such. It would certainly demonstrate gun owners take their responsibility very seriously.
Well, I thought you declared this discussion over. Glad you returned.
As explained to another commenter, removing guns is not all that difficult. Time-consuming, but very doable. Gun dealers can be required to turn over all their records (some go back a long, long way, some do not). People can be targeted for arrest on non-gun charges (in most states it is illegal to change lanes on a street/hiway without signaling; ever done that?). The stop can devolve into probable cause to search, and the drug dog alerts (alert is not the same as finding drugs, but you end up cooling your heels in jail while your car is investigated). Now, you are out of circulation. Feds go to your house with a warrant for a drug search, and find guns. Feds/locals take guns. No armed confrontation.
You say most people (gun owners) are law-abiding. What is their natural response to a new law? How many want to put their jobs, finances, family at risk of loss, bankruptcy, foreclosure? Heavy motivation to not defy government. How many gun owners have never served a day in the military? Why not? How many gun owners who never stood up for their country do you expect to stand up for gun rights…to the point of warfare?
Fear of the loss of everything is a powerful thing. How many people showed up to support Cliven Bundy at the ranch? Few. How many people organized militias and stormed federal depots to disarm the government agents? None. If Bundy and Waco and Ruby Ridge are not enough to energize the patriots, what will?
Being realistic, I grant you taking guns away from gangbangers, drug sellers and all the other criminal types will be more difficult than from law-abiding citizens, but an enraged government just might decide to put a permanent end to those by assaulting known snake pits. But I suspect the decision will be that crime can never be permitted, and can be contained without confiscation. Preventing yet to be “instant bad guys” (“good guys with a gun”, until they aren’t) from becoming criminals with guns will be considered worth the effort.
Two questions you asked: what to do with existing guns? Take them away through many avenues that push citizens up against compliance, or loss of everything; took my marbles and went home. Nope, spent the day fulfilling my patriotic duty by finishing and filing my just taxes.
You are just Restating your talking points for the 30th time. Your either a shill for Bloomberg or someone who has a smart gun company. You seem to think your right because you repeat yourself. You’ve dodged my questions over and over and over again while I have shot your points all to hell. (No pun intended) Stop yelling with your hands over your ears it does get tiresome. If you’re the average representative of the left then our country is doomed, we sure would not have won WW 2 with people like you. Afraid of life, whining about things they can’t control, certain that there the only person with a thinking mind. For the last time, get out of your ivory tower and live a little, I promise you will be happier.
Ok, I answered two of your questions, which ones did I leave out?
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