(courtesy YouTube)

“President Barack Obama is opening a new front in the gun control debate,” politico.com reports, “readying a big push for so-called smart gun technology — an initiative that the gun lobby and law enforcement rank and file is already mobilizing against.” Oh good! If law enforcement officers are against it, that puts the pro-gun control side in a pickle. Support smart guns for the “only ones” they deem worthy of carrying guns against the wishes of their police supporters. “As early as Friday, Obama is set to formally release findings from the Defense, Justice and Homeland Security Departments on ways to spur the development of guns that can be fired only by their owner, according to industry and gun control sources. Senior Adviser Valerie Jarrett is slated to preview the announcement for stakeholders on Thursday afternoon.” Listen to the cops caterwaul . . .

While the “smart gun” element of the actions drew little attention earlier this year [ED: As part of his January executive actions, Obama directed agencies to “consider whether including such technology in specifications for acquisition of firearms would be consistent with operational needs.”] critics are gearing up to fight back against the possibility that such guns could be required for government firearms purchases.

A source familiar with the plans said that type of mandate isn’t on tap right now, but critics are still worried the administration is laying the groundwork for such a move. Among the biggest skeptics are cops worried about testing an unproven technology on the streets.

“Police officers in general, federal officers in particular, shouldn’t be asked to be the guinea pigs in evaluating a firearm that nobody’s even seen yet,” said James Pasco, executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police. “We have some very, very serious questions.” . . .

Of the 330,000 officers in his union, Pasco said, “I have never heard a single member say what we need are guns that only we can fire,” noting that there might be moments in close combat when an officer would need to use a partner’s weapon or even the suspect’s.

Serious questions? Must be serious! Seriously, you couldn’t ask for a better way to kill mandatory smart guns than having cops cry foul. We’re not against consumer choice, but this is good news for gun rights.

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86 COMMENTS

  1. What a great idea! Once it is shown how poorly they perform, maybe we will finally hear the end of this idiotic foolishness.

      • “My exact thought, implementation on a very large scale and watch all the fails.”

        Fvck ’em.

        Ram that requirement right down law enforcement’s throat the same way the rammed ‘ObamaCare’ down *our* throats…

        • I can think of no better test market than Chicago! Yep lets require CPD to carry smart guns and see just how well that works out. I can see two outcomes: 1. The vast majority of CPD quits when they discover that the guns frequently don’t work. 2. Big stink happens when it is discovered that hackers can remotely shut down all the guns the cops have, because the feds secretly required this in the specification. If there is a back door the hackers will eventually find it.

          Bottom line: the cops and most everyone else will blame the gun control twits and the feds and that will be the end of “smart guns.” The only people to suffer will be the folks who put Chicago political types like Obama and Dead Fish Emanual in office.

        • Interesting, Rusty, but wouldn’t it be more effective in reducing Chicago’s astronomical homicide rate if they passed a law requiring gang-bangers to use only “Smart guns”?

      • Its going to be like the movie Titanic. The moment the USS Feelzgud meets the iceberg of reality.

        As I said below….grab your popcorn.

      • I would agree, but there’s absolutely nothing to prevent them from a last minute overhaul before signing into law. Say, something along the lines of mandating smart guns only in certain states (CA Approved Handgun Roster?) with the ever-present LEO carve-out. THAT’S when the Fraternal Order of Police will whole-heartedly agree and back this kind of requirement. Happens often and, unfortunately, across the Nation. The Obama Administration is also looking into a similar requirement for all US Troops. This is more likely just a ploy to get funding to entice the manufacture or R&D.

        • Since this law is aimed at law enforcement, an LEO carve-out seems… unlikely, to say the least.

      • The tragedy will be that any failure won’t be explained by recognizing that it didn’t work, but that we didn’t do enough of it.

        No one in the political sphere cares what cops think. The departments will be sacrificed to support political goals through the federal, state, and local politicians.

        Most big city police chiefs are not in law enforcement positions but are political appointees serving at the discretion of, and expected to fully support, their political masters.

        Come at this from a different angle and it looks ominous.

        You’ll come up with one solution if you think this is just another stupid idea.

        You come up with a different conclusion if no one cares whether it works or not, and even worse, *wants* it not to work.

        Hopefully this can be beat down before it gains any traction but the next presidential administration is going to playa big role in how this goes forward. I’m no convinced there is a lot of practical daylight between the Democratic and Republican front runners at this point when push comes to shove.

    • Only after spending billions of taxpayer dollars on bad technology. And likely the dollars will go to Obama friendly researchers and companies.

  3. Man officers are going to be pissed. It’s kind of a reverse carve out right now. I say let them work the bugs out.

  4. “…spur the development of guns that can be fired only by their owner…” they said.

    As Cmdr. “Stinger” Jordan stated in Top Gun “You don’t own that aircraft, the taxpayers do!”

    By extension, unless personally purchased with their own funds, the cops don’t actually own the guns they carry – the taxpayers do. So the guns need to be operable by all authentic taxpayers, including the cops themselves (assuming they pay taxes for the jurisdiction they serve in). However, any non-taxpayers (probably including most criminals) shouldn’t have access.

    • I like it. Say, a transponder in your driver’s license, read by the mechanism in your 25-lb handgun, rechecked with headquarters within a half-hour and transmitted back, bandwidth permitting, releasing your 3-shot non-lethal discourager for use. Cops will love it! Taxpayers probably not so much, current estimates are $1.7 million each, and of course they cannot be reloaded. Your government at work!

    • Yep– caterwaul as in make the logical arguments as to why ‘smart guns’ for guns intended for self-defense are a very bad idea.

      I’ve thought this about most of the gun laws, they usually exempt LEOs so they’ll go along with them. If LEOs ar not exempt they’re the best advocates we have in fighting them and keeping them from getting enacted.

    • And’t shall go hard,
      But I shall delve one yard below their mines,
      And blow them at the moon.

  7. I absolutely love this. Only thing which would suit me even better would be to mandate the military adopt his stupidity as well. A great idea which is absolutely necessary makes itself evident quickly. Once we get the Army’s assault weapons all locked down so they can only be fired by the guy assigned to them, we need to move on to the tanks and helicopter gunships. Then, it’s on to the B-52s and F-16s, this is really brilliant! One question, would be disposition of weapon systems when the couple grunt separates from the service. Does he get to keep his tank/jet/rifle? Is this also going to apply to nuclear tipped ICBMs? I contend this is a joke somehow, it is not possible to really be that stupid.

    • Your humor is not lost, and I agree. However, for the sake of those that may read this and start wondering about the slippery slope, it is extremely difficult to have he wrong person in the cockpit of an aircraft. There are several measures in place that pretty much eliminate the possibility of stealing an aircraft. They’re under positive control at all times. Getting one airborne is a minor logistical miracle, much more so when loading live weapons onboard.

      And holy crap, ICBMs are the holy grail of positive control. Sleep easy on that one, America.

      I imagine the same holds true for tanks and such, but I wouldn’t know.

      Edit: I spell goodly.

      • Yeah. Not so much. I used to work on an armor motor pool. If you know how to drive one and can lay hands on a decent pair of bolt cutters you can drive it off. the live ammo is a little harder to get your hands on, but not that much harder. I remember taking one in for service and cracking open the Ammo storage unit and finding a full combat load

      • Well, Anner, that might be the case, today. But when I retired in 1991 and for 22 years before that, it was not. Anybody who knew how could crank up a 100-150 TON aircraft and fly it away. But that was not the question. My gun is also secure, does not need this silliness. If my gun, or the gun of a local LEO, needs this stupid crap, why doesn’t a nuclear weapon?

  8. If he can’t get Law Enforcement to die to prove this technology has flaws, perhaps the Military will answer the commanders call. How’s about we tool up several million smart rifles and smart pistols so that are military has some nice unproven questionable battle rifles and side arms when next they need to face the enemy.

  9. I am curious how this will apply to firearms training and ranges that currently rent out or provide firearms only for the duration of the time spent on the range.

    • But definitely cops before “civilians”, as the cops are much, much more likely to be killed with their own carry weapons than we are.

    • I agree. Obama really needs to take the lead and put his money where his mouth is (or his ass in this case).

  14. Let the Secret Service test and uses these guns first. Say for a trst period of maybe 10 years

  16. “Smart” weapons. Like iPhones and smart cars… Will be hacked. So, liberals are calling for guns that actually CAN fire themselves.

  17. Yeah i don’t see how he can do this to local PD and Sherrifs offices. The only real mandate that he can have influence over would be federal law enforcement like ATF or FBI and the like. Sure he can pressure some of his liberal controlled cities like Chiraq and Deblasio’s play house but any LE south of the Mason Dixon is gonna tell him to go pound sand.

    • With hold access to DOJ grant funds and other federal funding programs, programs for police purchases of surplus DOD equipment, and federal asset forfeiture programs. It’s all about the strings.

      • He has been told to keep his damn bribes before, most notably in the Medicaid BS, where states simply had to sign up to spend billions upon billions forever, in order to get a few bucks tomorrow. *Every* rational governor laughed.

  18. ? I’m all for federal agents being forced to use smart guns.

    As Star Trek Captain Jean Luc Picard might have said:

    “Make it so.”

  19. But before the local law enforcement cower down to the feds and be forced to go smart gun, the
    local leo’s should tell the feds, YOU GO FIRST.

    ATF, FBI, Homeland Security, THE PRESIDENT’S SECURITY DETAIL,
    etc. should go smart gun first.

  20. “shouldn’t be asked to be the guinea pigs in evaluating a firearm that nobody’s even seen yet”

    So who should then, I ask rhetorically?

    In answer to that, why not try it out on all those middle east freedom fighters the .gov has been so excited to arm lately?

  21. Do it. Make all your federal goon squads carry “smart guns”. Start with the BATFE. Then how about Chicago and New York Police? See what the police unions think of you now.

  22. For the rank and file – yeah, maybe.

    But, I’ll bet all the super secret squirrel operators in the alphabet soup agencies will still have full-auto, short barreled, 100 round clipazine, death dealer guns…

    Because, the fine folks at the Post Office and IRS still gotta SWAT.

  24. I can see it now. Huma to Hilary “Well if the Police won’t test them, let the gun owners in New Jersey do it. I’m sure Gov. Weinberg will have no objection.”

  25. That useless POS Jarrett kept the moronic POS under control for 7 years. Full on marxist retard is coming out now.

  26. I know it shouldn’t but this puts a painfully huge grin on my face.
    Will we see the clods in the various police associations come out against smart guns now? Probably not since most of them are political hacks first, desk jockeys second and cops fifth or sixth.

  27. Solving all other problems facing the country, Obama decides it would be a good idea to add another 500 billion dollars or so in debt on a unworkable proposition, because what the heck. For the children. It’s common sense. It’s the the right thing to do. I’m sure that I have missed some, feel free to add them.

  28. There’s a strange part of me that wants to see this get enacted in some area like Detroit where it will fail miserably and then be dismissed and opposed and ridiculed wherever it is mentioned for the next 20 or 30 years. However, that also means likely loss of life which is not good. So, in the end – I have to oppose the whole idea.

  29. Who cares, government animals can use whatever equipment they are given. Government animals have no rights.

  30. The only way that rights will be uniformly restored to the citizen is when those who were formerly exempt from those laws are subjected to them and raise their objections.

  33. Just another way for some special interest group to get free government dope. This will amount to nothing except wasting more money we do not have.

  34. The LEO unions will NEVER let it happen. If it did, the first time some cop or Federal agent got killed because his “smart” gun didn’t go off, the LEO unions would go on a bloody rampage like so many Hutu militias. They would seek… and GET the scalps of ANYBODY who signed off on the acquisition.

    To use the parlance of a modestly famous community organizer, they’ve now “got skin in the game”.

  35. Wow, best gun salesman of the year 8 years running, prevented activist LEOs from prohibiting otherwise law abiding citizens from owning NFA goodies, and now singlehandedly torpedoing any chance Smart Guns had of ever becoming mainstream…. I like it!

    The problem is, they will build the entire framework, and then at the 11th hour exempt law enforcement and cram it down our throats before anyone realizes what happened.

  36. My concern is what if it actually starts working properly for cops? Lets say in 5-10 years what if the LEOs have worked out the problems and it is working well and only LEOs can use the guns? If it works will it give the anti gunners all the more traction to force it upon us?

    • Do you own a computer or a “smart” PHONE?

      It only has to NOT work ONCE.

      When that first cop dies, this nonsense will go the way of the Chauchat and the M-73.

      • Good story, Chris, but how do you plan for people to discover hat the technology failed? The facts will be hidden, over and over and over, and no one will keep any records, the facts will simply disappear.

  38. /Popcorn

    This seems like policy by other means. I didn’t realize that new technology development, policy research and advocacy were core missions of the DoD, DoJ, and Homeland Security.

    They do seem to have a cart & horse ordering problem: compact flourescents, Solyndra & similar, now this. You specify *what* you want, leaving the *how* to people who, you know, know something about how. They don’t seem to get that reality gets a vote, often the only one that matters.

  40. “… findings from the Defense, Justice and Homeland Security Departments on ways to spur the development of guns that can be fired only by their owner …”

    That is easy: use a Level II or better retention holster and SECURE YOUR FIREARMS WHEN THEY ARE NOT ON YOUR PERSON.

    Oh, and invest a few dozen hours in hand-to-hand combat techniques to ensure that you are able to keep your handgun when a criminal suddenly attacks you unannounced.

    Problem solved.

    • “SECURE YOUR FIREARMS WHEN THEY ARE NOT ON YOUR PERSON.”

      Or not. Who cares? This is stupid, how about “when somebody tries to steal your gun, then shoot, shovel, and shut up!”?

  43. “Smart Gun” propaganda is yet another means to an end ploy by firearm abolitionists to accomplish their objectives with a little deceit, a few half truths, and a giant pile of bull$#it and outright lies the progressive liberals so love, much like the bull$#it they repeat to each other about the online purchase of firearms delivered to your door.

    The holy grail quest by Colt and countless other manufacturers to perfect the so called “Smart Gun” began over three decades ago when today’s technology we take for granted with iphones and scores of other modern gadgets was nothing more than Star Trek inspired science fiction.

    There’s a reason not one law enforcement or military entity worldwide have attempted to utilize “Smart Gun” technology. No such technology exists that any sane person would be willing to stake their life on. In the decades since engineers began trying to crack the “Smart Gun” code, Gaston Glock conquered the pistol market, President Reagan’s “Star Wars” missile defense system came to fruition, and wrist watch phones became a reality; but no “Smart Gun”.

    The day when every single U.S. law enforcement officer is equipped with a “Smart Gun” is the day we’ll all know for certain that elusive “Smart Gun” technology has finally achieved fail safe reliability and more importantly AFFORDABILITY.

    If that breakthrough is one day accomplished, all reliable and affordable “Smart Guns” will be in such high demand that U.S. firearms sales will soar to record numbers necessitating new ploys and propaganda by anti 2nd amendment progressive liberals in their crusade to disarm the law abiding U.S. Citizen.

  44. I’m shocked – nobody has suggested the obvious backdoor. Obama makes a system that works – I know, any failures and it’s done, but let’s just say that they make it work – and it works every time. It works every time until the Government sends the backdoor signal that makes none of the civilian models work. Do you think Obama has really NOT thought if this? You bet he has and you can bet that that’s why he’s pushing the technology.

  45. I’m all for alcohol tobacco and firearms,federal bureau of investigation , drug enforcement agency ,internal revenue service, bureau of land management, postal inspectors, food and drug, secret service, park rangers and any other federal employee who carries a weapon in their job capacity in the domestic United States having to turn in all their weapons for smart tech weapons.
    I know I would feel safer if the federal government agencies were essentially disarmed.

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