“Gun companies have no problem with 21st-century technology if it’s used to enhance the lethality of their products. But if you try (to) compel them to use technology to improve gun safety, they turn around and sue you.” – CSGV communications director Ladd Everitt in ‘Google Glass + Guns = Disaster’ [at thedailybeast.com]
Not even a basic understanding of economics…. No one makes smart guns because nobody would buy them. When there are smart guns that don’t suck and endanger your life, I’m sure tons of folks will pay for them. It’s the most basic form of the free market.
I agree, and the government should lead by example. Require by law every federal agency that uses guns and every police force that uses guns to be the first to adopt and use the technology. Show me after a few years of field use there are no problems, and then we can talk. It seems so obvious that the best technology in the world should be used by government police forces, let them be first.
Really, if the find they can trust their lives with smart guns, then I will follow but I am not willing to be first.
Naaa… it’s your civic duty to be a beta-tester by mandate.
If the government adopts this technology, I would finally agree with the Anti-gun crowd on civilians not needing Military weapons… Seems like a win-win for our side.
Now that’s a burn!
Well, if part of Sig Sauer’s cachet is that the Secret Service carries them, then let’s see the boys in shades be the first to start packing so-called “smart guns” so we can all share in the confidence of how safe and effective the next generation firearms are. I’m sure that’ll take place about as soon as the kids transfer from Sidwell Friends to the D.C. public school system.
That’s because the technology you think works doesn’t… If only you could understand the ultimate safety precaution is the person. The answer isn’t technology.
I will be all for a smart gun when it doesn’t come with a whole host of alterior motives, which is not likely knowing the people pushing so hard.
When a smart guns ID recognition system fails my gun is useless.
When Google Glasses fails I have BUIS.
You know how they blame us for all the operator talk, saying it eggs on the crazies? I wonder what they think happens when they refer to handguns as “pocket sized death machines,” and common semi auto rifles as “rapid killing baby erasers.” I’m willing to bet that spree killers generally have the medias image of their firearm sloshing around in their heads when they commit these atrocities, not rock rivers or bushmasters.
“Rapid-Killing baby erasers”?
Sir, I am offended. Any liberal worth hir (sic) salt-substitute, knows that only an abortion can erase a baby.
Uh huh. And there’s a reason your lawnmower doesn’t boot up under Microsoft Windows 8.1.
I know. Why should my gun have to?
“Compel” being the key word here. What a moron.
“People have no problem using 21st century GPS technology to keep track of where they are, but if you try to compel them to use technology that tracks their movements, they turn around and sue you.”
“People have no problem using 21st century technology to heal them when they’re sick, but if you try to forcibly medicate them, they turn around and sue you.”
“Women have no problem using 21st century technology to abort their pregnancies, but if you try to compel them to use technology to get pregnant, they turn around and sue you.”
Beat me to it. The whole objection in a nutshell, and he just brushes right by it.
Guns are already safer than cars, pools, draino, matches, prescription drugs and staircases, what exactly is the issue? How is microstamping a safety issue? “Smart Guns” are being brought up too? I guess he wasn’t aware of the satellite jammer the company made? Nothing safe about a smart gun anyway. What about guns that send text messages to Feinstein everytime the trigger is pulled? Absurd article.
2014 “We need smart guns!”
2015 “We need smarter guns and more laws!”
2016 “We lost our thesaurus, and have no more synonyms for ‘confiscate'”
COMMENT MODERATE – No AD HOMINEM ATTACKS ALLOWED
I think that intentional billiard-ball look is really really creepy. I can remember when there were people called nazi skin-heads.
Hey, I figure I’m going to end up there in a few years. It’s not a “Nazi skinhead” thing, it’s a “It’s this or a comb-over” thing.
You could always get the “power donut” like Sean Connery or Tony Soprano. Maybe you’re one of the lucky guys who can pull that off.
Or, you could be badass and get the Schopenhauer:
http://edocs.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/volltexte/2007/81000065/original/Bild.jpg
Capt. Picard was bald on top, but it was natural, and he kept the side and back hairs, albeit trimmed very closely.
The wispy chin whiskers don’t help, either. Like he missed a place shaving. Why doesn’t he groom them into a monogram or something.
Shaven head, dark suit, just add dark glasses & he could provide security for Moms Against Guns.
Everitt also thinks that “interest in guns is dwindling anyway. ‘The only ones who will truly notice are those who have been keeping track—the real aficionados’ he says. ‘If you go back to the mid-’70s, more than half of households owned a firearm. Now it’s about 1 in 3.'”
I’d like to see some backup for that number, please. How many do and refuse to reveal that information?
Around where I live, it’s closer to, oh, 1 to 1.
I believe the latest gallup poll put the figure at 47% of households having a gun. It was probably a little higher in the 1970s, but it’s now the highest it’s been since 1993. There’s a reason they decided to reach all the way back to the 1970s – so they could claim a decline.
Exactly – they want the sheep and politicians to think the numbers are declining. Going with the sheeple concept: look what everyone else is doing.
The Illinois State Police website states:
“The Illinois State Police (ISP), Firearms Services Bureau, (FSB) has received a record number of FOID card applications since May 2012. For example, in January 2013, the ISP FSB, received 61,172 FOID applications. As a comparison, in January 2012, the ISP FSB, received 31,655, which had been the highest number of FOID applications received during the month of January in years prior to 2012.”
Some how I do not think Illinois is the only state that has seen a record number of new gun owners.
Everitt seems mystified that an industry would resist being “compelled” to re-design their products at the whim of people who don’t, haven’t, and never will use the product in any shape or form.
As far as how many households have firearms: It’s possible, with government information gathering and intrusion becoming so common, that a lot of folks don’t announce such things as gun ownership as readily as they used to. It’s also possible he makes the statement with no real data all, because he feels “compelled” to further his agenda at the expense of truth and facts–for our own good. agenda
Where I live in western MD it’s still a way of life.
My guns are like me.
American Made.
I want tech in my gun, I want a select-fire pistol and long rifle… I believe that is the current modern tech for those guns right? But I want them without a 30k price tag or 9 month wait or filling out enough forms that they can tell how many dental cavities I have…
Laura Cutilletta, senior staff attorney at the California-based Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, says the upcoming technology advertised by TrackingPoint seems all right for the military, less so for civilians.
You could also call this article the “You don’t need it edition”
I own both revolvers and pistols. Guns are not smart, rely on me to decide shoot, don’t shoot. I will never own a weapon that has the means to take that decision away.
Yes …
We can all see the first lawsuit around smart guns being “it didn’t fire when I needed it to.”
I’m willing to bet the first “It just went off when I was trying to show my brother/spouse/parent/friend how safe it is” lawsuit will put the company out of business. Because you know someone will try that.
Dubious Statistics: Check.
Unsupported Assertions: Check
Flawed Premise: Check
Glaring Logical Error: Check
Confirm, some one is making an argument for gun control.
Mr. Everitt,
The state has decided that every car should have an ignition lock that requires you to submit to a breathalyzer prior to using. I know know you have not been convicted of DUI but it’s pre-emptive. Oh and it has a remote kill switch, in case, well you know we need to keep you in place…you know in an emergency.
Oh and since you might commit a crime in the future, under the Feinstein-Boxer-Clinton-Bloomberg Crime Prevention act of 2017, we’re going to implant a pacemaker in you with a remote kill switch. Well, in you and your children.
You don’t mind being compelled to do this do you? it’s for the children.
They are taking our freedoms away. It is our soul and it hurts. USA!
If u drive anything w Onstar, they can kill the vehicle remotely. Police just fill out a form and engine shutdown w you locked inside
Until you pull out your dumb knife that can’t be remotely deactivated to cut your seat belt, and then use your dumb gun to break the window
I aways wondered about that lock feature.
Couldn’t you just manually open the locks?
A good reason to drive a pre 1974 vehicle every day. Plus they just look cooler and sound better.
If Smart Gun technology is so great, then let Law Enforcement use it first. We want to make sure that an officer’s weapon can’t be used against him, don’t we?
But it seems that Law Enforcement is always exempt from these “common sense” gun laws such as magazine capacity limits, safe gun lists, and smart gun technology. Why is that? Maybe Law Enforcement knows something that the gun law writers don’t? Or maybe the law writers do know…
COMMENT MODERATE – No AD HOMINEM ATTACKS ALLOWED
I have enough fire power to defend my country for a hell of a fight for 10 minutes.
“…microstamping—where lasers engrave the gun’s model and serial number on internal parts of the gun, which should show up on cartridge casing when it is fired…”
They get it wrong every single time. Journalists are like babies: They get put into a high chair, and are spoon-fed pablum from every idiot Left-Wing group that comes along, and they shit it out onto the pages of whatever diaper they’re writing for. This piece is written by an obviously Left-Wing journalista, and only gets one side of the story with the quotes. It’s written with obvious bias against firearms, technology, and anything that would interest a new generation of shooters.
What’s that on his chin? Did someone rub his face in the dirt?
@RockOnHellChild, it’s a ….. snack preserver shall we say?
“Compel” I think they meant force and the microstamping they are talking about does nothing for “gun safety”. They fail to realize if technology existed that actually improved safety and was near 100% reliable it would be accepted by the market.
These people are so delusional thinking gun owners are on the decline. Im 29 and more than half my friends on Facebook have posted either a picture of themselves shooting or a pro gun post. Most of them I haven’t talked to in years and they are all from NJ.
“delusional thinking gun owners are on the decline”
I can’t help but wonder if there’s been a recent increase in tragic boating accidents.
“compel”
Perhaps he doesn’t understand the word? Or perhaps he just thinks that is his right?
I’ll be perfectly willing to contemplate purchasing a “techno-gun” just as soon as the U.S. Military (all Branches) and the PD’s of New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Chicago, Los Angeles, Dallas and Atlanta have adopted “techno-guns” as their standard issue weapons: pistol, shotgun and rifle. That’s the only way I can feel confident they are really Safe as this yapping billiard ball says they are.
White people look bad with a shaved head.
A tad off the specific target–but I noticed nothing about either Isla Vista or SPU on the Yahoo and MSN news portals just now. Is it just me or do they both seem to be dropping off the radar already?
I don’t have a problem with 21st Century Technology. I have a problem with ‘compel’. I would complain just as loud and long if they compelled me to buy an app for my phone so I could shoot around corners…
Pretty much like trying to market hammers available with grips custom formed to one user’s hand. Expensive, limiting, and very few (wealthy carpenters?) would buy them. Derp.
Mr. Ladd is a racist instigator punk. I have the tweets to prove it.
The fact he is even given space to write his opinion is pretty sad.
Modern “journalism” (if it can even be called that) is a joke. When activist journalists like this author find stories like this, all they see is an opportunity to use the story to their own ends and talk about their pet issues.
Did you notice how little time it took for the author to abandon the premise of the article and give CSGV the microphone? I thought the article would be about Tracking Point’s products but instead we are treated to some canned talking points regarding microstamping and Smart Guns, which are entirely unrelated to Tracking Point or Google Glass.
The fact the CSGV was even consulted is more evidence of the goals of the anti-gunners. If a Tracking Point rifle is ever used in an instance of “gun violence” I’ll eat my hat, but CSGV talking about Tracking Point associates them with gun violence in lesser minds and works to further demonize guns and gun owners. Despicable.
Your firearm will be rendered operative in just a minute: once we have verified your face book account and the 3 Yahoo ads have completed you may then discharge your pistol. You will be allowed to repeat this action after each 20 second ad from Yahoo.
I liked him better when Lad was a dog.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lad,_A_Dog
Oh…I just thought they had shaved Lad’s hindquarters and taught him to walk backwards….
NOT an ad hominem attack…ad canis attack..doesn’t count.
Just what 21st-century technology is he talking about? That first sentence was enough for me to quit reading. It’s like talking up a car battery. I don’t care what kind of plates a battery has or how the grid is designed or any of the factors used in the manufacturing process. I don’t care if you talk about Optima batteries because here is the one underlying truth, they are all lead acid batteries.
So as we talk about 21st-century technology in firearms, for the most part, little has changed. They are still nothing more than a tool that causes a projectile to be forced out a chamber by an explosive charge. What has changed? The use of lighter, stronger materials, exact machining tolerances and various enhancements.
Lets apply this concept to the automotive industry. By in large, vehicles are much safer than they were in past decades. The use of crumple zones, SRS systems, materials, the list goes on and on, along with highway design has created a safer driving experience. With this in mind, why not have cars drive themselves? Some cars park themselves now, so why not just take the driver out of the equation?
This question is difficult to define. For one, it comes down to a simple reality, EVERYTHING, with few exceptions, is the dictated by style or price. Taking the drive out of the equation is probably a little of both. It would be prohibitively expensive, and drivers would hate it.
Lets ask ourselves why mental health isn’t fixed. Style or price? Why isn’t the Chevy Corvair still on the market? Style or price? Why aren’t light bulbs that last ten years marketed? Style or price? OK, that’s more of an economics answer, but it comes down to money and price.
When we start throwing around the smart gun suggestion, we come down to some relativity simple conclusions regarding the overall reception of that technology. Style or price? I put forward that is is both. The reality is, it would be unreliable, unwanted and expensive. It would be unevenly applied as its uselessness in revolvers.
So as a practical matter, the 21st-century technology is negated by the centuries old revolver and the painfully simple fact that people won’t like it.
It has a battery, therefore it is ballast. All I can think of is the flashlight that sits in the junk drawer until you need it, at which point you discover that the batteries are dead, and you get to search for fresh batteries in the dark.
As others have said, let the cops and Obama’s stasi use them to prove the concept, then I still won’t buy one.
Sad, very sad attempt to shame firearm owners into backing flawed “smart” technology. Yes, making bullets more lethal is part of what the industry does. It also made the taser, bean bag round, sticky foam, water cannon, rubber rounds and grenades and a host of other less lethal means of controlling a situation. Funny how that was completely missed in the quote for an obvious idiot that has no grasp about technology at all.
Miss the bullseye…..Coalition to Stop Gun Violence….a private entity wants to compel manufactures to build 100% safety into a gun and then pass legislation to mandate you purchase it.
Bike helmets
Airbags
Lighters
Pill bottles
Law mower blade shields
Chain saw kick back shield
Back up cameras
Your gun is next.
What I want to know is this new fucking technology they keep talking about that has come out since the 1930’s or 40’s that has made our current firearms so fucking advanced and “deadly” compared to how they used to be.
I don’t have a fucking smart bullet yet. My guns don’t have any kind of built-in magic scope of never miss (+2 to hit). WHAT technology are they talking about that makes firearms of today so ADVANCED?
The only real change in technology I can think of for firearms is our new manufacturing techniques that produce a “higher quality” (I’m looking at you Remington!) firearm and the ability of every American to get a decent scope or red dot sight that originally only military could afford.
I love people, mostly, but I detest purposefully ignorant people.
My Nagant pistol has a biometric safety that detects adulthood: one has to have muscles of steel because of the 176# trigger pull…
Compel = Force
It’s almost as if private companies don’t want mouth breathing politicians forcing revenue-destroying policies on them.
Just to think, if it wasn’t for TTAG, people like Ladd Everitt would fall off the face of the Earth. Thanks for trying to make him relevant, TTAG!
What a bone-headed thing to say.
Do you honestly think that if TTAG stopped reporting on the activities of CSGV MDA, and Everytown that those groups would just magically disappear? Do you honestly think that the small amount of publicity that they get on this site contributes to their continued presence in the media? Do you honestly think it’s not valuable for us to be aware of what the gun-grabbers are saying in the media?
You should read some Sun Tzu.
Microstamping does nothing to stop crime, keep guns from criminals, or make guns safer to use. It can only be used AFTER a crime.
“Safe” guns make it easy for the gubmint to turn guns off, and to make them MUCH, MUCH LESS reliable. And if they are so wonderful, why are police allowed not to use them?
I have no problem in improving gun safety. I have a very large problem in improving government control and restriction of guns. That has nothing to do with safety.
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