“Just last year, when Kate Steinle was murdered in broad daylight at Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco, her murder drew national attention because it was committed by an undocumented immigrant. But what went relatively unnoticed was that the murder weapon had been stolen from a federal agent from the Bureau of Land Management. It is notoriously hard for law enforcement to find and confiscate stolen guns. We can make their jobs easier by outfitting guns with computer chips that can be activated remotely when a gun is reported stolen to help law enforcement recover it and return it to its lawful owner.” – Steve Westly in No grand bargain needed for safer guns [via usatoday.com]
My gps can’t tell the difference between a railroad and the interstate, but this guy thinks we can put a chip in a gun that makes tracking it possible? Why do people insist on living in a theoretical world? Go out, innovate, make something work better, but stop trying to make hypothetical technology the law.
I noticed that he didn’t suggest the surest way to make our cities safer – deportation of all illegal aliens. Just like the illegal that used the agent’s stolen fiream. But, then of course it’s always easier for a liberal to blame a gun instead of putting the blame where it lies.
Illegals are a minor problem in crime. Want to reduce the violence? Over four-fifths of it is due to the mislabeled “War on Drugs”, a program through which the government subsidizes violence and encourages illegals to cross into this country.
“10,000 thumbs up! Deport all Illegal Aliens ! Punish all politicians involved in Sanctuary City schemes! Treat it as voter fraud, harboring fugitives , tax and government services fraud !”
Lo-jack works for cars and whatever they put in your cell phones works pretty well to track them. The technology is not the issue. There are actually two issues at play in this concept: #1, and most important, do you really want the government to be able to electronically locate your firearm any time they want to? They may claim this is only when it is lost or stolen (and reported as such), but you can bet it will work just as well any time they see a need to find the gun, or you. #2 There are a limited number of places on any firearm where such a device could be placed. How long would it take a criminal with even a medium level IQ to find and disable the thing?
Lo-jack works for cars and whatever they put in your cell phones works pretty well to track them. The technology is not the issue. There are actually two issues at play in this concept: #1, and most important, do you really want the government to be able to electronically locate your firearm any time they want to? They may claim this is only when it is lost or stolen (and reported as such), but you can bet it will work just as well any time they see a need to find the gun, or you. #2 There are a limited number of places on any firearm where such a device could be placed. How long would it take a criminal with even a medium level IQ to find and disable the thing? Or how about the good guy shutting it down himself? After they pass the law making these mandatory in every new firearm they will have to go back and pass another law making it a felony if the owner of the gun disables the tracking device.
Actually, a modern chip, using AGPS can usually determine a location to within a few meters.
Of course to do this it needs a power source, which guns don’t have, and can’t be blocked by significant amounts of metal, which guns do have. And once the GPS chip calculates a location, it can’t just magically share that with the investigators. It needs a cell chip, and a charged battery, and a path clear of metal to send that data out.
Even if we could fit a large battery and antenna on a gun, all the thieves would have to do is drop the stolen guns in Faraday caged bags, until they can disable the electronics.
So the accuracy of GPS is the least stupid part of this idea, from a technological standpoint.
I knew this guy was going to stumble when he referred to that illegal alien murderer as an “undocumented immigrant”. As for his idea of putting a chip in a gun, thanks but no thanks. The firearm in question here was stolen via the negligence of the federal agent that decided to leave it in his vehicle. Even if chips were to be implanted in all law enforcement guns, we all know how this would turn out. Liberals would be demanding every gun get a chip and that existing guns be retro-fitted, under penalty of arrest. But I digress; perhaps law enforcement should ensure they are behaving responsibly with their firearms instead of leaving them sitting in a vehicle.
Yeah, there’s no such thing as an undocumented immigrant. Immigrants, by definition, must immigrate by going through the immigration process, thereby becoming documented. There are only undocumented aliens and, in particular, undocumented drug dealers, undocumented gang members, undocumented human trafficers, undocumented drunk drivers, undocumented terrorists, etc.
there is NO “undocumented” it’s “ILLEGAL”. Should be FELON. Alien is was to passive a term. Not my favorite Martian. We need something that is a much more active and insulting “pejorative” that works well with “Damn”.
Did you know it is not a felony to be illegally inside the US? Explain that BS.
There is an application for computer chips in guns, and it’s not GPS tracking. I really like the idea of putting RFID chips in government-issued service weapons to count rounds and stuff. I’m pretty sure HK P30s have this option already, and a round-counter is part of SOPMOD Block 2
I agree but RFID won’t count anything they broadcast stored data a short distance – such as SN. An inventory mgmt. tool. Could use to locate a missing item when within about 100ft.
Not even that.
I used to work at a company that builds RFID tech, on a project to use multiple readers to detect the locations of RFID tags. (Think automated stockboy). On a good day, it could read a tag ten meters away…unless the tag was oriented the wrong way…or near a piece of metal…or on the other side of metal, concrete, water or bodies (mostly water).
We might be better off putting a chip in all of our government agents, you know, for safety.
Or we could tie their guns to their coats, like kids and their mittens.
“Bring Back the Victorian era pistol lanyard, and top flap holsters…That will teach government people gun control !”
5 seconds in a microwave and I have my bets the chip would not do anything.
You would have to get the chip out of the gun first, so why bother with a microwave? Just smash it. If you put a gun in the microwave, the chip would be the least of the destruction. Metal objects and microwaves don’t go well together.
If it was polymer it would be molded in. That said 30 seconds with a freelance on metal guns would likely do the trick.
The antenna is a lot more susceptible to RF than the rest of the gun.
Don’t even bother. Just throw it in a faraday bag and it is as good as gone until you reach a location where you can remove it.
Anonymous brings up a good point.
I would add to his point and say that cars make fairly effective Faraday cages.
Certain locations (such as the trunk) inside of certain cars, perhaps, but not cars in general.
If the interior seating area of most cars was an effective Faraday cage, your cell phone would not work there (well, it would still function, but you wouldn’t be able to make calls or send/receive data).
I’ve thought about that and I’m not sure why a cell phone does work. Cars have been tested for EMP damage and found to pass. Only those basically at ground zero would be seriously affected and with modern cars they would probably still be operable but with damage to certain systems. They also survive lightning strikes.
I have a suspicion that a Faraday cage can be made in different ways and that certain types of radiation can pass though the cage if the holes in it are large enough (like the windows of a car). Meanwhile enormous amounts of current like say a lightning strike or large amounts of radiation from say and EMP are still carried to ground in sufficient quantities to protect the vehicle and it’s occupants from damage and that this is mainly due to the chassis and frame having a sufficient amount of metal on them to act like a lightning rod for large loads.
That’s just my suspicion though based on what’s known to be true and the way that UHF and VHF radios work in various situations.
This is how they are going to do it.
Since the majority of people are technologically illiterate, they will push a ‘solution’ that on the surface, seems logical and reasonable…
Undocumented immigrant? Is that like the undocumented shoppers during the Fergusen and Baltimore riots? I’ve been wondering how long it would be before one of the statist geniuses got the idea of chipping firearms.
So .. who pays for the batteries? I’ll wager not the government who mandates it.
To do what he wants basically requires a cell-phone-on-a-chip, which isn’t impossible but will need a battery and frequent charging. And if the thief isn’t some moron illegal alien who gets arrested every time he turns around, he’ll disconnect the battery the minute he grabs it.
So tell me, just why some “officer” from the Bureau of Land Management even needs to be armed?????????
They never were, or at least very, very few, prior to obutthole!
Just more of his “private army” that shouldnt be armmed!!!
The Bundys, they’re everywhere. That’s why the BLM needs guns, in case they’re attacked by wild bands of Bundys.
Why do they need to be armed?
Because they routinely give ranchers visits to announce what the rancher can and can’t do on his own land. For this reason they are extremely unpopular all over the West.
That’s the understatement of the day.
RFID chip is what they have been talking about for a few years. No batteries required.
An RFID chip doesn’t give off a signal unless it’s being hit with the right kind of RF from a locator “gun”.
You have to be damn close to use RFID so it would be useless in searching for a stolen gun. It would identify the gun if you had already found it but for finding it you might as well just make a divining rod, it would work just as well.
Same deal with dogs. If your dog goes missing you can’t just track them with the RFID chip that’s in them. You have to wait for them to be found, scanned, your information pulled up and the agency that has the dog to call you.
Forbes magazine and others have written articles calling for RFID for awhile. The UN wants RFID chips in guns too. Maybe this latest ‘idea’ is for another kind of chip, but it’s all part of the same overall push to force electronics into guns.
The only way I can see RFID being used to track stolen guns is with scanners at building entrances, that would alert police if someone walked by one with a gun flagged as stolen. Couple this with security cameras and facial recognition tech. Of course, this could theoretically be used to identify everyone carrying a chipped gun, including legal ones. Which is probably the whole idea.
Most of us already have same in our nifty newage Obamaesk drivers license (not to be used for voter ID however).
Older RFID chips and readers needed to be close; newer ones, in certain frequencies, not so much. Found online recently (and the article is over two years old, so it’s probably out of date and low-balling the distances):
“Even within one type of RFID, however, there can be a wide array of read ranges. A passive ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) handheld reader has a range of about 10 feet, while a model using a beam-steerable phased-array antenna can interrogate passive tags at a distance of 600 feet or more.”
Picture scanners/readers built into doorways, on high-pedestrian-traffic streetcorners, near certain stores or mass-transit stops, and traffic lights/streetlights (for scanning passing vehicles, in conjunction with a camera).
600 feet is still useless when you’re trying to find a gun in a city, county or a state. Sure, you could go with your idea of putting these things all over the place but that’s not going to be readily accepted. ASU has studied such devices. Such a system will have enormous DC power demands and poor scalability. It will also likely generate enormous amounts of EM noise which the FCC will find unacceptable.
Not to mention that if you can find it so can the criminals which means that they will remove the tracker. Such tech might be viable for a week or two before being circumvented. In the meantime RFID blocking tech already exists. In fact you can make your own wallet that blocks RFID at home in about 30 minutes. So they’ll just hold on to the gun until they can detect the location of the device and remove/disable it.
Without the gun actively trying to tell you where it is the whole idea is next to useless. The guy envisions a Lo-Jack system for a pistol. That’s basically impossible.
600 feet is still useless when you’re trying to find a gun in a city, county or a state.
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To make it worse, the 600 feet requires you already know where the item is.
It’s using directional beaming and pointing at a very specific location, Such as a checkout line.
Remotely activated locater chips would be even more of a wet dream for these bozos than a registry. Order all guns turned in, wait one week, then turn on the chips nationwide, track them down and go in guns blazing, kill everyone in the building (they are all criminals, now, right?) and confiscate their guns, their jewelry, cash, cars, rape their daughters, and welcome them to our brave new world of safety for all. Do none of these morons *think*?
I suspect it’s entirely possible he’s thought of that…
A remotely activated trigger lock is high on their wish list as well…
What about raping the cat and shooting the family dog.
Using a chip is great for Hollywood science fiction. Not do in the real world.
How about we remove firearms from all federal agents, instead?
Yeah, this guy can be in charge of going around and telling all the gun owners that we need to track their guns. See how that works out.
Also, it seems like the whole plan can be defeated by bringing the gun indoors.
This is almost as dumb as that other idiot who was calling for the development of Star Trek “phasers” a while back.
While we’re inventing imaginary technology, why doesn’t someone make a flying, automated car that can go a thousand miles on a AA battery and is impossible to crash or malfunction?
I would gladly give up my guns in exchange for a suit of beskar Mandolrian armor with jet pack, rocket launcher, and wrist flame thrower. If someone can come up with that I say bring it on!
Mandate liberals have ever traceable guns so we know where the hypocrites are among us.
All you need to know about good ol’ Stevo.
“Steve Westly, founder of The Westly Group, is a former California state controller and chief fiscal officer and was California co-chair of Obama for America. He holds a 1.5% share in ShotSpotter, the system that some police departments are using to help locate gun firings.”
and he also wants fingerprint ID devices on guns.
ShotSpotter – there’s some high end fraud sucking on the gov’t teat/
That system has failed in Chiraq.
Why in the name of all that’s holy is some schmo from the Bureau of Land Management walking around with an issue side arm in the first place?
Exactly!
BLM, like a lot of .gov agencies, has an enforcement arm. They’re LEO’s with the same basic powers as any federal LEO.
How else would they force you to do what DC says on your own property?
So mall/campus cops.
Around here, we have lots of BLM and Forest Service land, and yes, many many illegal grows tended by armed guards If you were a LEO, would you go humping around the forest unarmed?
I keep waiting for the US mail to start gearing up. lol.
They already are. USPIS is the USPS Inspection Service aka “Postal Police”. They have armed agents, even SWAT teams.
See all their duties here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Postal_Inspection_Service
Just yesterday, the USS enforcement arm, which was investigating the mailing of marijuana from California to Indiana, in conjunction with US Marshals, arrested a man in Indiana wanted in California for involuntary manslaughter arising from a fire he accidentally started with his rented van when delivering fertilizer for his illegal grow. One of his workers died trying to put the fire out. Many drug crimes are investigated by the USPS because people try to ship drugs by mail.
Don’t you guys understand?
It’s computers and technology stuff!
Just this morning I was using Google maps and I got this idea!
All we need is a law to make this happen!
Sheesh – you gun guys are all stupid, uncreative, naysayers!
This is another clear examples of people who make laws thinking they are actually fixing things they don’t know jack about…
“Undocumented”? To describe THAT guy? That’s some rich shit.
Undocumented pharmacist= drug dealer
Sometimes, I swear it seems when the media talks about persons of certain groups, who have committed crimes, suddenly all the soft words come out.
This “undocumented alien” wasn’t a dealer, just a bum and a drug addict. He had been deported before and would have been deported after his most recent jail stint but for the fact that San Francisco is a “sanctuary city.” So instead of turning him over to the feds for deportation, the City just set him loose on the streets again when he’d served his sentence. Further, it isn’t a good murder case, more like involuntary manslaughter or negligent homicide. The accused claims that he had found the gun and was trying to unload it when he fired it instead, and that he had no intent to hurt anyone. His story is supported by the fact that the victim was hit with a ricochet.
As to the story behind the stolen gun, there are some places that LEOs cannot go armed, and thus they leave their side arms in their vehicles. With government issued plates. And until the first of next year, no law requiring them to secure their firearms in the vehicle. Thus, police vehicles have become prime targets for smash and grab burglaries, with over 300 weapons lost or stolen in the last five years in California. Under a new law signed by Governor Brown a few days ago, everyone, including police officers, will be required to secure their firearms in the trunk or a secure container under the seat.
What if we had a flying helicarrier with guns capable of tracking possible thought crime by DNA? Man, that would be sweet, and there’s no way a compromised government agency would use that power to target their political enemies!
1984 wasn’t a how to guide, and it terrifies me that these people want it so bad.
It will never work. Rental car companies have tried this. They spent a ton of money on secret electronic locator methods. Some of thier cars had a Lo-Jack and five “secret” backup systems.
No matter what they did or how much they spent the new systems were discovered and defeated within a week of introduction and the thefts continued.
Oh yeah, then there’s the power requirement to get a signal strong enough to be useful.
All I would have to do to disable the chip would be to do a basic disassembly of the gun and take lighter to the chip and it’s now a chip-less gun. Or basic disassembly and use a screwdriver to pop the chip out.
Anti gunners insist on confiscating / turn off guns for 300 million, yet scream it’s impossible to deport 12 million people here illegally.
There’s is actually a kind of logic to it. The gun owners they are targeting are law abiding, illegal aliens are criminals who aren’t. So it would be theoretically easier to disarm 100 million lawful Americans vs. deport 12 million criminals. Well, were it not for that pesky 2nd and American non-slave mentality.
Can I get one of those chips for my cat?
I needed one for my ex.
The bright shinning lie….”while our political process has not offered solutions”….27 words penned 240 years ago is the only crime bill this or any other country needs.
Lawful self defense is not politics.
Everything about this statement was idiotic.
And this was surprising why? A person, knowingly commits illegal acts by breaking the law and crossing the border – people then expect them to… follow the law?
So a federal agent couldn’t even secure his own weapon from being stolen. And… an illegal immigrant who broke the law to come here… broke the law again?
Or find and secure their own apparently. Hopefully they wouldn’t lose the ones they are confiscating too right?
Computer chips? I don’t even know how to respond to something like this. For one you would need a lot more than just a “chip.” You need batteries, an antenna. A whole circuit. Not just a chip. And this is going to go where? In general there isn’t a lot of space inside a gun. Also, once criminals get wind of this, it can be easily defeated by simply putting it in a faraday bag/cage (or similar acting). Which a screwdriver and likely 5 minutes, the circuit can be removed and tossed out the window of a moving vehicle. If Mr. Westly wants this in his guns he can, but I don’t want them adding to the expense of mine, and I certainly wouldn’t want it legislated as a mandate on people.
“You need batteries, an antenna.”
He’s a moron educated by TV and movies but the idea of everyone at the range having a 6′ stainless whip antenna on their gun is an amusing mental image and would be a great argument for eyepro!
Chip all guns issued to police and alphabet agencies.
I’m okay with that. Not more than that.
I’ve got a better idea. Secure the borders and keep the illegal ilk from sneaking in.
They rush across our border like a pinata exploding, and it’s got to stop.
Umm, Steve… maybe your mommy should tell you that “Star Trek the Next Generation” isn’t a documentary.
Mapquest has at various times directed me to non-existent exits on the expressway, and told me to drive across sidewalks onto open fields.
Not no, HELL no.
Do it first with police weapons. After it proves its worth, get back to us. I recommend against holding your breath.
Both my dogs have microchips. The scanner needs to be within a foot or two. There’s no way the “chip” can be used to search for a lost dog.
This is a good example of a science illiterate that comes up with their “bright idea to fix everything” then expects someone else to make it work.
Just last week I saw an ad for a computer bag that was RFID-proof. Someone is also making RFID-proof jackets and coats.
So this idea is already obsolete.
Well I for one am certain that such technology will never be misused……cough…
“…We can make their jobs easier by outfitting guns with computer chips that can be activated remotely…”
Because that would never be abused…
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