27 thoughts on “Govt proposed "Smart-gun" specs

  1. “Finally, if the security device malfunctions, it must default to a state to allow the pistol to fire,”

    I see people intentionally “breaking” the gun so it will work.

    • Yup. So they would likely mandate that deliberately interfering with the mechanism is a crime in and of itself, even if you do it to your own gun so you can use it for legal purpose.
      The default failure mode is the spec that always bugs me the most. With this spec, it makes the “smart” security worthless. But if you default it the other way (meaning ID problems = no bang), you make the gun worthless as it will be unacceptably unreliable. Short of perfection, there *is* no good answer to this question.

      • I stand by an assertion that I’ve made before:

        To libs and gungrabbers (but I repeat myself), firearms are a ‘black box’ system. They have no real concept of how they work, except insofar as ‘pull the trigger and the boolets come out’. They might as well be phasers from Star Trek.

        And because they do not understand what goes on inside a firearm, they don’t see the problem in cramming sensitive electronics into it. The forces and shock values involved are completely unknown to them.

      • I wrote an essay for my law school’s law review on smart guns and their associated legal issues. It was published in print almost 2 years ago and is finally online here.

        One of the issues I discussed is whether the fail safe should be with the gun unable to fire, or able to fire. I also discuss the problem of false positives and false negatives, in addition to the legal issues.

      • It shouldn’t be required unless it can show six sigma reliability. But we know two things about the people pushing this disaster on the public: they wouldn’t recognize statistical analysis if it came up to then on the street and strangled them even after they’d been warned ahead of time with photographic ID. Second, their expressed reasons are complete lies. If their concerns about unauthorized hands on weapons were genuine, the police are the natural and logical beneficiaries of such a system, because they are the ones who are in closest proximity with people who might want to take their weapons and do them harm. Some unfortunate homeowner investigating a break-in at 2:30 am, not so much. My Uncle the SDPD officer carried a bullet in him for 33 years because he arrested a felon he’d arrested a number of times before without incident, but that morning he did not want to go to jail. The promise of this device would have been a godsend to him. The gun-grabbing totalitarians know they can never deliver on the promise, so they never suggest the police can benefit from using the device.
        It is just an attempt to reduce the odds that someone on the spot, a good guy with a gun, can stop the danger right then.

        • I’m afraid you’re missing the point by talking about reliability. This isn’t about reliability, it’s about government control. It doesn’t matter if it works to 9 sigma — there shouldn’t be electronics in a gun that controls whether it is going to operate or not.
          The problem is that you’re working on the assumption that the powers that be are acting in good faith. That’s not a valid assumption.

          • You are correct with regards to the words and motives of the Leftists. However, I was discussing reliability and who would best benefit from this “solution” only to refute the arguments they use, to show they are false.
            Right now, I’m reading “The Forsaken”, by Tim Tzouliadis, about the Americans who went to the Soviet Union in the 1930’s in search of a better life, or merely paying work, and who wound up buried in mass graves under apple orchards. I don’t assume our leftists have any more good faith than did Stalin and his ghouls.

  2. Because cramming sensitive electronics into a purely mechanical system always works.

  3. Just like Obama Care, its designed to fail so that the govt can mandate more control.

    • Indeed the system proposed is no different than the integrated locking systems in many existing guns….just it’s electronic, not mechanical.

      Why mandate Electronic? Obviously ulterior motives.

      • Yes… to make sure that “the right people” can turn off the guns.

      • Your last sentence made me think of that scene in “The Wrath of Khan” where Kirk and his Enterprise crew send a signal to the ship hijacked by Khan to lower all shields using the code that made the ship think it was an internal signal. Ulterior motives, as you say, that instead of degradation of GPS signal over the Mojave desert during maneuvers in July, it would be wide area interdiction of non-military firearms (and cars with electronic ignition?).

  4. Be sure to read the actual document, not just the article. There isn’t a whole lot of connection between the two.
    The actual document is a full purchase spec, basically. It contains some interesting items. For one, it’s only for 9 mm or .40 semi-auto pistols. It requires magazines capacity of at least 14. It requires no external safety or decocker. Particularly interesting is that it specifically requires that the pistol must not have a magazine disconnect. So there are a pile of reasons why such guns would not be legal for civilians in a number of fascist states.
    One wonders if the next step is for the government to prohibit other guns. And if they do, it means some states’ residents will be completely disarmed, while others will be limited to 9 mm guns.
    “1911? Sorry, that doesn’t meet the smart gun standard.”
    Also, while it’s supposed to default to “bang” if the device “malfunctions”, it doesn’t’ say that about discharged batteries. All it requires is a warning about low battery.

    • Personally, I foresee a remarkable failure rate in these weapons if they are mandated. ‘Gosh, I have no idea why it broke. Must be defective.’

      Wonder how they square the minimum mag size of 14 with the push for bans on ‘large capacity’ magazines?

      • Squaring: They don’t. Federally mandate smartguns in way X, let states mandate guns to be not-X AND smartguns. Then say “see, the free market is a failure, you can’t have guns!” It’s a feature, not a bug, to a statists.

        • Lost in translation, of course, is the fact that it isn’t a free market any more due to all the stinkin’ mandates they put up in the first place.

          • It’s not lost, it is deliberately hidden and obfuscated by the regulators in their efforts to expand the regulatory fiefdom they oversee. The fact that it is bad for everyone but themselves they overlook, as any parasite will overlook the health of the host upon which they feed.

          • Or rather, they don’t overlook it, they designed it that way on purpose.
            Right now I’m reading The Intimidation Game: How the Left Is Silencing Free Speech, by Kimberley Strassel. It’s in a different area but the underlying theme is the same: government regulations used against the people, deliberately. No “unintended consequences” anywhere in sight.
            Come to think of it, it would be a good idea to stop using the term “unintended consequences”. I haven’t see a consequence in years that I could reasonably assume to be unintended. Thinking of them as unintended will only mislead you about the nature of the opposition.

    • “Don’t trust the reporter” is always good advice. Read the original. Yes. Thanks for the reminder.
      So if “low-battery = no-bang”… oh, no problems there.

  5. We can make this simpler — and say that we’re fine with any such proposal, so long as police, army, and Secret Service are mandated to use it first, for (say) a 5-year breaking-in period. If they all like it after that, sure, we’ll consider it.

    Come to think of it, that could be a response to ALL proposed gun-control measures. How does the Secret Service feel about being limited to 10-round magazines? How do the police feel about having to live with “assault-weapon” bans? And so forth.

    If they insist that they need weapons that We The People mustn’t be allowed to own, let them explain why. Rotsa ruck…

  6. Heck, it would be fun to hear the screams of outrage, if someone proposed legislation that restricted Federal agencies the way private citizens are restricted. No more automatic weapons for the Forestry Service! No more tanks for the EPA! That would be fun…

  7. “In particular, the report stressed the importance of integrating this technology into a firearm’s design without compromising the reliability, durability, and accuracy that officers expect from their service weapons. To address these issues, the report called on law enforcement agencies…”

    What “issues”? If the “reliability, durability, and accuracy” are not to be affected then what benefit does the technology provide?

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