Another report on smart guns

Guns.com has a video report on smart guns (via email from the author).  The bottom line:

Politics aside, there seem to be two major hurdles facing smart guns – funding for development and the potential prohibitive cost of integrating the safety technology. Armatix’s iP1, for example, is a .22-caliber pistol that retails at $1800, more than four times the cost of a regular small caliber pistol.

I think there are a lot more than two “major hurdles”. Examples include reliability, target market, and market acceptance.

Share

2 thoughts on “Another report on smart guns

  1. First; politics is never “aside”, and in this case politics is the primary issue. Without understanding the politics you can never understand the “smart” gun issue. You can’t brush aside the primary, driving force and be taken seriously.

    Later in the same sentence we come to the reason some people are interested; “funding”. In short; this is all driven by politics (corrupt politics at that) and the “funding” is the carrot that has some people’s attention.

    Those who claim that they “don’t want to get into the politics” are all damned liars. Our very existence, each of us, the fact that we draw breath, is political. What someone means when they say they want to avoid politics is that they are so emotionally attached to certain political concepts that they are afraid of losing composure and thereby embarrassing themselves.

    The liar, the distracter, the truth avoider, doesn’t want to get too deep into the nature of his falsehoods. He will seek company that makes him feel comfortable with his falsehoods. The truth seeker on the other hand is more than willing to get into it, and will often relish the opportunity. He’ll seek company that gives him some intellectual (and I dare say spiritual) challenge, because only in standing up to a good challenge can the truth be found.

  2. But, what are the human costs?

    “Armatix’s iP1, for example, is a .22-caliber pistol that retails at $1800, more than four times the cost of a regular small caliber pistol.”

    That is a cost of $1350 per gun.

    Assumptions:
    There are no clear stats on new guns sold per year in the US, but say,
    10,000,000 guns per year.

    A cost of $1350 per gun X 10,000,000 guns per year =
    $13,500,000,000 per year.

    That is, an estimate of thecost is $13.5 Billion per year.
    (invisible hand notwithstanding)

    Now, down to the “human costs”:

    Assumptions:
    – An average working wage of $25 per hour,
    – An average work week of 40 hours per week,
    – An average work year of 50 weeks per year,
    – An average work life of 60 years per life.
    Your average middle school math student could do the math and find that running the numbers and canceling the units we have…
    $50,000 per work year.
    $3,000,000 per work life.
    Play with the assumptions and numbers all you want:
    – We do in fact define minimum working wage (much less than $25 per hour)
    – Medium family income (generally more than two warm human bodies per working body) is not far off $50,000 per year.
    – Actual human worth is ~ $1,500,000 per human life.
    One point five $ mil per bag of bones is rather depressing, but whatever the math, it is on that order.

    Cost is $13.5 Billion per year / $1,500,000 per human life =

    Human Costs:
    9000 human lives per year.

    Banning 5 gallon buckets may be more cost effective.

Comments are closed.