Justin wrote:

On 2005-01-10T15:04:21-0500, Trei, Peter wrote:

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John Kelsey

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Ready, Aim, ID Check: In Wrong Hands, Gun Won't Fire By ANNE EISENBERG

I just wonder what the false negative rates are. Seem like a

A remarkable number of police deaths are 'own gun' incidents, so the police do have a strong motivation to use 'smart guns' if they are reliable.

The NJ law specifically exempts the police from the smart gun requirement (which for civilians goes into effect in 2007 or 2008). Regardless, the legislature doesn't need to get involved for law enforcement to change their weapons policy and require "smart guns."

Cynically, I'm not the slightest bit suprised that the police are exempted: 'safety for the government, not for the people'.

False positives may also present a problem. If the only way to get an acceptable identification rate (99%, for instance) is to create a 50% false positive rate for unauthorized users, that's reduces utilitarian benefit by half.

A 1% false negative rate is too high. A 50% false positive rate is *much* too high.

"Smart guns" are a ploy to raise the cost of guns, make them require more maintenance, annoy owners, and as a result decrease gun ownership.

If it's combined with a rule to ban the transfer and/or ownership of 'dumb' (ie, reliable) guns, then it's also a backdoor gun confiscation policy. I'm afraid that they may get away with it. Here in MA, the only handguns which can legally be bought new are those on a fairly short list compiled by the State Attorney General which meet his arbitrary 'safety standards'. If I wanted, say, a Pardini (a very expensive special purpose .22short target pistol) I'm SOL. In fact, it's almost impossible for MA residents to participate in some of the shooting sports competitively, due to the AG's list. Peter Trei