RE: Ready, Aim, ID Check: In Wrong Hands, Gun Won't Fire
Justin wrote:
I don't believe the article when it says that smart guns are useless if stolen. What do they have, a tamper-proof memory chip storing a 128-bit reprogramming authorization key that must be input via computer before allowing a new person to be authorized? And what's to stop a criminal from ripping out all the circuitry and the safety it engages?
The 'stolen gun' problems most of the so-called 'smart gun' proposals are trying to address are the situation when a cop's own gun is taken from him and immediately used against him, or a kid finding one in a drawer. A determined and resourceful person can, given time, defeat them all. After all, a 'determined and resourceful person can build a gun from scratch with a small machine shop, and many do (its not automatically illegal). I link below to an absolutely bizarre proposal - apparently real and claimed to be existing in prototype - by an South African inventor to make an unstealable gun. Amongst other weirdness, it fires the specially manufactured cartridges by firing a laser into the glass-backed primer. As a result removing the electronics would make it unusable. You'd have to hack it instead. http://www.wmsa.net/other/thumb_gun.htm This is a typical example of what I meant when I said that 'smart gun' proposals all come from people with zero knowledge of how guns are used. I strongly suspect that the gun in the picture is a non-working prop. Peter Trei
On 2005-01-11T10:07:22-0500, Trei, Peter wrote:
Justin wrote:
I don't believe the article when it says that smart guns are useless if stolen. What do they have, a tamper-proof memory chip storing a 128-bit reprogramming authorization key that must be input via computer before allowing a new person to be authorized? And what's to stop a criminal from ripping out all the circuitry and the safety it engages?
The 'stolen gun' problems most of the so-called 'smart gun' proposals are trying to address are the situation when a cop's own gun is taken from him and immediately used against him, or a kid finding one in a drawer. A determined and resourceful person can, given time, defeat them all.
from the article: "Guns taken from a home during a robbery would be rendered useless, too." The South African Smart gun...
Totally useless. Failure modes and various other complaints: -cannot connect to cellular network -cannot receive GPS signal -out of batteries -laser diode craps out -fingerprint scanner takes more than 0 time to use. -ammunition is more expensive -"window" in ammunition can be dirty or fogged, causing failure -any sort of case failure will probably destroy the electronics -will never be as small as subcompact firearms -if smartcard is stolen, gun won't fire (other "smart guns" use rings) -all the electronic tracing capability requires gun/ammo registration I'd almost rather have a taser. What assurance do I have that the circuitry won't malfunction and fire when I don't want it to? What if a HERF gun can not only render the gun useless, but make it fire as well? -- "War is the father and king of all, and some he shows as gods, others as men; some he makes slaves, others free." -Heraclitus 53
participants (2)
-
Justin -
Trei, Peter