Post by illeatyourdates02 on Sept 4, 2014 10:32:37 GMT -5
Why the "Smart Gun" Is a Dumb Idea
By Paul Dowling / 4 September 2014 / 12 Comments
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“A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.” --Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution
A New Way to Disarm Victims
Gun grabbers want to use the “smart gun” as a way to institute new victim-disarmament policies. They want to require all new guns be “smart.” So, what is a “smart gun” anyway?
The “smart gun” is a gun usable only by its purchaser. Upon purchase, the new gun owner must have a dominant-hand palm-print made, so the grip of the gun might be personalized, allowing only the person with that palm-print to use that firearm.
Some Dumb Scenarios, Courtesy of the “Smart Gun”
But let us contemplate a few scenarios, first, before we undertake the task of evaluating such a gun:
Scenario #1: A burglar breaks into your home carrying black-market firearm that is not a smart gun. You hear the break-in and respond by taking your smart-gun from a drawer in your nightstand, pulling back and releasing the slide to chamber a round. As your eyes begin to adjust to the darkness and you begin to move stealthily in the direction of the home-invader, you see him pull back the slide of his own gun and release it. Knowing that he now has a round chambered, and probably intends to use his weapon, you take aim at the hoodlum and fire. Due to a technology failure, nothing happens. You change hands with the weapon briefly to wipe your shooting hand on your housecoat and change hands back again. The weapon still fails to discharge. The home-invader, by this time, has caught on to the situation. He closes in and begins to discharge his firearm! You are doomed.
Scenario #2: An armed home-invader breaks into your house. You are sick in bed, incapacitated by illness. You are helpless to access, let alone fire, the new “smart gun” you have recently purchased. Your spouse, also an expert shooter, does not yet have a “smart gun” of her or his own, due to the expense of the new technology and the budgeting challenge that buying a second one presents. Your spouse gets out of bed, grabbing your gun anyway, hoping and praying that it will work, regardless of the fact it was designed for your hand only. No luck. The gun works as intended. You and your spouse discover this the moment your bedroom door is kicked in. For this is when your spouse attempts to shoot. The criminal appears insulted at this attempt at self-defense and opens fire! You are doomed.
smart-gunScenario #3: You hear a noise and take your “smart gun” with you as you exit your bedroom. You are surprise-attacked by an intruder with a large knife. Your shooting arm is incapacitated by a severe gash, so you switch your gun to your off-hand. At such close proximity, you could easily disable your attacker with a shot from your other hand. You need only point and shoot. But the gun is useless in your off-hand! You are doomed.
Scenario #4: A police officer responds to a robbery along with his partner. Upon exiting their police car, the first officer immediately falls from a gunshot wound. His partner takes aim at the active shooter, but his gun jams. The downed partner’s gun, having flown out of his hand when he was shot, is available at the feet of the second officer. The second officer drops his jammed weapon and goes for his partner’s handgun, successfully recovering the weapon. He is quick to get the enemy in his sights. He fires his weapon before the bad guy can get off a shot, but nothing happens. It is then that he recalls his partner just received a new “smart gun” a few days earlier. Then a bullet strikes him fully in the chest! He is doomed.
Scenarios #5 to ∞: Any number of wicked mishaps could occur, if gun owners become saddled with “smart guns” as their only alternative for self-defense weapons. I am certain that even a child could come up with any number of possible nightmares that might occur.
Helping Bad Guys
So, here is the truth: Criminals will never find themselves limited to “smart guns” as a weapon. Common criminals will have enough common sense to avoid such weapons. The rate of safe, successful discharge of a standard firearm, unencumbered by the complexities of “smart” technology, will be higher than that of a “smart gun,” which means that requiring smart guns, in place of consumer-preferred alternatives, will only create better working conditions for criminals.
In the last quarter century, with the increase in the number of concealed-weapon permits across the country, deaths by handgun have dropped 39%, according to the U.S. government’s own statistics. The reason for this drop has been the fact that the increase in legal gun owners, who do not want to shoot people, has outpaced gun ownership by criminals, who have no qualms with shooting people. This makes the working conditions for criminals more difficult in states with more permit-holders, bringing down the national average.
The gun-grabbing crowd, who wants to mandate “smart guns” as the only guns allowed, can only end up handicapping lawful gun owners while abetting unlawful gun owners. Added to the reliability concerns would also be the following worries: 1) guns will become more expensive, thus harder to come by for poor people in crime-ridden areas; and 2) guns will become more expensive to repair, thus harder to maintain.
You have only to use your imagination to discover more dilemmas, if these potentially-unsafe weapons were the only ones allowed in use. Let us hope that the Democrats do not succeed in making life hard for civil society by disempowering the good people, in favor of empowering the bad.
eaglerising.com/8422/smart-gun-dumb-idea/
;-)