'Smart Gun' Firm Wants You To Fund Its Prototype 558
Lucas123 writes "After striking out at getting private investors to fund a new prototype, Safe Gun Technology (SGTi) is hoping it can generate $50,000 through a crowdfunding effort to build an assault-style rifle with fingerprint biometrics technology. Handgun and shotgun prototypes would follow shortly thereafter, the company said. SGTi, which is using the Indiegogo crowdfunding site for its Fund Safe Guns campaign, has so far raised just over $1,600. Several companies are working on developing smart gun technology, which can identify an authorized user through fingerprint, handgrip or RFID recognition techniques. Last week, a Massachusetts congressman submitted a bill that would require all U.S. handgun manufacturers to include smart gun technology in their weapons." I'm looking forward to the best car analogy that anyone can come up with on this topic.
Great, but who's going to use it? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm pretty sure anyone who feels the need to own or carry a gun is also pretty damned adamant about having it reliably and unquestionably work when they actually need it. The first time one of these things fails (even in a test) will be the last time anyone buys one.
Re:Hmmm ... (Score:4, Insightful)
How about they make a safe "Hammer" or "club" since these kill more people than all rifles every year? Oh right, because rifles are big loud scary objects!
takes a certain kind of mind -- (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This solves ? (Score:4, Insightful)
Do you think any parent irresponsible enough to leave their guns out around their kids is going to spring the extra $ to buy a smart gun?
fingerprint ID for a gun won't work (Score:3, Insightful)
Fingerprint ID for a gun won't work for obvious reasons. You can't guarantee fingerprints can be read if your finger is dirty or injured. Further more when you need to pull a trigger on a gun you need it to go off right then and not have to mess around with it.
Lots of government money has already been wasted on this concept only to conclude its not practical
They're also going to beg you to buy their product (Score:5, Insightful)
Because nobody in their right mind is going to want a "smart" gun. I advocate for smart gun owners. In fact, I help train them. It is much more effective than the "smart gun" will ever be, and the cost will be about the same. Trying to fix stupid with technology is a losing bet.
Reliability is a sticking point when people ask advice for which gun to buy. You want it to shoot every time you pull the trigger. I'm not going to add a layer of uncertainty to a life-critical mechanical device. What if I need to use it during the winter when I'm likely to be wearing gloves? Or if it's raining and my hands are wet? No thanks; we'll pass.
Re:I'm looking forward to this development (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep, there's no problem that can't be solved with DRM.
Re:I'm looking forward to this development (Score:4, Insightful)
Then you haven't thought things through.
"Locks" like what is being suggested here is simply another point of failure on a system that is optimized to have as few failure points as possible. No one that knows anything about guns will willingly buy this.
Re:I'm sorry (Score:5, Insightful)
That most gun owners don't WANT this type of tech, that could potentially bork and not allow you to fire at a critical moment.
A gun works JUST fine now....simple, mechanical, etc.
And by the way...can those folks in MA either vote out said congressman putting that bill forth, or just contain such laws to your state if you want them that way?
Sheesh, if this type thing comes about, I guess we'll see more efforts like recent ones, to have states certify guns make and labeled for "in state sales only" to get around the Feds being able to mess with and regulate them.
Re:This solves ? (Score:3, Insightful)
It will take a while to get the old ones out of circulation...
Like 100+ years? A 1911 from 1911 is still a useable gun, and an early AK47 will still be plenty useable in 2050. I doubt that the biometric grip these guys come up with will last like that, however.
Car analogy? (Score:5, Insightful)
You leave work late one evening. You notice a group of trashy teens across the parking lot, but see similar groups often enough so think nothing of it. You start walking toward your car, and as soon as you've gotten committedly-far from the safety of your office building, the teens start moving quickly toward you. You notice two now have knives out.
You start running toward your car, and make it with a good 10+ second buffer before the thugs reach you. You press your thumb to the door lock and...
Bzzzt. Damn that paper cut you got right after lunch! You try again: Bzzzt. Third time: Bzzzt.
The thugs reach you, stab you 27 times, rape a few of the new holes, and take your iphone and wallet. They leave you to die, which you obligingly do roughly twelve minutes later.
Whether you "like" them or not, if you acknowledge that guns have any legitimate use, they need to just plain work when needed. Period. No papercuts preventing them from recognizing your fingerprints, no batteries to die, no "instant background check" to take 30 seconds to verify that you haven't started taking Prozac in the past few days.
And if you don't think guns have any legitimate purpose, well, too bad - Because the authors of our constitution did.
Re: Hmmm ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Or cleavers. Just recently a man walked up to a guy on the street and started hacking away at him. Not even rolling cameras slowed him down
The danger is real. (Score:2, Insightful)
But the correct response to fear is to strengthen one's self. The incorrect (but very popular) response is to weaken everyone else. This smartgun tech falls into the latter category.
Re:I'm sorry (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmm...seems this company can't figure out what the problem is....
That most gun owners don't WANT this type of tech, that could potentially bork and not allow you to fire at a critical moment.
A gun works JUST fine now....simple, mechanical, etc.
It sounds like they just figured out who their customers really are. It's not the gun owner, it's the gun opposition.
The campaign is a call to arms (pardon the pun) for the clueless, emotional, never-took-history masses to fund them, so then they can then impose the technology on the gun owners against their will by lobbying for laws to require it, which is step 2 of the plan.
Bonus points if they can get the law to require only "certified" smart gun technologies, of which only SGTi will have the required certification.
Re:Assault Style (Score:3, Insightful)
Not necessarily. Go to the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban (or the newer one, if you prefer), and you'll find a list of rifles that CANNOT be considered "assault weapons". If you take one of those rifles and add the cosmetic features you mentioned, they're still NOT assault weapons.
Some people are starting to realize that an increasingly large chunk of the population knows that an "assault weapon" is essentially a scary-looking rifle that is functionally the same as any other rifle. So a new label - "assault-style rifle" goes on trial....
Another car analogy (Score:4, Insightful)
Car:
A woman is crossing a dark parking lot at night; she sees someone in a hoodie on the other side of the parking lot. The person in the hoodie obviously notices her with a predatory pause and tarts moving towards her Her car is between them. She runs for the car, the bad guy starts running towards her. She gets in RFID range; the car notices the keys in her purse. She reaches the drivers side of her car just as the bad guy reaches the passengers side. She opens the door because the RFID has authorized it. The bad guy opens the passenger door, because the RFID has authorized it.
Isn't she happy she had the RFID?
Gun:
You get into your house. You hear a crash from the bedroom. You run to investigate. A burglar has just successfully opened your gun case. He tries to shoot you; the gun fails to go off. You rush over. You struggle. You get in RFID range. The gun goes off during the struggle, and you're shot.
Aren't you glad you had the RFID?
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Re:Hmmm ... (Score:4, Insightful)
I assume they're looking at the police and military market since assault rifles are restricted class III items in the US for civilian ownership and not overly cheap.
Class III items are full-auto, which are police and military weapons.
And they're not expensive because they are inherently more costly. They are expensive because any weapons manufactured after 1986 are still banned for civilian possession. The capped supply, along with the non-liquidity of the weapons themselves due to transfer costs and requirements (including may-issue permission from your local sheriff or police chief, good luck unless you're well connected), are the cause of how expensive they are. A factory fresh military Colt M4 doesn't cost anything more than a consumer Colt M4.
That's fine for TPTB, of course. Because civilians that can afford such expensive toys are doing well enough that they're on the side of the status quo, and aren't exactly going to take up those arms in a revolution when the army will defend that status quo.
Re: This solves ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Ignoring the second amendment for a moment... the bigger issue is that the knee-jerk reaction from the gun control advocates call for things that would in no way prevent such incidents.
It's not a matter of there being a no perfect solution... the issue is with attempts at trying to look like they are doing something when in fact they are simply burdening law abiding citizens.
yea right (Score:5, Insightful)
Last week, a Massachusetts congressman submitted a bill that would require all U.S. handgun manufacturers to include smart gun technology in their weapons."
Which will get struck down by the supreme court the second it hits their docket. Lets just stop pretending like the gun control lobby isn't trying to change the constitution. Because the ONLY way to achieve their goals is to do so. Lets have a vote, so we can all see it fail miserably and get on with our lives.
A lot of people think the framers didn't foresee the advanced weaponry that we have today, and would have never included it in the right to bare arms. This is a ludicrous argument. At the time the constitution was written, they had CANNONS. Cannons are still legal to this day! Later, with the invention of primers somehow the right to bare arms was a bit too much... because if you could just slide a shell into the cannon it was somehow a lot more dangerous than blackpowder. So clearly they never thought of repeating rifles! Ah ha! That's the problem, they never thought people could rapidly fire a gun, over and over... oh wait, let me introduce you to the Girandoni air rifle. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girandoni_Air_Rifle [wikipedia.org]
It could fire 22 rounds without reloading or refilling the air reservoir. It had no muzzle flash, no smoke, was nearly silent and fired a ball equivalent to a modern 45 acp that was deadly at over 150 yards. This gun was in many ways superior to modern assault rifles and was in wide production and in use by the Austrian army 8 years before our constitution was adopted. There were plenty of Austrian mercenaries carrying them in the states as well and it was a hanging offense to be caught with one by the British military because they were so deadly.
So tell us again how the framers had no idea how dangerous guns would become. Or how in Chicago, where we have the strictest gun laws in the country, the rate of death by firearm is higher than it is in Afghanistan, and active war zone, where it's common for people to carry full auto AK's.
Re: This solves ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Bullshit. In the 10 years post Port Arthur the murder RATES in AUS and the US declined by almost exactly the same percentage. IIRC they were both within a percentage point of 31%. During that period, gun legislation tightened in AUS and liberalized in the US.
Re:Hmmm ... (Score:4, Insightful)
You don't need a 30 round magazine
and
There's no reason for any civilian to have more than 9 rounds in a firearm.
The beauty of our Constitution is the government doesn't have the power to tell citizens what they need. Indeed, it's the other way around. How would you react if the government proposed to ban certain words or phrases because you don't really "need" to use them in everyday speech?
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phallacy (Score:5, Insightful)
let's try some equivalency treatments...
"There's no reason for any civilian to have more than 4 cylinders in their car's engine" "There's no reason for any civilian to have more than 3 pairs of shoes" "There's no reason for any civilian to have more than 2 children" "There's no reason for any civilian to have more than a $50,000 salary" "There's no reason for any civilian to have [anything that can't be justified by a specific need]" ETC
It's called Freedom, people. It's what America is supposed to be about.
And before douchebags start dragging all the political bullshit in, I support the firing of pretty much every politician currently in office. Scrap the 2 parties completely for all I care. Let the womerns have all the birth control and abortions and the men have all the liquor and dope they want. Whatever. Freedom is the only way forward.
Also for the record, I can disprove that suggested penile association with photos.