Preface & disclaimer
This is not a suggestion to promote a legislated engineering change to firearms. Rather, this post simply raises a talking-point against one of the anti-gun lobby's favorite ideas. It points out the flaws in their logic and asks why can't it be done another way. Once this door is opened and explored, then other questions can be asked about why we don't more severely punish felons who use guns.
The Concept
We've all heard about so-called "Smart gun" technology. It presupposes that engineers can make a reliable firearm that can recognize it's owners or "authorized users" through biometrics of some kind.
Most of us agree it's just an asinine idea.
But wait, is it really?
Statistically we know that the vast majority of serious felony crimes are committed by prior offenders. That is, people previously convicted of serious crimes. These persons are prohibited from possessing firearms.
So instead of spending money to design a gun to do something new, let's use existing technology.
First, when a felon is convicted, before he is allowed outside of prison walls, he has a small RF chip implanted in his chest, wrist, forearm, etc. Where ever makes sense.
Now, new guns only need to be "smart enough" to do two things. 1-Detect the presense of that RF chip when the grip is squeezed or the trigger starts to move and 2-determine if the RF signal is coming directly from behind the grip of the gun. If these two criteria are met, the mechanism interposes a stop pin to prevent the gun from firing.
Why this is a better idea:
This is not a suggestion to promote a legislated engineering change to firearms. Rather, this post simply raises a talking-point against one of the anti-gun lobby's favorite ideas. It points out the flaws in their logic and asks why can't it be done another way. Once this door is opened and explored, then other questions can be asked about why we don't more severely punish felons who use guns.
The Concept
We've all heard about so-called "Smart gun" technology. It presupposes that engineers can make a reliable firearm that can recognize it's owners or "authorized users" through biometrics of some kind.
Most of us agree it's just an asinine idea.
But wait, is it really?
Statistically we know that the vast majority of serious felony crimes are committed by prior offenders. That is, people previously convicted of serious crimes. These persons are prohibited from possessing firearms.
So instead of spending money to design a gun to do something new, let's use existing technology.
First, when a felon is convicted, before he is allowed outside of prison walls, he has a small RF chip implanted in his chest, wrist, forearm, etc. Where ever makes sense.
Now, new guns only need to be "smart enough" to do two things. 1-Detect the presense of that RF chip when the grip is squeezed or the trigger starts to move and 2-determine if the RF signal is coming directly from behind the grip of the gun. If these two criteria are met, the mechanism interposes a stop pin to prevent the gun from firing.
Why this is a better idea:
- The device is passive 99% of the time and activates only when a prohibited person tries to use the gun.
- Police guns equipped with this device would be useless to felons who obtain them in a struggle, thus saving officer's lives. (and a plus for a pilot-program by police first.)
- It relies on the idea that a prohibited person should know that he shouldn't be holding a gun and thus has no claim to access a working gun.
- It eliminates the potential failure-to-recognize the rightful owner when the owner needs the gun for defense. Likewise, it would allow use by the owner's new spouse, b/f, g/f or houseguest as long as they aren't a felon. He doesn't need to "program" each new person in his life before the gun is useful for self-defense.
- Felons can be deprived of certain rights by law and also can be required to live with specific restrictions. Requiring them to have an implanted RF device is similar to a lifetime ban on gun possession or registration requirements for sexual offenders.
- Possession of a firearm without a functional anti-felon security device by a prohibted person would be a felony punishable by six years in jail. This means a felon with an older gun or with the device inoperable faces extra jail time.