Thankfully "smart" guns are not ever likely to make it to the market, despite what a large swath of anti-2A people believe.
I can't even get the fingerprint reader on my phone to work consistently; why would I want to put something like that on a firearm when my life could be at risk if my gun doesn't work correctly?
Soldiers have nanomachines (in Metal Gear nanomachines can be replaced with magic) in them that work like ID tags and guns only work when they detect it
So.... Magic? I mean, sure, if we had perfect magic that knew who could and could not be trusted to use your gun, fine. In a practical sense, all you need to prevent other people from using your guns is a lock. I put a lock on my closet. If the aren't under my supervision, they're behind at least one lock.
I really want them, from a tech stand point, to be a thing, but no doubt on the reliability issue.
The better design I've see is something like RFID in the hands that reads on the grip of the gun. Biometrics are not a good idea for any system that needs that level of reliableility.
The other thing is I would want it to a trigger well replacement not a constant check (I.e. once unlocked it stays unlocked untill deliberately locked again).
People generally won't accept implants for things like that. Supposedly Biofire has a pretty reliable smart gun coming out any time now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cRm9BMxl90
Even an RFID reader would be a bad thing, IMO. First and foremost, you have the issue of battery life; most people fail to check the batteries in their smoke detectors regularly, so I can't imagine people would remember to check the reader in their firearm. Secondly, given that many people that have guns have multiple guns, you would need some kind of sending unit--assuming that the firearm would be the reader, since the reader is going to be larger--that is either universal, or can be programmed and paired to multiple devices. Either one of those would still allow unauthorized users to steal your gun. Especially if they had something like a Flipper Zero that could read and modify RFID data.
Adding on to this, you may have to shoot with your off hand, or in a position where the reader isn't close enough to detect the chip; then you have a no-shoot situation, which could potentially be deadly.
I had to scan my credit card three times at the grocery store yesterday; the reader couldn't read my card. Now imagine that when someone is trying to carjack you.
I would want smart guns to be at least as reliable as a 1911--which is not a reliable firearm--before I would go for them.
I don't think I would trust it in a reactive shoot circumstance either to be honest. I'm also not too worried about a pretty advanced cyber threat of someone both actvily attacking an RFID chip (a programable definetly adds added complexity factor to me too) and getting my firearm. Its more so if someone broke into my house and took my firearm they would have added difficulty using it or if someone is in my house, kids, guests, etc and they get ahold of it there is one added layer of safety.
You have This., and This. Like everything, it seems like it's mostly just a political issue. You'd probably get more gas out of a smart holster, honestly, but there's just not very much demand from the people who buy guns for actual safety measures, including police departments and militaries. The closest I think you'll find that gun owners commonly want is access to suppressors, mostly out of the convenience of not having to wear hearing protection, and also maybe that it makes them feel like a cool epic black ops guy.
They simply aren't reliable in the kind of situations where you're likely to need a firearm though. As I said in another comment, I would want a smart gun to be at least as reliable as a 1911, and--to be very clear--a 1911 is not what I would call a reliable firearm.
I have constant problems with the fingerprint scanner on my phone. If my hands are too dry, no dice. Even slightly wet, nope. Bad day? Yeah, I'm going to have to enter my passphrase. And what if I need to shoot off-hand? Facial recognition? Cameras have a hard time with black and Asian people already, but now my life might depend on a camera getting it right the first time? And might depend on it in bad lighting?
This isn't something I would ever seriously consider.
IMO, if you want-or need--to keep a loaded gun near you while you sleep, just leave it unlocked, and then either lock it in a real security container, or keep it on your person when you aren't in your bedroom.
BTW - I generally avoid anything with Ian McCollum, since he's been pretty clear that he doesn't support 2A rights for everyone (e.g., the poors, LGBTQ+ people, non-white people, etc.), and has generally been acting like a right-wing grifter. Which is unfortunate.
Yeah, there's not really a great solution that's going to be reliable and also be fast. The best case scenario I can think of for a smart gun is maybe a car gun, or something that people might otherwise have kept in a safe, but gun safes and locks aren't really expensive enough to justify these kinds of purchases, and obviously they're going to be more reliable than any digital security you might wanna go for. These sorts of things are also somewhat spoofable, even just with modification to the gun, so I don't really think smart gun systems would really help cut down on gun trafficking, either. At least, not with any actually feasible, normal solution.
BTW - I generally avoid anything with Ian McCollum, since he’s been pretty clear that he doesn’t support 2A rights for everyone (e.g., the poors, LGBTQ+ people, non-white people, etc.), and has generally been acting like a right-wing grifter. Which is unfortunate.
Yeah I saw the whole uhh, brownells thing that happened between him and inrangeTV, and that kinda sucked, plus the azov battalion book which seemed like pure grift. Also the HEAT rig collab he released sucked. I dunno that I'd call him a right wing grifter too much on that front, as much as just, a pure grifter, which is maybe right wing depending on how you're judging your personal overton window. I don't really think whatever his political beliefs are tend to infect his actual content much, if at all. It does kinda suck, though, just generally. Luckily I have adblock so I don't really have to be supporting his grift while I learn about cool historical stuff, and he's a pretty good resource with his disassemblies of obscure stuff. Overall, he sucks more than I like.
but gun safes and locks aren’t really expensive enough to justify these kinds of purchases
This is the only thing I disagree with you on. A good gun safe and lock is incredibly expensive. Anything that's actually burglary rated is going to start at about $5k and go up from there. Good locks, like an S&G mechanical combination lock, can be had for a couple hundred bucks. (And by 'good', I mean the ones that the DoD uses for high-security; it would take an autodialer about a day, on average, to open one.) 'Good enough' safes are not too bad though, since they're mostly acting as a deterrent. E.g., little Timmy probably isn't going to spend a couple hours trying every possible combination until he finds the right one, and he's probably not going to take a pry bar to it.
Deviant Olam has a few videos up on gun safes, and also has a video of him showing what it takes to break into a DoD-approved safe (...that he was getting paid to break into). IIRC the general rule of thumb is that a gun safe should be 15-25% of the replacement value of your guns. If you only have one or two, whatever meets your state's requirement--if your state has a mandate about locking guns up--is fine. If you've got $10,000 in firearms--which is scarily easy to do--then you probably want to spend about $2000 or so on a residential security container. If you have a single legal machine gun, you're probably going to want to invest in a safe that's upwards of $10k.
I sincerely hope that they can find a way to make these work and be as reliable as a Glock. Not necessarily because they can't be spoofed, trafficked, etc., but because it would significantly cut down on accidents, and it would also make it much less likely that your own gun could be used against you.
Thats fine, but I also would argue against this kind of purity testing. Where a person is written off because they disagree with you on one or two issue. There are a lot of colorful characters in the community so you would quickly end up very alone...
I like this point of view. I struggle with it myself. It's the reason I didn't watch this video when he released it. I didn't want to write him off. He's made a few comments here or there over the years that has let me glean some info where he just seems like he'd be a tackleberry mall ninja type (works loss prevention/aka mall cop).
But maybe he isn't, and regardless, I watched his videos for the FOSS content and he really doesnt get political(usually ..this video was out of left field). I try to separate the "art from the artist" so to speak.
That said, I wish "artists" didn't make that so difficult.
I started watching DistroTube several years ago, seemed like a fairly straightforward guy, would do a few tutorials on Linux commands, aggregated FOSS headlines, did a full install of Arch in real time once.
Then one day on his channel he told a story. Apparently he worked in a retail environment, and was accused by a customer, a "minority" as he put it, of "following her around the store." He made a pretty big point that he responded to his manager "thanks for letting me know."
suspicious eye squint
Then he told the story or going to a Trump rally.
Yeah he's a right-wing nutjob. Surprised he hasn't hurt anyone yet.
His rant on Mozilla's "We need to do more than deplatforming" was my last straw. He raked them over the coals for a title and never read a word from the article.
I'm pro FOSS, and pro gun. I just can't stand people that do no effort and use there platforms to sow division though.
Freedom as a concept is to vague and personal to be useful any kind of real discussion; "freedom" means whatever you think it means. This is why politicians love to say it.
I would say that you're right guns make people feel safe.
However, that the constant threat of violence in society leads to degradation of social norms, especially for children who then get less socialization and become more extreme.
You see this in like more people choosing to homeschool their kids - they then get lower quality education and poorer social skills and are less able to survive in society. In a capitalist world, this is slowly eating away the ability of americans to compete in a global economy and so there is a strong movement to isolate our economy which will only make us less competitive.
I would say that you’re right guns make people feel safe.
I just wanted to say that guns absolutely do not make me feel safe, knowing one is nearby or seeing one makes me incredibly anxious. Holding one even more so. I don't understand how people can feel safe around them, to me it's like having a ticking time bomb in the room but the timer was set by a rng.
That's fine if you feel like that. And YOU should stay away from them and I fully support your desires and rights to do so. But others don't feel the same.
Empty words from someone that does not understand how countries with less guns still work and don't have CHILDREN KILLING IN THEIR SCHOOLS ALL THE TIME
At compared to the other western countries, the gun rights in the US are a huge difference to almost all others. Switzerland is the one big exception I can think of, partly because of the huge shooting history / culture (which is often still actively celebrated) and because soldiers can take a private weapon to home (which had the original sense that in case of war, they could directly have a gun).
I live in austria, we have gun rights and like 33guns/100people (if I remember correctly) and we never had a single school shooting in our history, also the terrorists involved in the shooting in vienna a few years ago illigaly imported their guns from serbia
That's just not true / comparable. While Austria has more gun rights than in most other Western countries, it's nothing in comparison to the US. In Austria, the only guns you can freely buy are single shot guns. And for those, you need to wait three days until you get them.
To get a very limited amount of semi-automatic weapons, you need to, similar to other western countries, have a Weapons possession card that's subject authorization. To get it, you don't only need a psychological report but also a justification, be 21 and need to fit other requirements. You also need to report every weapon you get so Austria knows where the weapons are.
In the US meanwhile, it depends on the state you're living very much, but in some states, you can get semi-automatic weapons (which are completely banned in Austria) in a shop in just minutes. And that without any background checks, psychological reports, justifications, approval required, without anything like that. In many states even convicted criminals can get guns like that. And it's often not even age restricted. In the US, guns are sometimes a presents for kids which they can just…own and use (while in Austria everything is obviously 18+).
And the biggest difference is carrying a gun. In Austria, you are not allowed to carry them in public (and getting that licence is almost impossible for normal people). While in the US (in many states), you can just carry any gun around in public whatsoever. So even if the police sees you having weapons in public, they can't / don't do anything about that, because it's just legal.
I general, the gun rights in Austria are bigger than in most of other Western Europe. But even Obama's 2012 proposal to significantly lower the freedom of guns in the US would have resulted in still much bigger gun rights than in Austria. There is just a huge difference.
I'm not arguing one way or another but I want to clear up some very common misconceptions about US gun laws.
in some states, you can get semi-automatic weapons (which are completely banned in Austria) in a shop in just minutes. And that without any background checks, psychological reports, justifications, approval required, without anything like that
This is just blatantly untrue and I wish people would stop parroting it. If you go to any shop you need to pass a federal background check to buy any non-vintage firearm (pre-1899..not exactly a ton of those floating around). The exception here is private firearm sales, i.e. I go to Craigslist and sell a rifle or handgun. The law states the seller has to have no reasonable cause to believe they would be an unlawful possessor (weak, yes). With that said, almost half of the states (22 per Wikipedia) have implemented state-level laws requiring a background check for private sales.
In many states even convicted criminals can get guns like that.
Again, objectively untrue. You are not buying a firearm from any legal, licensed dealer in the US without going through a background check. And a violent criminal offense will get you barred from purchasing. For the 28 states without laws around private sales, the seller can be federally legally liable if they sell to someone that is not legally allowed to have a gun and they use it to commit crimes.
In the US, guns are sometimes a presents for kids which they can just…own and use (while in Austria everything is obviously 18+).
No, a child cannot legally own a firearm. The parent can purchase and own a firearm that they are allowed to use, but they do not own it. In many states if the child hurts themselves or others with such a firearm the parents will be held liable, many states have laws around safely storing firearms when children are around.
While in the US (in many states), you can just carry any gun around in public whatsoever. So even if the police sees you having weapons in public, they can’t / don’t do anything about that
In most states if you don't have a license to conceal carry and you do you are breaking the law and can be charged. I'll say this one isn't entirely false but heavily depends on your state.
A large part of why this issue gets nowhere is that neither side can even agree on what is true today, rather than what should be true to bring down the issue of violent crime. If one side says "They're totally unregulated you can just buy one off Amazon and start blasting. We have to do something!" The other side is gonna think "Well they obviously have no idea what they're talking about, no point in listening to what they have to say"
In the US meanwhile [...] [a]nd that without any background checks, psychological reports, justifications, approval required, without anything like that. In many states even convicted criminals can get guns like that.
If you're talking about buying a firearm from a store, that's simply not factually correct.
Every single firearm sold by an FFL holder must have a form 4473 filled out, and each person buying a firearm must go through a criminal background check. ANY felony conviction that could have sent you to jail for more than a year--regardless of whether or not you got jail time--permanently bans you from owning a firearm until the conviction is expunged (and in many states, your gun rights need to be proactively reinstated). Any misdemeanor domestic violence conviction will likewise bar you from legally owning a firearm, as will having an active retraining order. Being involuntarily committed to a mental facility will bar you from ever owning a firearm at a federal level (without a judicial proceeding to restore your rights), and being voluntarily admitted will cost you your rights in some states.
Keep in mind that these are federal regulations that supersede any state or local regulations. A state can not opt out of the NICS or decide that gun stores don't need to comply with BATF regulations. The only "exception" per se is that, in my state, a carry permit means that the gun store doesn't have to send in form 4473 for approval; you've already passed a more stringent background check--including fingerprinting--so it would be moot. You do still need to fill out a form 4473, and the gun store is still required to retain a copy, but the instant background check is deemed irrelevant.
You do have some errors in your little rant. While firearms are easier to acquire in the US as a rule, there are still some restrictions and forms you need to fill out. Plus there can be a near byzantine set of laws that each state and even cites can pass to further restrictions on purchase and ownership. It might be the biggest issue about firearms ownership that there are few national laws for enforcement. It's mostly up to each state and city regulations and enforcement.
Convicted felons are pretty much barred from firearms ownership across the US. The only real exceptions might be a billionaire who can buy anything. Or perhaps it's just easier to pay some else to shoot people for them.
Everyone has to fill out a Form 4473 which is a universal federal background check against a data base to see if you can legally own a firearm. It is an electronic background check done at the time of sale and transfer. It can take a few minutes or a few hours to get done. And you can be disqualified for a simple misspelling or even if your name is similar to a some who is barred from purchase. Then it's up to you to get your name cleared. All and any firearms purchases through a dealer MUST have a Form 4472 attached. And the dealer must keep a record after the sale for a fairly long period of time. A good number of states have further restrictions and requirements on the purchase and ownership of firearms. Which require further state background checks and issuance of a special card to buy a firearm. And individual cities can impose further restrictions yet.
Minors, under 18 years of age, (a few are 21), in the majority of states cannot legally buy a firearm. And are generally only allowed to handle or use a firearm with an adult present - some exceptions would be during a hunting season and only when hunting. But even then, there will be an adult somewhere around.
Carrying a handgun publicly, with the exception of a very small number of states, is very controlled. Some states, like California or New York are quite restrictive to the point that pretty much only wealthy people can actually afford to pay for all the hoops you might need to jump through to get such a permit. A tiny number of states, like Texas allow for common carry laws without a permit, (often called Constitutional Carry). But the majority of states require that you have taken a special class and then go through more special background checks by local law enforcement to get the permit issued. And these permits require renewals every few years with more background checks every time.
Again, I think the biggest issue is the lack of a uniform national set of laws and requirements for firearms purchase and ownership is what confuses everyone. States are considered to have most of the power to make many laws that the federal government can't over ride. Sometimes this is a good thing and sometimes not so good perhaps. But it's the system we have for better or worse.
Sweden and Canada have pretty high rates of gun ownership and don't have this problem. That said American school shootings are not as common as they are made out to be, there has been a lot of statistical fudging to make it look so much worse than it is.
What all three countries do have are problems with gangs and they're only getting worse as poverty drives people to crime. America has it worse because it has more poverty, but we will all catch up soon enough.
Idk how you make shooting students / children out to be much worse than it is. Kinda seems like any stat greater than 0 should be unacceptable and cause for massive societal reevaluation.
Im just gonna point out we as a culture have been dealing with this problem of just random acts of violence for quite awhile, its just that what came before mass shootings is kinda glossed over / forgotten. Before the mass shootings we had bombing campaigns, the una bomber being the most notable. Its just that unless it was really big it rarely got all that much attention and due to how everything was disconnected at the time unless you were the FBI you may not have even noticed it was a thing.
The problem is that the Columbine mass shotting and rise of cameras kinda killed off the mass bombers. Also Columbine happened right when this shift was happening and thusly became the standard for what people do. If it was instead some dudes shooting up a police station I suspect that would have become the norm.
When you look at serious violent crime, defining that as robbery, battery, forcible rape, and murder, the rate of serious violent crime is similar in the US and UK (edit - and Australia!). The UK has largely removed firearms from the equation--which is easier, since they're an island, and didn't start with 600M firearms--and it has decreased the murder rate, but their overall violent crime rate is still quite high. Despite nominally having single payer health, the system has been intentionally broken by conservatives, and poverty is pretty significant. You see the same kind of sharp economic divides in the UK that you see in the US.
The predictable result is violence.
Murder isn't the problem, it's a symptom. It's like saying that the awful cough and shortness of breath is your problem, and then thinking that cough syrup (with codeine!, since that's the good shit that works!) is going to fix the underlying pneumonia.
Canada has ~1/4 the firearms per capita compared to the US. My guess is that doesn't matter, as you go over 1 gun/resident the added guns probably don't have much of an impact.
However, most shootings in the US are with handguns (restricted in Canada), and a bunch of high-profile shootings with ARs (prohibited in Canada). Concealed carry is practically never allowed, and open carry isn't either. Safe storage is required, so you can't carry unsecured guns in your car either. Storing loaded firearms is forbidden. Owning firearms for self defense is forbidden by law (using them as such may or may not be, depending on the circumstances).
TL;DR: it's not just how many guns, but also what you're allowed to do with them.
As a rule of thumb people stop to mass murder other people, without guns. With extremely rare exceptions, we don't have that shit outside of the US and our schools are not shooting ranges.
The other two things you wrote are not reasons, they are a) a slogan that you could put on a 12 years old t shirt and b) something someone who is having a heart attack might say
people don't stop to murder other people without guns
I live in a red state with lax gun laws. This is probably the stupidest thing I've heard anyone say on the Internet. You should sit down and have a talk with Ahmaud Arbery.
You can make a gun out of a bar of soap if anyone's interested. The benefit of the soap route is you can get though older metal detectors. (The new stuff takes a full 3d scan in high detail)
Some are kinda, yeah. The AR-15 is for sure, and most 3d printed lowers would be, and iirc gen 3 glocks (I think, because that's what all the 80% and 3d print glock lowers are), and I think colt SAA by now, but many designs are still owned by the original company.
I’m not an expert in 3D designing, but it seems to me that the AR-15 is a popular 3D print rifle from a practical perspective more than anything else.
The lower isn’t under extreme stresses, it can be thickened and reenforced without impeding function, and it snaps in modularly to factory made uppers. It helps a lot that the AR-15 parts market is diverse and easily accessed.
There's a reason that I listed ARs and 3d printed lowers separately. ARs themselves are basically open source, nobody "owns" the design, so say Hodge, Noveske, Colt, SOLGW, Radian, etc, can all produce lowers etc, MIM industries can produce all the lpk bits, but so can NBS etc, cerro forge and Brass Aluminum Forge Co can both make identical "milspec" uppers, the only thing that is really "trademarked" on any of it is the branding, or an advancement like Geissele's maritime bolt catch (which similar knock offs were produced immediately, anyway.) If you started making and selling say a2 parts (except lowers, but that's just because you need a licence to manufacture for sale) tomorrow nobody could stop you.
Interestingly, Glock is another one that there's strong 3D printed support for. It's likely because Glock was designed to be polymer, and there's very strong aftermarket support for them, so you can print the serialized part and make it work as a firearm with no real problems.
I was just thinking out loud more about why you don’t see printed AKs or at least not nearly as much. The AR-15 layout just seems practical for printing.
Yeah the Plastikov does exist but is definitely less popular and a bit more involved. They also have printable CETMEs now though too lol. Basically any cheap parts kit someone is probably working on a solution if one doesn't exist, and they're doing cool shit like the 3011.
ARs and Glocks are also some of the most popular purchased firearms (like through an FFL), so I'm not surprised they'd be the most printed, they're basically the Toyota Camry of guns, easy to work on, dependable, and last long.
The first and second amendments are seen as the cornor stone rights for sure in the US. They enable and protect each other and other rights played out in the constitution.
