So, what if you’re being attacked, your hand is shaking and you grip the gun differently as a result? What if you’re wearing gloves? What if you’re hands are cut off and you have to shoot the gun at the advancing attacker with your feet? That happens ALL THE TIME in movies!
As police in Philadelphia struggle to stop a scourge of shootings, some New Jersey engineers say they are closing in on a “smart” solution: a gun that can be fired only by its owner.
The prototype, developed at the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark, has pressure sensors embedded in the gun handle that recognize a person’s unique grip.
The team says a commercial model is up to five years away, but if it works, it will trigger a singular – and controversial – state law. Within three years, all handguns sold in New Jersey would have to be personalized, with this or some other recognition technology.
Hmmm… I wonder if there will be any political repercussions…
However long it takes, it’s safe to say the university has embarked on a product-development quest like no other – wading into a contentious issue on the fault line between red and blue America.
Various smart-gun efforts have flamed out in the past, amid vocal skepticism by the National Rifle Association. Many gun owners chafe at the notion of any restrictions on their Second Amendment right to bear arms, and warn that any such modifications would make guns more expensive.
Gun-control advocates, meanwhile, are split, with some warning that personalized firearms would give owners a false sense of security.
Next up, personalized game controllers. Remember, kids don’t kill spawns from hell, controllers connected to video games shooting blobs of pixels kill spawns from hell!
Anyone who would trust this kind of technology is an idiot. Does your cellphone work 100% of the time? How about your computer? Car ever break down because of the computer?
What happens when a cop is injured and the pressure pattern changes? His gun stops working? What if he’s in the middle of a firefight, he just dies?
What if I wasn’t home and my wife needed my gun to repel a home invader intent on rape or worse?
This is asinine.
This grip idea is kind of silly. I’m a big fan of the RF-ID tag idea for police firearms. The tag could be imbedded in a ring or in the hand of the police officer. If the Nintendo Wii can tell where it is pointed, theres no reason why a gun can’t tell that it is pointed at it’s owener. However, given time, any mechanism like this could be circumvented by anyone who steals the gun. Therefore, a trigger lock is probably the only meaningful safety feature for home use.
“This is asinine”
I guess you don’t live in NJ. Everything coming out of Trenton these days could fit that description!
A surprising number of police officers are killed with their own side arm. I applaud the effort, but over complicating the weapon just leads to other failures. All police qualification scoring involves some firing with the weak hand, so these devices would probably recognize multiple users. Previous devices that keyed on arm bracelet proximity detection had been repeatedly rejected by police agencies as too expensive and troublesome.
I hope those “engineers” are required to read Bill Jordan’s book: No Second Place Winner
http://www.rayrilingarmsbooks.com/cgi-bin/rrb455.cgi/3447.html
My father [who was on the California Highway Patrol] had a copy, which opened my eyes – as a “cop’s kid”.
In a gunfight: “2nd Place” is a posthumous award…
Within three years, all handguns sold in New Jersey would have to be personalized, with this or some other recognition technology.
And law-abiding citizens will buy then, but what about everyone else…?
We trust “voting machines”, AKA PCs, to count the vote. So what’s the problem?
Take away the vote, who cares, but touch people’s GUNS and you have a problem.
Ah, Amurrica.
#6 If you were a police officer and your life or someone elses you are sworn to protect might depend on your weapon working, you would think diffrently.
#6 So what’s the problem?
Answer: Obtaining consistent interaction with a machine’s sensors, while under stress.
A few no-stress comparisons…
If your voting machine would only accept your vote if you gripped a handle – the exact same way you did when you registered to vote – the entire time you are casting your vote…
If your computer mouse would only function if you gripped it the same way – throughout the day…
If your car would only work if you held the steering wheel a “certain way” the entire time you are driving…
If your phone wouldn’t work if you held it the “wrong” way…
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Don’t get me wrong, I love the idea of a gun only being able to fire when the owner wants it to… I just don’t trust current technology to do the job.
What I dislike are the “proximity” devices…
Policemen who are shot with their own weapon are usually shot while involved in a struggle with an assailant. Any RFID-type system would be useless in that situation, because the officer’s hands would be close to [or still in-contact with] the weapon when it is fired.
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The idea that only guns sold in New Jersey would be required to have these devices is ridiculous… We would have to do this nationally, or not at all. [and with our track record on eliminating: illegal immigration, Meth, cocaine,… you get the idea]
Thinking ahead:
1. When do we make it illegal for a police officer to have a non-interlocked gun?
2. When do we make it illegal for citizens to have non-interlocked guns?
3. What happens to all the “pre-ban” guns?
What this world really needs are guns that won’t fire at all.
Stupid and dangerous.
The whole point of this so-called “technology” is to drive the price of weapons up to the point where only rich people can afford them. The people who need a gun most of all, are the people who live in the inner cities, where you can dial 911 and then wait a few days to find out if the cops feel like even showing up.
Don’t forget that NJ Law Enforcement Officers will _not_ be required to use these guns.
Just us worthless peons….
Junk science, and old news.
(Which doesn’t make it any less stupid.)
Judge Dredd anyone?
And let’s note for the record that NJ is the state that brought us racial profiling.
I think the solution is for policemen to carry many handguns — one for when they’re in a normal emotional state, one for when they’re scared, and one for when they’re horny, probably.
Seems to me like the only purpose of the law is so the company can make loads of money.
#14. Most police officers do carry multiple firearms. A duty piece, and a backup piece or two. Many carry a backup specifically in case their duty piece is grabbed, and another as “Onion field insurance,” in case they’re held hostage.
What is actually 100% good enough to prevent police officers from getting shot with their own guns is a manual safety. Despite what you see on TV and movies, criminals are not “gun people.” They don’t know anything about guns except how to squeeze the trigger. Most of them don’t even know how to load a gun. It’s alarmingly common to have someone go into a gun store and ask for “enough bullets to fill the ‘clip,’ and would you load it for me?” then they whip out some cheap gun.
There are _many_ instances where a police officer avoided being shot with their own gun because #1, their gun had a manual safety, and #2, they had a backup piece.
What I wonder is how self defence works. So what to you do when the only gun you can get ahold of is yor attackers? Your not going to be able to use it, so if they have an avantage over you (such as size) then your still have a good chance. (this is for the people who would just stop someone, such as shooting someone in the foot)
Seriously… Like above. What if your hand got hurt (cut even) and you have to hold the gun diffrent? Just smash someones hand and they can’t shoot anymore. Tons of sad Scenerios….
In response to Malren:
Everything has it’s pros and cons and nothing we invent is ever going to be 100% perfect… I think that this is a pretty interesting idea….
I think that there should be more than just the grip aspect in the gun for it to work like fingerprint identification etc in case a cop gets hurt and can’t use his or her grip in the same way.
If you used fingerprint identification another benefit or safety procaution could be that it would only work in the hands of the people it was made to recognize. If you had a gun and were not home and your wife or someone else you cared about needed the gun to protect themselves it could be used by them also. If a intruder tried to use the weapon it wouldint work.
In response to Kent:
That’s a good point…. but im pretty sure it would be different for using a gun in real life as opposed to that of a game.
In response to Hal:
The whole point of this technology is not to make only rich people be able to afford them the point is to make guns harder to use by the wrong people and children that dont know any better. The point is to try to limit fatalities as much as possible.
Like expensive cars, drugs and computers etc if someone wants something badly enough they will find a way to get it. People still smoke cigarettes even though the price goes up… sure making it more expensive might deter some people but it wont eliminate the problem. Even if it somehow did…what about people that arent rich and need protection?? what if someone was being wrongfully sued or in some ther predicament and couldnt afford the increased price?? they would have to suffer because of it maybe even die as a result??
In response to Stu:
LOL TOUCHE!!!!!! Very good reference….now I will have lots more to think about….good movie by the way.
Ryan M, most officers don’t carry a backup weapon, at least here in NJ. Also many PDs do not allow it anyway.
>A surprising number of police officers are killed with their own side arm.
And yet they all insist on an exception for cops from these trigger lock laws. Why are the people most likely to die from their own gun against these requirements? Sounds like there is something wrong with having these trigger locks, but noone else is organzied enough to object.
Maybe “most” was an overstatement. But I do know several police officers who carry multiple firearms, including one who carries a backup (which is also his off-duty carry piece), and “onion field insurance.” Among cops who have to work in high crime areas, or who see their job as more than “just a job,” it’s not that uncommon.
Then there are the ones who only shoot once, twice, or thrice a year, however often they’re required to qualify…
Anyway though, all gun control is pretty stupid and pointless. The sole reason for 99% of gun control laws today is actually to selectively disarm poor people, and _especially_ poor black people. And this particular law is no exception. Any supposed Democrats that support gun control should read http://www.blackmanwithagun.com/site/dbpage.asp?page_id=140000780&sec_id=140000845