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 Grey Templar wrote:
The cost would also be an infringement on the 2nd amendment. Adding hundreds of dollars onto the cost of each gun would effectively mean only rich people could exercise their 2nd amendment rights, same reason why mandating gun safes would also be a problem.

I don't see how that's an issue, unless the government is going to legislate how much such things should cost.

It's not an infringement of your rights if a company chooses to charge more for something that you can afford. That's just capitalism at work.

If the government(key word here) makes it a substantial burden to exercise a right they are infringing upon it. By mandating an expensive additional feature, they are infringing on your right to bear arms.

No different than if, in order to exercise any other right, they mandated you purchase an expensive something or other. What if, in order to exercise your right to free speech, you were required to purchase a megaphone and only things you spoke into that megaphone were protected by this right?

Wasn't this the argument against mandating voter ID? That it was too much of a financial burden to require them, and thus unfair to all the poor black people.

 insaniak wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
The cost would also be an infringement on the 2nd amendment. Adding hundreds of dollars onto the cost of each gun would effectively mean only rich people could exercise their 2nd amendment rights, same reason why mandating gun safes would also be a problem.

I don't see how that's an issue, unless the government is going to legislate how much such things should cost.

It's not an infringement of your rights if a company chooses to charge more for something that you can afford. That's just capitalism at work.

If they are forced to by government decree, however, it is.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 Frankenberry wrote:

My point isn't that accidents don't happen, it's that people who know how to respect and use firearms don't let this kind of stuff happen..

Except, as in the bit I quoted from you earlier, you made the claim that people who are trained in the use of firearms dont have those sorts of incidents.... One video was all it took to disprove that. Military and US Cops are, by pretty much any definition of the word, trained in the use of firearms. And as others have pointed out, even in the military they STILL happen.

Hell, I was on gate guard in Iraq one day when at the other gate to my base, a patrol was coming in, and a female soldier almost blew the head off of a SFC.

I personally don't use the term "accidental" unless there is a mechanical malfunction with either the firearm or the ammunition. The term negligent discharge I feel is more appropriate, because unless there was a mechanical failure, someone was at fault. Safety checking (visually and physically multiple times), mag is empty, safe direction, and if loaded finger away from the trigger at all times until ready to fire etc. etc. Pretty basic practices.

Maybe thats what he meant by the accident comment.

 Grey Templar wrote:
If the government(key word here) makes it a substantial burden to exercise a right they are infringing upon it. By mandating an expensive additional feature, they are infringing on your right to bear arms.

They're not mandating an expensive feature. They're mandating a feature.

Again, unless the government is regulating the price of that feature, it's entirely up to the companies selling that feature as to whether or not it's expensive.

 insaniak wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
If the government(key word here) makes it a substantial burden to exercise a right they are infringing upon it. By mandating an expensive additional feature, they are infringing on your right to bear arms.

They're not mandating an expensive feature. They're mandating a feature.

Again, unless the government is regulating the price of that feature, it's entirely up to the companies selling that feature as to whether or not it's expensive.

It depends on how much it costs the company to research and develop it.

People have a right to an attorney, that doesn't keep attorneys from being expensive because you will be provided one if you can't afford one.

So the government will provide everyone with one cheap .22 pistol with a 3 round magazine, problem solved!

Relapse wrote:

It depends on how much it costs the company to research and develop it.

What does that have to do wih the government?

 insaniak wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
If the government(key word here) makes it a substantial burden to exercise a right they are infringing upon it. By mandating an expensive additional feature, they are infringing on your right to bear arms.

They're not mandating an expensive feature. They're mandating a feature.

Again, unless the government is regulating the price of that feature, it's entirely up to the companies selling that feature as to whether or not it's expensive.

I assure you any biometric scanner is going to make the cost of a gun equipped with it astronomically high. Its not something you could just install in any gun either, each gun would need its own unique device to work with it as all the internals would be different from gun to gun. Even two copies of the same firearm might not be able to take the same reader because of modifications or who built it.

So everyone would have to buy a biometric scanner built for their particular firearm, multiplied by every firearm they own.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 insaniak wrote:

Relapse wrote:

It depends on how much it costs the company to research and develop it.

What does that have to do wih the government?

You also can't mandate a product which doesn't exist.

In order to exercise your right to free speech, you must purchase a Molerath 9000. Too bad nobody makes a Molerath 9000, but you still have the right to speak freely if you can acquire one.

Relapse wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
The cost would also be an infringement on the 2nd amendment. Adding hundreds of dollars onto the cost of each gun would effectively mean only rich people could exercise their 2nd amendment rights, same reason why mandating gun safes would also be a problem.

I don't see how that's an issue, unless the government is going to legislate how much such things should cost.

It's not an infringement of your rights if a company chooses to charge more for something that you can afford. That's just capitalism at work.

If they are forced to by government decree, however, it is.

Except that the commerce clause has allowed the Government to implement mileage requirements to cars without concern of existing technology or price. They could use that to force "smart" technology be developed and implemented on all new firearm manufactures. President Obama cannot mandate it via executive order and there would have to be a geo-political "earthquake" before Congress would pass such a bill.

Cars don't really compare to firearms that way. Cars aren't covered by a fundamental constitutional right.

I wish Obama would drop the guns issue. The research isn't there yet to back one side or the other as a cohesive body, and even when it does get there it will still be a huge political battle.

As a country we have decided to allow firearm ownership a certain way, meaning we also accept the mass shootings and deadliness of crime that comes with that. Because while the jury is still out on whether broad gun ownership reduces, increases, or has no effect on crime, it remains impossible to perform a drive-by stabbing. Maybe there is a reduction in overall crime to compensate that, maybe there isn't.

Personally I think guns do increase crime, because when you have a hammer, soon enough everything starts to look like a nail. But I won't claim that as anything more than personal opinion. That said, if guns increase safety then why do we go through so much effort to keep them out of airports, schools, and important events? Going by that line of logic, more guns should mean more safety, so we should be encouraging more guns being brought in if that is the case. Perhaps the political figures who support relaxing gun control should allow and encourage personal firearms at events they attend - after all they would only be owning up to their own opinion.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
it remains impossible to perform a drive-by stabbing.

Some fellers would like to have a word with you:




I do however, somewhat agree with you that each side's "studies" will always back up their preconceived ideals. BUT, I think that when you look at places like Chicago, DC and NYC, the evidence that having stricter gun control isn't a good thing. But then again, if you look at a place like Houston, it may show that having loose gun laws may not be a good thing.


One thing that I think always gets overlooked in these debates, especially from the "If you removed the highest violent crime areas from the stats in the US, the country would be on par with most other European nations" line, is the number of non-gun related factors that, IMHO should be looked at when dealing with the WHY there's violent crime. Things like economic despair and disparity, economic mobility, food security, education levels, education quality, etc. all point to there being a host of problems that some believe that if you fix those problems, you'll "fix" the perceived gun problem.

 Grey Templar wrote:

I assure you any biometric scanner is going to make the cost of a gun equipped with it astronomically high..

And given the size of the firearm industry in the US, I can assure you that if the government instituted legislation requiring them on every weapon, there would be affordable versions on the market within weeks, at most.


For most electronics, it's only the development that's expensive... Once you've successfully designed the product, actual production costs next to nothing. New technology is expensive because companies need to recoup that development cost without knowing how many units they're actually going to be able to sell. Put in place legislation that guarantees a massive market for the product, and that is suddenly not an issue and you can drop the price significantly.

Smartphones somehow managed to avoid sky high prices despite the addition of biometric scanners.

smartphones don't have to resist the shock of recoil potentially tens of thousands of times. That's been one of the biggest kickers for such technology, having it reliably operate over repeated firings over long periods of time and with calibers more substantial than smaller handgun rounds has proven to be somewhat illusive, even though they've been working on such technology since the 90's.

Likewise, with how the gun industry has been so politicized, it's just as likely they'd cease production in protest.

The law in NJ that would have mandated all guns in NJ be smart guns basically killed the market for them, ensuring that nobody would be willing to sell one to trigger the law.

Unrelated to biometrics, but did micro stamping ever become a thing?

 Vaktathi wrote:
Cars don't really compare to firearms that way. Cars aren't covered by a fundamental constitutional right.

Neither is the manufacture of firearms; only possession. Manufacture can and already is being regulated through the commerce clause.

 d-usa wrote:
Unrelated to biometrics, but did micro stamping ever become a thing?

No. The proponents of it discovered that microstamping the firing pin was an incredibly asinine idea once they were informed what a firing pin actually does and how trivial it is to change.

So now they're on to microstamping ammunition. I imagine there will be some tears to come when they actually start learning about those as well.

Ultimately, these executive orders seem like a great way to spend a lot of money without doing much. Internet sales are already subject to NICS checks, as are sales at gun shows by anybody in the business of selling guns. Smart guns are a pipe dream that nobody's going to buy into. Etc.

Forgive my ignorance, being a non-gun owning Brit and all that, but I'm pretty sure that guns have a safety feature on them already.

Doesn't that prevent accidental discharge?

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Forgive my ignorance, being a non-gun owning Brit and all that, but I'm pretty sure that guns have a safety feature on them already.

Doesn't that prevent accidental discharge?

Yes.

In the same way that having brakes on cars prevents car accidents.

Trigger guard and safety catch, of course. I was thinking the same.

The problem is that any loaded gun is inherently a dangerous item that can be set off by mistake. Even trained users sometimes make mistakes, as in any other human activity. I don't see what else could be added to a gun to make it even safer once it's actually been taken out and loaded. However I am not an engineer. Add more safety catches? How would they be retro-fitted to the millions of weapons already in circulation. Some guns already have two.

As for the biometric or other ID feature, I'm not sure what problem it is intended to solve. There really can't be very many occassions when someone grabs the gun off someone else and uses it to shoot the owner. Besides, what about situations where a gun is shared between several people, for instance a pistol for home defence. Will the user have to log into their correct account on the gun?

A national register sounds a sensible idea and certainly could be implemented at some cost. It would help to quantify the number of weapons and their distribution, and could be useful in crime investigation.

Laws to require proper safety training and a storage facility keeping gun and ammo locked and separated would be helpful in reducing accidents and suicides, but all these things are opposed by the NRA because they are afraid of government interference in having weapons.

 Tactical_Spam wrote:

 Henry wrote:

 Tactical_Spam wrote:
Promote technology to prevent accidental discharge and unauthorized use of firearms... Are we going to see DNA scanners on our guns now? Sci Fi no more?

Guns with that technology exist, but I know nothing about the reliability or cost of the tech. One obvious application would be for police forces as it would prevent their weapons being used against themselves in a struggle.

All we need is Salvester Stallone to join the police forceand we can start up a real life Judge Dredd. Thanks Obama!

I AM THE LAW!

The real constitutional issue is: he's redefining who's a "seller," and potentially mandating (depending on the article you hear) that all sellers must now have FFLs. That could potentially mean anyone who sells a firearm. An FFL is pretty onerous and can mandate inspection etc. That won't fly if that portion is true.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Forgive my ignorance, being a non-gun owning Brit and all that, but I'm pretty sure that guns have a safety feature on them already.

Doesn't that prevent accidental discharge?

Not at all. There are many factors that can lead to an AI. Poorly manufactured equipment, damaged equipment and wear and tear. Human factors such as tiredness, overconfidence, complacency and bad atmospherics. Poor training and inadequate training. Then there's those weapons that straight up have design flaws. That's why all ammo incidents are investigated properly and the weapon systems isolated for inspection before apportioning blame.
Coincidentally I was in a chat with some armourer colleagues recently where they said one weapon they maintain is so bad that it's even written in the manual that upon cocking the weapon it may accidentally discharge. (They might have been talking about a US forces weapon, the details didn't seem important at the time)

Though nothing can compensate for fethknuckles who aspire to go full Blackhawk Down:


One example of an added safety feature is the gun I've currently got. The holster has a double press mechanism in order to draw it. It minimises the chance that someone else could take it off me.
For what little it's worth, when I used an M16 I remember thinking at the time it would have been significantly easier to ND with that than my normal L85.

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:

 Tactical_Spam wrote:
Promote technology to prevent accidental discharge and unauthorized use of firearms... Are we going to see DNA scanners on our guns now? Sci Fi no more?

Let LEO test the technology first before it's forced on everyone else. After all, they're the ones constantly shooting themselves / each other / innocent people negligently.

This is extremely true. NDAs happen to them quite a bit.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 d-usa wrote:
Is there any actual good argument against requiring gun manufacturers to report weapons that are lost in transit?

None. However, absent transport robberies (something the mob does) thats not a major issue. However I am fine with that as a reasonable item.

Same to same for retailers and owners. They should report any theft or loss of firearms to the relevant local PoPo. If, while transporting all my firearms across Lake Travis, that the boat should tip and the bag fall in, well I should have to report that to the PoPo. It would be ashame if that happened.

 insaniak wrote:

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
Hopefully not. The technology is sensitive and can take some time to register. Now couple that with a high pressure situation, such as defensive gun use and the associated adrenaline dump, and you may all too easily end up with an improvised melee weapon rather than a ballistic deterrent. .

On the other hand, that might result in fewer accidental shootings where people mistake a family member for an intruder...



From curiosity, are there any figures showing how many crimes are actually successfully stopped by the victim pulling out a firearm?

How?

I har a noise. I grab my gun. The sensor on the gun says 'yep, that is my owner'. I pull the trigger.

This 'solution' does not solve that problem at all.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Forgive my ignorance, being a non-gun owning Brit and all that, but I'm pretty sure that guns have a safety feature on them already.

Doesn't that prevent accidental discharge?

No. Every gun is a little different as far as how the safety works. One of the more common pistols, the 1911 and it's clones, has a safety that locks the sear into place; but if you cock it and then put the safety on, if the hammer falls it will still strike the firing pin and the gun will still discharge. It shouldn't happen and it's very, very rare, but it's not impossible. There are some later changes to the 1911 that try to make it more safe, but this isn't universal even on this one firearm - my 1911 doesn't have the series 70 parts.

Two of the more common safeties: a grip safety, which is a latch in the grip of the gun which does not allow the trigger to be pulled unless the gun is being firmly gripped, and a trigger safety, which is a little curved piece in the trigger itself that is depressed as part of the trigger pull.

One of the safer designs is an internal block, which is a wall between the firing pin and primer. As part of the gun design, this block is lowered during the trigger pull process which allows the pin to actually strike the primer. If it's dropped, the pin will just hit the wall which has not been lowered because it wasn't simultaneously dropped and trigger depressed, presumably. However, this design adds some complexity (and hence less reliability) to the design.

An external manual safety is atop all of that.


None of these things are mandated by law and they all vary wildly by firearm. Some have all of them, some have some of them, I'm not aware of any guns that have none of them, but it's possible.

 insaniak wrote:

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
Hopefully not. The technology is sensitive and can take some time to register. Now couple that with a high pressure situation, such as defensive gun use and the associated adrenaline dump, and you may all too easily end up with an improvised melee weapon rather than a ballistic deterrent. .

On the other hand, that might result in fewer accidental shootings where people mistake a family member for an intruder...



From curiosity, are there any figures showing how many crimes are actually successfully stopped by the victim pulling out a firearm?

Depending on the FBI stat you use, 1mm to 2.5mm a year. Most of those stops involve mere brandishing of a firearm to deter muggers, potential rapists while not at home.

 Henry wrote:
One example of an added safety feature is the gun I've currently got. The holster has a double press mechanism in order to draw it. It minimises the chance that someone else could take it off me.

Not to be that pedantic guy, but that's a safety feature of your holster, not your gun And yes, those are great features - I know the NYPD has strict requirements for holsters to make it nearly impossible for someone else to pull it off a cop's hip, despite how apparently available it is. IIRC You need to pull it in, back, and up to release which is very difficult to do from the other direction.

 Ouze wrote:

 Henry wrote:
One example of an added safety feature is the gun I've currently got. The holster has a double press mechanism in order to draw it. It minimises the chance that someone else could take it off me.

Not to be that pedantic guy, but that's a safety feature of your holster, not your gun

To be completely pedantic, it's a safety feature of the weapon system.