SMART GUNS A DUMB IDEA

‘Gun safety’ technologies that would prevent anyone but the owner from using a firearm are not fail-safe and are cost prohibitive; just another scheme to keep guns out of the hands of law abiding citizens

Liberals are salivating over a bill by Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass., which would require every new gun sold to have technological systems that would prevent anyone but the owner from firing it. If Markey’s bill becomes law, it would take effect in two years and three years thereafter, all guns without such a system would have to be retrofitted or else they will be illegal.

Several ‘gun safety’ systems are in the works. One such system is a gun paired with a special wrist watch that sends a wireless signal to the firearm. The gun will not fire unless the user is wearing that watch. Another system is a biometric one that would have sensors which recognize the owner’s fingerprints. And yet another one would have a number of sensors along the gun’s grips which would recognize the tightness of the owner’s grip.

Requiring such technologies has little to do with gun safety. This is just another scheme to keep guns out of the hands of law abiding citizens. These technologies would drive the price of handguns sky-high. According to the Washington Post, the watch/gun combo costs nearly $2,000.

There are real problems associated with such systems. If a gun owner were away from home, his family members would not be able to use the gun to defend themselves from home intruders.

And these devices are not fail-safe either. What happens when the wrist watch battery runs out? And could a crook wrestle the gun away from its owner and still be close enough to the watch to fire it? And what happens when the gun owner doesn’t use the same grip as when it was initially measured by the sensors? These new technologies could be disastrous to law abiding citizens trying to defend themselves against criminals.

And what about the cops? Let’s say that an officer wearing a wrist watch-paired gun went down in a firefight. His partner or another officer would not be able to use the fallen cop’s gun unless he discarded his own watch and replaced it with the other one. The cops sure as hell are not going to want the wrist watch, biometric and grip technologies with their guns.

In any event, these technologies won’t make a dime’s worth of difference because they will only be on new guns. There are millions of guns in the hands of law abiding citizens that do not have these new features. And the owners of these firearms would not spend the money necessary to retrofit their guns. The only way this law would work as intended is if the government confiscated all guns that do not have these systems. And that would leave most law abiding citizens without the means to defend themselves, while the gangbangers and criminals would still be armed.

Smart guns are a really dumb idea. They are just another scheme dreamed up by liberals who do not want anyone to own a gun if they are not a cop or in the military. It figures that a liberal east coast Democrat like Sen Markey would be behind this scheme. Of course, both California senators and other congressional liberals will be enthusiastic supporters of Markey's bill. These technologies have anti-gunners salivating all over the place.