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Why the NRA hates smart guns

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Re: Why the NRA hates smart guns

#131

Post by vacri »

jboggan wrote: post #11

Good article, glad to see some knowledgable firearms writing in the general press. This is how I've felt as a gun owner over the last two decades, translated into computing: Imagine that someone in California hacked into a power station and caused a blackout. Police responded and found the hacker and their equipment. Shortly thereafter an "anti-hacking" bill appeared in the state legislature to prevent a repeat of su…

Ironically, you've just described the concealed-carry laws that are proliferating through the states right now, which are all based on hunches and gut feeling. As a gun owner over the last two decades, do you feel as uneasy about that proliferation?

Re: Why the NRA hates smart guns

#132

Post by hga »

ubernostrum wrote: post #124
jonstokes wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OP article author here: You are correct and the parent comment is incorrect. The NRA actually used to support background checks, but after decades of "compromises" where they basically gave up ground and got nothing in return, they went hard-line at the membership's insistence. This cartoon does a great job of explaining the average NRA members view of what it means to meet the gun control lobby "halfway" on an issue…

where they basically gave up ground and got nothing in return What would they get in return? The absolutist/fundamentalist interpretation of the 2nd Amendment does not admit of compromise, and sets up a world view in which compromises and "reasonable middles" cannot exist; from that stance one either wins completely or loses completely, which is not coincidentally the rhetoric often used to work supporters up into a…

What would they get in return?

The right to own new machine guns made after 1986, and aren't additions before that that are not already in the pool of 200,000 forbidden?

Nationwide concealed carry reciprocity, like with drivers licenses.

Related to the above, enforcing shall issue concealed carry on the entire nation.

Removing the many state restrictions on magazine size, and against "assault weapons", which the Congress has explicit, original Constitutional power to do, forget about the 2nd Amendment.

Removing post-Reconstruction laws like the sheriff's permit to buy a handgun in North Carolina.

In general, there's a host of "flypaper" laws that are designed to make it harder and more dangerous to keep and bear arms, and only serve such purposes, that clearing away a bunch of them would be a big thing for us.

Reform the BATFE.

That's just off the top of my head in 2 minutes.

Re: Why the NRA hates smart guns

#133

Post by partiallypro »

jboggan wrote: post #11

Good article, glad to see some knowledgable firearms writing in the general press. This is how I've felt as a gun owner over the last two decades, translated into computing: Imagine that someone in California hacked into a power station and caused a blackout. Police responded and found the hacker and their equipment. Shortly thereafter an "anti-hacking" bill appeared in the state legislature to prevent a repeat of su…

If the government really wanted to push "smart guns," they could do it easily. How? Well, the U.S government is the single biggest purchaser of guns & ammo in the world. If they required all of their guns to be smart guns, manufacturers would suddenly shift production to make smart guns and it would raise the cost of production (and thus the price) for traditional weapons. But as you and others in this thread have stated, this has a number of problems not only for the government but for users and their legal rights.

Re: Why the NRA hates smart guns

#134

Post by ubernostrum »

hga wrote: post #132
ubernostrum wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

where they basically gave up ground and got nothing in return What would they get in return? The absolutist/fundamentalist interpretation of the 2nd Amendment does not admit of compromise, and sets up a world view in which compromises and "reasonable middles" cannot exist; from that stance one either wins completely or loses completely, which is not coincidentally the rhetoric often used to work supporters up into a…

What would they get in return? The right to own new machine guns made after 1986, and aren't additions before that that are not already in the pool of 200,000 forbidden? Nationwide concealed carry reciprocity, like with drivers licenses. Related to the above, enforcing shall issue concealed carry on the entire nation. Removing the many state restrictions on magazine size, and against "assault weapons", which the Cong…

But... your points all come from the stance I was talking about. You don't seem interested in reasonable compromises, you seem interested in just getting everything you want and everyone else having to deal with it.

Re: Why the NRA hates smart guns

#135

Post by cloakandswagger »

minimax wrote: post #114
vaadu wrote: post #66

This article is an ignorant POS. The NRA hates smartguns for at least 3 reasons. First is the government is trying to force an unreliable and complex feature onto a product that needs to work every time. Second is the government has no plans to use it themselves, which speaks volumes about what their LEOs and the US military thinks of the reliability this technology. Last is the government is trying to solve a people…

BTW, these people problems are the result of Democrat's policies in gun-free cities such as Chicago, St Louis, Oakland and Baltimore. I don't know about the other three cities, but you can concealed carry in Chicago and that has been the case for almost three years now.

Have you tried obtaining a CCW in Chicago? In order to get one you have to:

-Take a 16 hour course. There are only a handful of companies that can offer the course and they're fully booked year-round

-Pay $150, one of the highest CCW permit fees in the nation

-Hope that you aren't one of the 800 applicants/year that are inexplicably denied (http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2014-07-04/news/ct-concea...)

So yes, you can technically get a CCW in Illinois. It's also obvious that the state has thrown as many roadblocks as they legally could in the way, ironically bolstering the NRA's argument that any "common sense" requirements around gun ownership will be used as de facto restrictions

Re: Why the NRA hates smart guns

#136

Post by hga »

vacri wrote: post #131
jboggan wrote: post #11

Good article, glad to see some knowledgable firearms writing in the general press. This is how I've felt as a gun owner over the last two decades, translated into computing: Imagine that someone in California hacked into a power station and caused a blackout. Police responded and found the hacker and their equipment. Shortly thereafter an "anti-hacking" bill appeared in the state legislature to prevent a repeat of su…

Ironically, you've just described the concealed-carry laws that are proliferating through the states right now, which are all based on hunches and gut feeling. As a gun owner over the last two decades, do you feel as uneasy about that proliferation?

hunches and gut feeling

How about decades of experience. Vermont never banned carry in any form, and now has been joined by 9 other states in "Constitutional Carry", many for some years. Washington state went shall issue in the early '60s. Florida started the modern wave in 1987. "Normal" states like Colorado have allowed concealed carry on the grounds of public colleges for years.

Experience, especially in the "50 Petri dishes" of the states, is one of the ways we figure out such things, and this "proliferation" has been a wild success.

Re: Why the NRA hates smart guns

#138

Post by cloakandswagger »

crikli wrote: post #110
drmilsurp wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have a "do not promote" list that you must request to be added to which solves the spam/marketing mail problem. That you have to ask is problematic but there is a solution if this was the only problem.

It wasn't just that. Ultimately I decided that there were more effective 2A organizations that I preferred to support.

I'm saddened to hear your feelings on the NRA and its effectiveness.

While they, thankfully, haven't had to fight any big national gun control initiatives for some time, they are still very active at the state and city level. See their recent lawsuit against the City of Seattle and its new gun tax.

Re: Why the NRA hates smart guns

#139

Post by hga »

partiallypro wrote: post #133
jboggan wrote: post #11

Good article, glad to see some knowledgable firearms writing in the general press. This is how I've felt as a gun owner over the last two decades, translated into computing: Imagine that someone in California hacked into a power station and caused a blackout. Police responded and found the hacker and their equipment. Shortly thereafter an "anti-hacking" bill appeared in the state legislature to prevent a repeat of su…

If the government really wanted to push "smart guns," they could do it easily. How? Well, the U.S government is the single biggest purchaser of guns & ammo in the world. If they required all of their guns to be smart guns, manufacturers would suddenly shift production to make smart guns and it would raise the cost of production (and thus the price) for traditional weapons. But as you and others in this thread have st…

Well, the U.S government is the single biggest purchaser of guns & ammo in the world.

Not even close. E.g. they annually procure by an order of magnitude less small arms ammo than the 12+ billion produced in the US alone for civilians every year (and that doesn't count the seconds that ATK sells to us from Lake City).

Similarly, by now we civilians are every year or two buying as many new guns as all the governments in the US have in their active inventories (not going to count old stuff in Cosmoline, which they should sell more of to us, next up are 10,000 M1911s, maybe).

Nope, any existing companies that manufactured so much as one smart gun would be boycotted by us civilians and go out of business, as Colt is close to doing for various reasons including depending too much on the DoD, and, yeah, that smart gun flirtation and general cooperation with the gun-grabbers.

Re: Why the NRA hates smart guns

#140

Post by angersock »

xorgar831 wrote: post #39
jboggan wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever shot the rifle in the latter video (Kel-Tec Sub 2000)? It's actually very lightweight, ergonomic, and favored in my experience by women and those of smaller stature as opposed to say, a handgun. Everyone I've ever trained to shoot that rifle have had a very easy time hitting what they are aiming at and more importantly not hitting what they are not aiming at. Why do you think it is completely impractica…

Because a rifle isn't practical for close targets. A handgun is much better suited for that.

"A handgun is much better suited for that."

I'll take "What is a carbine chambered in a pistol round for $200, Alex."

The SUB-2000 uses the 9x19 round, so it's basically a pistol with better ergonomics.

Defending a home with a full rifle round in close quarters, say a .30-06 or 8mm Mauser, would be kinda silly--but that carbine is fine.

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