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Why the NRA hates smart guns

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Re: Why the NRA hates smart guns

#61

Post by objclxt »

hga wrote: post #45
Dagwoodie wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is, left leaning politicians constantly threaten their fundamental constitutional rights, either overtly or not. Every time a gun is used in a crime that rises to national prominence politicians sprint to the microphone to decry gun ownership or at very least to make it harder or much harder to acquire a gun. Bigger than that though, the entertainment media is largely left wing and extremely vocal of thei…

And then there's all the dramatic productions of written works where positive uses of guns are somehow dropped on the floor. Schindler's List I remember reading about, he armed "his" Jews before they left, and as I recall, being armed made a big difference in their subsequent survival. This sort of thing was dropped from the dramatization of a novel by a totally PC woman black? author, I could probably find a referen…

> *dramatization of a novel by a totally PC woman black? author

I fail to see how the gender or sex of the author has anything to do with anything, but it's good to know where your own biases lie.

Re: Why the NRA hates smart guns

#62

Post by woodman »

hga wrote: post #17
curun1r wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the push for smart guns for law enforcement would come from law enforcement's negligent inability to keep track of their own weapons. A local news channel covered the story of one Bay Area city's police department releasing a report on an inventory of the weapons used by police officers. They were literally missing hundreds of them. Often, the weapon would be lost when an officer left it in an unlocked car, e…

I suppose so, but it's not like that would make any difference in the number of illicit guns on the street, and I've never heard of smart guns being designed for that much harder use case, where an adversary had lots of time to modify them. The most common one is limiting who can fire it, e.g. preventing the all too common tragedy when a criminal snatches a cop's gun and kills him with it.

> all too common tragedy

Any murder is too much murder, but I certainly wouldn't describe it as common. Cops are nearly as likely to die of a car accident as they are of getting shot. A cop friend of mine was going on about how the recent media focus on them has made things so dangerous - officer murders were up by 15%! I asked him if that translated to an increase of 5 or 6 a year, and if that was actually above the noise floor - he responded with a blank stare - "15%."

Re: Why the NRA hates smart guns

#63

Post by hga »

objclxt wrote: post #61
hga wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And then there's all the dramatic productions of written works where positive uses of guns are somehow dropped on the floor. Schindler's List I remember reading about, he armed "his" Jews before they left, and as I recall, being armed made a big difference in their subsequent survival. This sort of thing was dropped from the dramatization of a novel by a totally PC woman black? author, I could probably find a referen…

> *dramatization of a novel by a totally PC woman black? author I fail to see how the gender or sex of the author has anything to do with anything, but it's good to know where your own biases lie.

It's relevant in the context of the people who dramatized her work. In theory, coming from someone like her, they should have shown it the respect it was due. But the Hollywood narrative that also erased the good uses of guns from Schindler's List had to be maintained at all costs.

Re: Why the NRA hates smart guns

#64

Post by msandford »

maxerickson wrote: post #25
fdhj4094njdf wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't oppose background checks. http://www.politico.com/story/2015/08/nra-supported-backgrou...

The pertinent part of that bill is about listing mental health information in the background check system. It doesn't increase the number of transactions where a background check would be required. The NRA regularly opposes such expansions (for instance they oppose closing the so called gun show loophole).

The idea that mental health information should be a part of background checks is a pretty tough row to hoe. With crimes at least there's an ostensibly fair trial that determines the guilt or innocence of the person; with mental health there may or may not be any kind of trial but the resulting embargo on your gun rights will be just as real.

Further that would incentivize people who might be struggling with mental illness NOT to seek help, lest they forever find themselves unable to own a gun. Is that what we want? Discouraging people from seeking help?

Finally, there's absolutely NO incentive for the people actually executing the background check system to "be reasonable" such that if you had a nervous breakdown in college at 20 years old from trying to take 21 credits so you could graduate before your scholarship ran out (as a totally contrived example) should that really prevent 40 year old you from owning a shotgun to shoot clays? I might argue "no" but the bureaucracy has NO incentive to allow it and EVERY incentive not to allow it. There are no real repercussions for taking someone's rights in a nebulous and opaque manner but large repercussions if anyone, anywhere ever who has any kind of mental health history ever gets a gun and uses it murderously.

Re: Why the NRA hates smart guns

#65

Post by hga »

woodman wrote: post #62
hga wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose so, but it's not like that would make any difference in the number of illicit guns on the street, and I've never heard of smart guns being designed for that much harder use case, where an adversary had lots of time to modify them. The most common one is limiting who can fire it, e.g. preventing the all too common tragedy when a criminal snatches a cop's gun and kills him with it.

> all too common tragedy Any murder is too much murder, but I certainly wouldn't describe it as common. Cops are nearly as likely to die of a car accident as they are of getting shot. A cop friend of mine was going on about how the recent media focus on them has made things so dangerous - officer murders were up by 15%! I asked him if that translated to an increase of 5 or 6 a year, and if that was actually above the…

Well, you're got a point, especially with modern retention holsters, but it's still a major issue, and those holsters also slow down the draw speed of officers (but one defeated the Boston bombers' after they murdered the MIT Campus Policeman, that murder was for naught).

Re: Why the NRA hates smart guns

#66

Post by vaadu »

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 problem with technology. BTW, these people problems are the result of Democrat's policies in gun-free cities such as Chicago, St Louis, Oakland and Baltimore.

Re: Why the NRA hates smart guns

#67

Post by space_fountain »

sanj wrote: post #4

If the better approach is to focus on the "who", why does the NRA oppose background checks?

The argument I have heard is that a universal background checks system would require the government to keep a registry of gun owners to be at all useful. You have to be able to go back and prove whether a seller performed the proper background check before selling a gun to a particular person.

A possible alternative I thought and have always wondered why it doesn't get used would be some sort of private public key cryptography where the seller would get a signed certificate proving they ran a background check and it's result, but the government wouldn't store anything.

Re: Why the NRA hates smart guns

#68

Post by hga »

msandford wrote: post #64
maxerickson wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pertinent part of that bill is about listing mental health information in the background check system. It doesn't increase the number of transactions where a background check would be required. The NRA regularly opposes such expansions (for instance they oppose closing the so called gun show loophole).

The idea that mental health information should be a part of background checks is a pretty tough row to hoe. With crimes at least there's an ostensibly fair trial that determines the guilt or innocence of the person; with mental health there may or may not be any kind of trial but the resulting embargo on your gun rights will be just as real. Further that would incentivize people who might be struggling with mental il…

The idea that mental health information should be a part of background checks is a pretty tough row to hoe.

So tough that many states still absolutely refuse to supply their relevant mental health records to the NICS "instant" background check system. And then there's the screwups, the Virginia Tech shooter should have been stopped by the gun store (and who knows what would have happened after that), but Virginia hasn't forwarded his involuntary treatment order to the NICS due to their confusion and/or sloth.

Or take the Colorado theater shooter, he so alarmed his university psychiatrist that she reported him to its threat board, which she was also a member of. But he soon withdrew, and they washed their hands of any further responsibility WRT to him.

Re: Why the NRA hates smart guns

#69

Post by rdl »

hga wrote: post #58
rdl wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually with the right ammo .338 and .50 are pretty similar for precision long-range fire. The difference is the .50 has anti-materiel/anti-armor capability at many ranges; the .338 is just anti-personnel. (Source: Sako TRG-42 .338 Lapua Magnum owner. Would own a .50bmg rifle, but California, and not yet rich enough to keep it fed either.)

Right you are, and I'm ashamed I forgot that the longest recorded sniper kill was with .338 Lapua Magnum: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longest_recorded_sniper_kills as were another couple beyond the generic "1,500 yards" range it's said to have. (And if I had a place to shoot it, I'd like have a TRG-42 as well.)

For pure sporting use, if I had an 800-1000yd range less than 2.5h away from me (sigh), I'd probably build/buy a Palma rifle in .308, at least as long as my eyesight supported it.

Re: Why the NRA hates smart guns

#70

Post by hga »

space_fountain wrote: post #67
sanj wrote: post #4

If the better approach is to focus on the "who", why does the NRA oppose background checks?

The argument I have heard is that a universal background checks system would require the government to keep a registry of gun owners to be at all useful. You have to be able to go back and prove whether a seller performed the proper background check before selling a gun to a particular person. A possible alternative I thought and have always wondered why it doesn't get used would be some sort of private public key cr…

The argument I have heard is that a universal background checks system would require the government to keep a registry of gun owners to be at all useful.

Bingo, and the imposition of a registry would inevitably spark our next hot civil war. Best to avoid that....

where the seller would get a signed certificate proving they ran a background check and it's result, but the government wouldn't store anything

Unfortunately, a lot of people are really really bad about keeping records. It would also be open to abuse by the government seizing and disappearing the certificate of someone they wanted to persecute. Heck, the government sucks here, the BATFE's machine gun etc. registry is in horrible shape, and they sometimes abuse that.

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