

Assault Weapons Tracking - senthilnayagam
http://assaultweaponstracking.com

======
chrissnell
Full disclosure: I'm a hardware hacker and I own many firearms, including so-
called "assault weapons".

A couple of thoughts here:

1\. Keep your firearms in a @$( _@$_ safe unless you can put your hand on them
within a second or two at any given time. If you can't physically control it
at all times, it needs to be locked away.

2\. Don't give the safe combo to your children or anyone else. Don't let them
watch while you open it.

3\. Don't buy a crappy safe. Hotel-style 4-digit lock codes won't cut it.

4\. Once a weapon is out of the safe and you're not there to witness it, it
might as well be stolen. In other words, what you want to watch is the status
of the safe's door and not the location of the individual guns. See #1 and #2.

5\. There are already many wireless solutions to track door status. That
NinjaBlocks appliance on HN the other day comes to mind. I don't want to
invest in an entirely separate system. I want something that integrates w/ my
existing home security.

6\. You're not going to get much milage with the firearms community by calling
them "assault weapons". That's a loaded term and I don't like it. Your
potential customers are guys like me: considerate, caring people who happen to
enjoy shooting guns and who own a few, but want to keep their collections
safe. I'm not assaulting anyone and your use of that term is enough to keep me
from buying your product.

7\. You're wrong about mass shootings. Most, including the most deadly (VA
Tech), were committed with handguns, not long rifles.

~~~
senthilnayagam
there are lot of people who hoard good domains, wanted a .com domain which
tells the intent. I would have very well called gun safe tracker, but I am not
building a tracker for it.

I would like to get ninja blocks, they look interesting

banning high capacity magazines can reduce the fatalities, but even that is
tough to achieve

it is a matter of time there is going to be another shooting somewhere, and we
will again discuss and forget it, we have blood in our veins not just water,
hope we can make some progress

~~~
pliftkl
I think you are missing his point. The term "assault weapons" is a made up
term. It describes a series of cosmetic features on a rifle, and if a rifle
has a sufficient number of those features, it becomes an "assault weapon". The
gun community, the people who you would need in order to buy your weapons, is
not going to like that name. Since most of your potential buyers aren't going
to like the idea itself, you might as well come up with a website name that
they are going to find blatantly offensive.

~~~
senthilnayagam
most people will not wear a seat belts while driving a car if it was not
mandated. same applies to air bags, they are not effective if seat belts are
not worn.

[http://www.nsc.org/safety_road/DriverSafety/Pages/SeatBelts....](http://www.nsc.org/safety_road/DriverSafety/Pages/SeatBelts.aspx)

here is the link to seat belt legislation and compliance

though the first seat belts came in Saab, volvo and mercedes in late 50's
early 60's it took 80s to get them as a law in US

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seat_belt_legislation_in_the_Un...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seat_belt_legislation_in_the_United_States)

The usage of Seat belts for every state is between 72.2%(New Hampshire) to
97.6%(oregon)

if we can achieve those numbers some day Americans will feel more like
Canadians

------
learc83
So you want gun owners to voluntarily add a GPS tracking device that is
accessible by third parties to all of their guns?

I don't like to outright dismiss projects, but I'm sorry you are never going
to get enough people to do this for it to be worth anyone's time.

And how is an alarm system going to help if the guy starts firing as soon as
he walks in?

The _vast_ majority of gun homicides are committed by felons with handguns not
unauthorized "assault weapons". GPS trackers are going to be easy for
criminals to remove anyway.

~~~
senthilnayagam
This is a voluntary option, for parents and people who dont want their guns to
me taken out or misused without their permission.

We already have electronic safes and gun safes, adding RFID or NFC based
sensor would be practical, we would also need to add a sticker or embed a
small chip inside the Gun.

if a Gun is removed by unauthorized person it should raise a alarm

~~~
phaus
I understand that you want to help people and save lives, but the reality of
the fact is that your target market is going to universally hate your idea and
the rationale behind it.

~~~
senthilnayagam
my belief stems from this link

[http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-1227-gun-
buyback-201...](http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-1227-gun-
buyback-20121227,0,7293938.story)

even a couple of percentage adoption can be a big step

~~~
phaus
Gun buybacks are mostly for publicity. A good amount of the guns are stolen
specifically to turn them in for cash. The people who organize these things
make it sound like they are there to accept the surrender of a large, violent
gang. Also, when a real gang member does sell a gun, chances are he still has
at least one at home(like he's gonna change his entire lifestyle for 50
bucks.)

Think about it, most guns cost way more than the 50 bucks they were offering
for handguns in that article and ar15s average about 1k. Guns maintain resale
value in a way that makes apple products look like disposable pens, so why
would anyone who didn't steal their gun sell it to these people at a huge
loss?

~~~
learc83
The aforementioned LA gun buyback also bought 2 completely useless, already
fired, single use rocket launchers and paraded them around the press as if
they'd accomplished something.

The vast majority of guns turned in are old .22s and shotguns, very few
"assault weapons" or even handguns for that matter.

------
roboneal
Let's assume you get past the obvious problems like politics, privacy
concerns, massive improvements in battery technology to implement GPS tracking
of guns, etc.

With the estimated 200 Million privately owned firearms in the United States
alone, you seem to have a 20 Trillion dollar ($100 a firearm) problem to
solve.

That's greater than the US debt (at the moment) and the entire US GDP for the
most recent year.

Emotional impact aside, there are a lot more serious problems that could be
solved with that kind of money that impact more people with greater efficacy

~~~
learc83
You're correct.

Second hand smoking kills 42,000 people each year in the United States alone
[1].

More than 3 times as many as homicide by firearm.

Furthermore second hand smoking in Britain (more common than the US) kills
about 5 times as many people per capita as do firearms in the US [2].

[1] [http://healthland.time.com/2012/09/21/the-major-toll-of-
seco...](http://healthland.time.com/2012/09/21/the-major-toll-of-secondhand-
smoke/)

[2][http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/cancer-
info/healthyliving/sm...](http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/cancer-
info/healthyliving/smokingandtobacco/passivesmoking/smoking-and-cancer-
secondhand-smoke)

~~~
senthilnayagam
it takes years to die as a second hand smoker, even the smokers ten to live on
for decades. but bullets are swift like cyanide, intended to kill and do kill
for sure

~~~
mgarfias
Not really. Rifles at close range do tend to end people quite badly -
providing the bullet fragments or expands. There are many tales from
Iraq/Afghanistan where this isn't happening with the 5.56mm NATO. And pistols
really only kill about 25% of the time. Remember that in order to kill a human
with a normal pistol, your target is the size of a pair of ten is balls
separated by 18" of rebar. Hit the brainstem, heart, or spinal column and the
target goes down NOW. Miss that, and all sorts of odd things can happen,
including living through the hit.

------
harshreality
First of all, that sketch does not define assault weapons, making me wonder if
you've paid any attention to the counterarguments to the "ban assault weapons"
hysteria. See: [http://larrycorreia.wordpress.com/2012/12/20/an-opinion-
on-g...](http://larrycorreia.wordpress.com/2012/12/20/an-opinion-on-gun-
control/)

Second, short and vague hand-wavy descriptions are not going to cut it.
There's no description of where these trackers would go. There isn't a lot of
empty space inside a gun; places where this might go are inside pistol grips
or at the bottom of magazine wells, but those are both easily accessible.
Furthermore, anywhere these trackers go would _have_ to be accessible.
Otherwise, how do you replace the batteries?

It would be challenging to design circuitry relying on solder that would stand
up to the shock of being attached to a gun that's fired dozens or hundreds of
times at a range, or thousands or tens of thousands of times over a typical
gun's lifetime.

What does your tracking system _accomplish_? Guns that are stolen are going to
be checked for GPS and NFC trackers, which will be removed or disabled. Guns
that are bought legally (Cho) for use illegally (VA Tech) are going to have
the GPS and NFC trackers removed or disabled, too.

~~~
senthilnayagam
I am not a hardware engineer, never fired a bullet.

Your points are very valid,

All I can build is couple of prototype which can prove it can be done. it
might be flawed, defective whatever.

I dont know how it can be done, but there must be someone somewhere who can
take these challenges and come up with a solution.

~~~
roboneal
In summary: You've registered a domain name, spent 3 weeks noodling the
problem since Sandy Hook, have no hardware engineering background, and have
never fired a gun.

Why is this on HackerNews?

~~~
senthilnayagam
I can't build chips, but can use off the shelf parts build prototypes and have
built some.

I dont want to be fired upon by a gun, nor for my family or friends and for
that matter even a enemy.

this is in HackerNews, believe whatever you want to I am scratching my itch,
massaging my ego, feeling less guilty for having attempted to do something for
getting to the solution.

------
mynameishere
You're wasting your time. 3D printers are going to make gun rights as
inevitable as your right to download Cat Steven's greatest hits--and
approximately as deadly. Just give it up.

Also, if it makes you feel better, try to keep in mind that a Ford Escort is
more dangerous than a boxful of 357 magnum revolvers, statistically speaking.

~~~
thalecress
I understand that guns aren't hard to make - never mind 3D printing, any
machinist can make a submachine gun. [1] But what about ammunition?

[http://www.scribd.com/doc/2624298/sten-mk2-complete-
machine-...](http://www.scribd.com/doc/2624298/sten-mk2-complete-machine-
instructions)

~~~
mgarfias
I made 500+ rounds over the christmas holidays as a gift for my dad. I can
cast my own bullets, and if I really needed to I could make the shell casings.
Yeah, it'd take a lot of work with the mill and lathe to build the dies to
draw and form the brass, but totally doable.

------
dcgibbons
You're going to need a lot of perseverance to get a project like this done, so
if nothing else this project will teach you a lot of patience with people who
don't believe in your idea.

You can get a prototype really easy: get an Arduino platform and some sensors
and then work on your back-end. With about $100 in parts you can prove out a
lot of your overall idea. Visit <https://www.adafruit.com/> \- you don't need
to have any hardware experience to get something functional in just a few
hours or days; this stuff is easy to learn.

If you have the ability to objectively analyze results, you'll quickly realize
your project is a) recreating wheels that already exist, b) utterly pointless.

Anyone intent on doing evil will be able to destroy or suppress any sensor
added or built-into a gun. Mass-murders are not done on a whim - they plan and
have plenty of time to figure out ways around obstacles.

Yes, some obstacles will undoubtedly deter some people, but with everything
there is a cost / benefit analysis that must be done. You will find in this
debate that people, on both sides of the issue, will use every statistically
correlation as a causation to support their point. Factual, proven data is
very hard to come by without a bias: I'm pretty sure I could statistically
prove that mass murders are directly related to the availability of avocados.

Weapon-smithing and ammunition production is easy with modern tools and is
just getting easier. Even casings for ammunition is easy with simple machine
tools. As others have mentioned, with 3D printing technology advancing
printing guns from scratch is effectively here today and will only get better.

------
thalecress
Ever hear of a booster bag? [1] Faraday cages aren't hard to make. It wouldn't
shock me if a gun locker blocked signals too.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booster_bag>

~~~
senthilnayagam
CCTV does not stop crime, but helps in conviction. if Sandy Hook kids had one
minute prior notice, atleast half of them would be alive, I am a parent myself
with kids in same age group, so every possibility still excite me

~~~
pliftkl
Didn't the killer shoot the person who would have monitored the firearms first
before taking them? So this solution would only be helpful if law enforcement
actively tracked the position of all "assault weapons" at all times. And that
seems like a bad idea on a variety of levels.

------
roboneal
So your idea solves the problem of someone "cracking" or knowing the
combination to my gun safe and removing the gun without my knowledge?

Please explain how many of mass shootings over the last 15 years or so this
would have prevented?

------
photorized
That's just a bad idea all around.

------
bvchandru
How about a simple RFID sensor solution that can be used detect arms being
carried into public places like malls, Schools, religious places, conventions
etc. were we have most of the public mass killing being reported/targeted.
This would be just like RFID sensors used on merchandise's from being
shoplifted. only that conceptually the sensor has to work in reverse from
preventing objected materials being carried into the premises.

~~~
senthilnayagam
we are thinking in same lines, but all the guns need to be first tagged with
them, which is who will bell the cat

~~~
bvchandru
why not take a cue from auto industry and have a recall campaign for existing
one's. It should be default for new ones!

------
aabbaabb
It's a great concept and extremely viable. All you need to do is ask 20 gun
owners and you'll get some positives. Don't listen to the naysayers.

~~~
senthilnayagam
we have lot to cover, just of the drawing board, we will build the API,web and
mobile interfaces. It needs working closely with manufacturers, parents,
authorities and lot of good will to move this. I expect a 80% failure
possibility but it is still worth a try.

------
azifali
What if this was an open source project with do it yourself hardware +
software that alerts you on your phone when guns are taken out of a certain
range.

Does this excite anyone?

------
angersock
A much, much more palatable version of this would be a simple local RFID tag
that communicates with a fob in the safe, and which signals when a firearm is
removed from said safe--that is, after all, the MVP for the problem you claim
to want to solve.

Adding GPS is overkill, plays right into wingnut fantasies of the evil
gubbernment man tracking their guns, and most of all is useless once I peel
the damn thing off the weapon.

Start simple, use an RFID tag.

Oh, and check the copy on your site.

------
azifali
I think it would possible if it becomes a law.

~~~
phaus
While I certainly don't think we'll need to take advantage of the 2nd
amendment anytime soon, the purpose behind it is to keep our government honest
with the threat of an armed populace.

So why would anyone in their right mind give the government the ability to
track them using the very instrument that is intended to protect you from
them?

If such a law were enacted, it would surely be the most idiotic piece of
legislation in the history of our nation.

~~~
azifali
I just moved to the states and clearly, I don't know the laws well enough. If
laws can't stop deadly weapons, I guess there has to be another meaningful way
to do that.

~~~
mgarfias
Its already illegal to murder people. Yet people get murdered all the time.

------
mgarfias
I hope you get eaten by a bear.

~~~
mturmon
It's nice to see someone else has such a strong revulsion to poorly worded ad
copy on a web site.

Grrr!

