
An Appalachian gunsmith’s robot army (2009) - danso
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/02/23/shoot
======
RadioAndrea
"On an LCD display behind Baber, I could see an image of my leg, transmitted
by a camera under the robot’s gun barrel. The gun then pointed at my stomach.
He assured me that it was not loaded."

Pointing a firearm an anyone, even unloaded, even (especially?) robot
controlled, is a terrible idea. This bothers me to no end, and it's so strange
that someone who works with very powerful weapons can act like this. Perhaps
he feels that he's smart enough that no mistakes will happen? Perhaps he has
confidence in the robot not to fire any rounds? He's a brilliant man, very
good at what he does; certainly he's spent lots of time with these things, and
understands them more than I ever will.

That said: mistakes happen, don't point guns at people you don't want holes
in.

~~~
carsongross
This guy obviously knows the dictum "never point a firearm at anything unless
you intend to destroy it."

Apparently writers from the New Yorker fall within that set for him.

~~~
aaronem
Or maybe he just likes screwing with their heads, and as a fellow Southron
well familiar with the oft-condescending ways of Yankees, I don't suppose I
can blame him too strongly for that.

~~~
carsongross
Ah, right, I always forget about the "except for people you kinda don't like"
clause in the rules of firearms safety.

~~~
CamperBob2
Sadly, that's basically the perspective of the guy in the article:

    
    
       “I don’t want that on my conscience—something I 
       created going out and killing people all over the damn 
       place,” he said. “I’m not worried about what it does 
       over in Iraq or Afghanistan. That’s fine.”
    

It was starting to sound like a lot of fun, but that quote sort of brought me
back to reality. (Who knows if it's an accurate quote, of course.)

------
lotsofmangos
_Baber decided that the gun was too powerful to sell outside the military. He
donated one to his local county sheriff, but turned everyone else away. “I
don’t want that on my conscience—something I created going out and killing
people all over the damn place,” he said. “I’m not worried about what it does
over in Iraq or Afghanistan. That’s fine.”_

This doesn't sound as though he has really thought this through. Either that
or he has a rather nasty definition of "people".

~~~
aaronem
The reading you've given that quote is rather uncharitable, if perhaps heavily
implied by the article's author. It's pretty obvious that Baber means he
doesn't want his weapon falling into the hands of criminals, but he has no
problem selling it to the military, to be put to whatever use they might find
for it.

Granted, the question remains of whether US foreign policy, inasmuch as it
deploys our military, is morally or ethically acceptable to you, but that's a
point on which reasonable people can differ, and Baber's opinion on that point
appears to differ from yours. If, from that difference, you choose to infer
that Baber doesn't consider Afghans or Iraqis "people", that is of course
entirely your prerogative.

~~~
lotsofmangos
I gave two different ways to read it, you chose which one you thought I
favoured.

That said, he stated he didn't want to sell it to police departments, not the
public, who couldn't legally buy it anyway, so I don't see how you think it is
obvious that he means criminals when it says police.

 _" Police departments asked for AA-12s, but Baber decided that the gun was
too powerful to sell outside the military."_

~~~
aaronem
I submitted a third reading which strikes me as both more charitable, and
almost certainly more accurate, than either of yours were.

Nor did he state what you claim he did; it's the article author, not Baber as
quoted, who equates civilian police and the military -- if Baber didn't want
it in the hands of civilian police, why'd he donate one to the county sheriff?

~~~
adaml_623
I imagine his motives for giving a virtually unique gun worth $10K to the
local sheriff are pretty straightforward. Keeping the local officialdom on his
side... probably not sinister just good politics

------
chillingeffect
> propels the shell out of a gun barrel

What?

> his own weapon: a fully automatic shotgun called the AA-12.

"Auto Assault-12 (AA-12), originally designed and known as the Atchisson
Assault Shotgun, is a shotgun developed in 1972 by Maxwell Atchisson." [0]

What?

Can someone please explain to me what's going on here? Is this just my own
ignorance or are these factual errors?

[0]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atchisson_Assault_Shotgun](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atchisson_Assault_Shotgun)

~~~
nordsieck
"In 1987, Max Atchisson sold the rights of the AA-12 to Jerry Baber of
Military Police Systems, Inc., Piney Flats, Tennessee.[3] MPS in turn
developed the successor simply known as Auto Assault-12, which was redesigned
over a period of 18 years with 188 changes and improvements to the original
blueprint, modifications included changing the AA-12 from blowback- to gas-
operated with a locked breech." [0]

Looks like there was a bit of exaggeration going on, but not anything terribly
out of line.

[0]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atchisson_Assault_Shotgun](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atchisson_Assault_Shotgun)

~~~
jboggan
I imagine the recoil would have been ungovernable in the original blowback
configuration and the reciprocating mass would have been relatively huge.

------
DanBC
> Armed robots, he believes, could offer crucial assistance in the wars in
> Iraq and Afghanistan; they could be employed on a street monitored by
> snipers or sent into a building harboring insurgents.

And you hope they don't capture the robot because they then have

> the most deadly close-range weapon ever created.

------
russell
This kind of thing bothers me. I think it makes it easier for the US, or any
other government for that matter, to drop a few dozen of these into any kind
of local conflict without any debate in Congress or among the public. They are
cheap and expendable, no television of troops mobilizing, no flag draped
coffins flying home. The operators sit in Lazy Boys at their home bases while
the eastern Ukraine (pick your battlefield) is overrun with these things.

------
jqm
When the army and police forces get robotic weapons, I can only imagine
criminals won't be far behind.

------
angersock
See, this is the sort of thing that I hate reading about.

Like, yes, we have drones, and yes, we have firearms, and yes, we can add one
to the other--but is it really a good idea?

The potential for abuse of such systems is absurd; I cannot believe that any
engineer with a shred of morality would voluntarily work on such things
without at least a solid explanation of why doing so is permissible.

Mark my words: these things will mostly be used against civilians and
dissidents--not standing armies.

~~~
mschuster91
> Mark my words: these things will mostly be used against civilians and
> dissidents--not standing armies.

Which is why I (German) really hate our weapons law. War will come back to
Europe, we are on the fringe of a fucking Cold War turning into a Hot War with
the Russians in Ukraine. Not to mention the rising inequality in Europe - if
it blows up one day, it will hit hard.

I'd like to be equipped and trained properly instead of being restricted to
gas revolvers, stones and arrows. Or knives, which are useless as I'm a
terrible close-range fighter.

~~~
lesingerouge
I don't really understand how buying your own gun/rifle/whatever would be of
any help in surviving a war. The last couple of recent wars (think Iraq,
Afghanistan, Libya, etc) were fought mostly with "big tech" (airplanes, bombs,
tanks, etc) which is pretty deadly to low level mosquitoes like civilians and
foot soldiers. And while talking about inequality, I am quite uncertain about
how a gun/rifle would help you. You would shoot the guy going through your
trash? Or the guy stealing your bike? I am quite skeptical that a
proliferation of this kind of thing would help you much with your "problems".

~~~
Crito
> _" The last couple of recent wars (think Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, etc) were
> fought mostly with "big tech" (airplanes, bombs, tanks, etc) which is pretty
> deadly to low level mosquitoes like civilians and foot soldiers."_

In those wars, was it both parties using airplanes, bombs, and tanks? Or was
it one side using those things, and the other side holding out without them
for over a decade? The opposing tanks in Iraq were shredded in hours, it was
the guys with rifles and improvised weapons that held out.

In Berlin there is a Soviet war memorial that is known by some locals as _"
The Tomb of the Unknown Rapist"_. You can imagine why. When you are in a
warzone, you cannot depend on anyone but yourself to keep you safe from the
soldiers of the conquering army. Having a gun will not put you on equal
footing with them, but at least it will give you the _opportunity_ to attempt
to defend yourself.

> _" You would shoot the guy going through your trash? Or the guy stealing
> your bike?"_

Where the hell did those suppositions come from?

~~~
mschuster91
> > "You would shoot the guy going through your trash? Or the guy stealing
> your bike?" > Where the hell did those suppositions come from?

Actually, he is not far from what I'd do. I'd just keep the bastard at
gunpoint until the cops come. Not the first time I had to resort to this with
my gas revolver.

Lesson learned (for the two fools): never go to a shooting with a knife (the
fact that one had a knife actually yielded him a bigger sentence for the
attempted theft; it's called "Diebstahl mit einer Waffe").

~~~
Crito
With a thief that might be reasonable, but I think that'd be a bit overboard
with somebody that was just going through your trash. I definitely wouldn't
confront a thief with no gun though.

------
danso
FWIW, I posted this story today because of the New Yorker's announcement of
their redesign and temporary disabling of their paywall. I remembering reading
the abstract of this article in 2009, and then became a subscriber because I
wanted to read the full version...I'm not passionately against or for
paywalls, but the New Yorker is probably the only single publication that
could pull me like that.

That said, I did a cursory search for the gunmaker...didn't see any big
update, I saw a mention that it's in rotation with the Marines...but no
contemporary mention of what sounded like an impending revolution of shotgun-
wielding-robots.

~~~
dang
Excellent. More, please!

We added the date.

Edit: Perhaps I should clarify. By "more, please" I mean we want substantive
articles on unexpected subjects, archival and historical material welcome. Not
necessarily more on this topic.

