
Why the NRA hates smart guns - jonstokes
http://techcrunch.com/2016/04/30/why-the-nra-hates-smart-guns/
======
jboggan
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 such a disaster. The attacker used some strange system called
Ubuntu which most computer users have little or no reason to have, so that was
specifically outlawed in the state (while any other Linux distro is fine).
They had a quad-core CPU, 16 gigs of RAM, and a USB 2.0 keyboard for "faster
hacking"; the bill mandated a limit of 9 gigs, 2 cores, and PS/2 connectors
only. The attacker also used something called the "TCP protocol" (misnomer
intended); the bill also mandated that the protocol include a 4th and 5th step
transmitting "I am not a hacker" and acknowledging "You will be prosecuted
with a felony under California SB1137 for improper use of this TCP protocol".

The bill passes and no more hacks occur. Other states don't want to be seen as
soft on crime, so they draft copycat bills and randomly ban openSUSE, Gentoo,
and trackballs with more than 6 buttons. Within a few years computer
enthusiast sites pop up detailing which states are safe to travel to with your
laptop. 1 gig RAM chips get unexpectedly expensive as everyone wants to get up
to that 9 gig limit in restricted states. California legislators visit
university computer labs disapprovingly and talk about closing the "Linux
loophole". Activist groups lobby Congress, maintaining that the Founding
Fathers never could have conceived of computers as an evolution of the
printing press and therefore the 1st Amendment did not apply to electronic
devices or communications. Programmers everywhere grumble about coding for two
different communication protocols depending on whether or not your users are
in California (but it's such a big market you can't ignore it). Your mother
wonders why you can't just get your work done on an 8 year old laptop running
Windows 7, it's good enough for her web browsing!

The contractor maintaining the power plant control system again leaves the web
admin panel open and unsecured after testing from home and forgetting to
unflip a poorly labeled feature flag on the production server.

~~~
superuser2
Computers have uses beyond hacking. Guns are for killing. Killing in self-
defense, honing your killing skills as a sport/recreation activity, deterring
bad behavior by threat of killing, killing things that are socially acceptable
to kill (i.e. game animals), sure, but the theme is killing.

Lockpicks might be a better example. Many similar arguments apply: their use
is to open doors without the correct keys, which only a few specialized
professions should have a legitimate need to do. Yet on the other hand we
ought to be able to tinker with our private property, evaluate its security
(bad guys will get lockpicks anyway), let ourselves in if we get locked out,
publish security research on "unpickable" locks and participate in locksport.

Or for a more direct computing analogy, Metasploit. It is unambiguously a
hacking tool, but it remains legal because bad guys will always get hacking
tools, and the good guys need to be able to evaluate their defenses.

~~~
wyager
Target shooting isn't just practice for killing things. That's as absurd as
claiming "racing is just practice for running people over".

Target shooting is a sport all on its own, and is probably the single most
prevalent application of firearms in the US.

~~~
8note
when do you run things over when racing?

~~~
mbrameld
You don't. You also don't kill things when you target shoot. You can run over
things with a car, or you can race one. You can kill things with a gun, or you
can shoot paper targets with one. Get it?

~~~
TeMPOraL
The analogy is really stretched. The racing sport equivalent to target
shooting would be running over paper targets.

~~~
nv-vn
That's not an analogy, that's trying to directly apply the sport to another
device. That would be like saying an analogy to soccer is kicking basketballs
into hoops. The most natural thing to do with a car is to drive it and the
most natural thing to do with a gun is to fire it. And running over paper
targets instead of racing would probably be an improvement in motorsport
safety ;)

~~~
8note
the most natural thing to do with a car isn't to run people down though, it's
to travel from one place to another.

target practice is to racing, as shooting people (or hunting) is to a road
trip.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Appeals to nature are labored. What's the most natural thing to do with a
knife then? A plastic bag? It breaks down pretty fast. In the end, a gun
propels a lead slug at high speed and good accuracy over a distance of scores
of yards.

------
crikli
I'm an engineer, gun owner, and former NRA member[1].

I hate the idea of smart guns, but politics are a distant secondary concern.

Firearms fail all the time, even the simple reliable ones. Bad primers,
failure to eject, failure to cycle, stovepipes, etc. It takes education and
then repeated training to know how to deal with failures. In a pressure
situation you revert to your lowest level of training; muscle memory will give
you the best chance to respond appropriately.

Just dealing with mechanical failures quickly and correctly takes very
intentional practice.

The last thing I want to have is another thing that can fail in a pressure
situation that can't be resolved via trained response. E.g., for a bad primer
or failure to eject I can do what's called a tap/rack/bang drill. But there's
nothing I can do to train for some type of software failure or battery being
dead or some other type of non-mechanical failure that bricks my firearm.

[1]Former because the NRA"s lobbing efforts and powers are ridiculously
overstated. Their entire entire existence as near as I can tell is to sell
their member's names to third parties. I've never received as much crap snail
mail and email as I did during the year I belonged to the NRA.

~~~
drmilsurp
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.

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

~~~
cloakandswagger
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.

~~~
hga
Well, if you want to fund lawsuits, the Washington state based Second
Amendment Foundation is a better bet, and I'll bet they're a party to that
lawsuit as well.

They are the only other effective one as I count them, but you have to donate
money to them, a simple membership will just line the pockets of whomever is
mailing out their stuff.

~~~
cloakandswagger
The value, as I see it, of the NRA is more its ability to efficiently mobilize
5 million members around key issues. I liken relying only on smaller,
fractious orgs to when we had small state militias and no formal army.

------
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.

~~~
fouric
"...trying to force an unreliable and complex feature onto a product that
needs to work every time."

This. This is my biggest problem with smart-gun tech. We still haven't managed
to figure out how to write software for hundred-million-dollar space projects
that doesn't crash (the Japanese Hitomi satellite[2] being the latest of
many); how on Earth are we going to implement smart gun technology correctly?

(actually, I would argue that we still can't write durable software _in
general_ , and as such we should avoid integrating it into important things
such as guns and cars until we can improve our development skills)

[1]: [https://www.newscientist.com/article/2086422-japanese-
satell...](https://www.newscientist.com/article/2086422-japanese-satellites-
death-spiral-linked-to-software-malfunction/)

~~~
tootie
The plan is not to ban non-smart guns next week. Obama is calling for a push
to improve the technology until it becomes reliable. Despite the Hitomi
failure, we have sent a few hundred things into space pretty successfully.
Half the systems in your car are under computer control. Opposing technology
that could save thousands of lives a year because it doesn't work perfectly
yet is bullshit.

~~~
schismsubv
I think what most opposition to smart guns centers on is the assertion that
the technology could "save thousands of lives". It would be great to see hard
numbers of exactly how many people are killed with immediately stolen guns,
and I doubt it would be in the thousands.

As the author's prior article in the series notes, such technology will almost
invariably be easily bypassed. Criminals will, unfortunately, remain
criminals, and will disable the technology or continue to buy guns
underground. None of this even addresses the fact that many murders are
perpetrated by legal owners of said guns, which this technology would do
_nothing_ about.

As is usual with such things, if smart-gun technology were legislated its only
measurable effect would be on law-abiding citizens, adding yet more potential
felonies to the maze we traverse daily.

------
hirundo
The article makes it sound theoretical, but New Jersey already has the
Childproof Handgun Law that makes it illegal to sell a non-smart gun "three
years after it is determined that personalized handguns are available for
retail purposes."
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Jersey_Childproof_Handgun_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Jersey_Childproof_Handgun_Law)

~~~
hga
And that's been seriously proposed in California, which is pushing through
another wave of gun control legislation, one bill of which would effectively
shut down all gun stores in the state, and certainly favorably talked about
elsewhere ... maybe Maryland?

Just skimmed it (too much going on right now to look at it in depth), but I'm
seriously impressed they did so much work to get in things like the classic
"shoulder thing that goes up". In their defense, New Jersey's law is, as I
recall, much older.

I'll mention one other bottom line: we wouldn't even consider it prior to all
law enforcement officers in the nation being required to use them, and only
them.

~~~
curun1r
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, either a police car or their own
and the thief simply opened the door/trunk and took it.

~~~
hga
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.

~~~
woodman
> 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%."

~~~
hga
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).

~~~
woodman
I stopped having to carry daily around the time that serpa holsters got
popular. All the combat vets accurately predicted that the release mechanism
would lead to a lot of negligent discharges - many training courses wouldn't
let you on the range with one. I'm surprised to see that they are still being
sold, I'd have thought they went the way of the lawn dart.

~~~
hga
The Serpa holster is by no means the only retention holster out there! Nor
would have one stopped the Boston bombers from what I understand of them, it's
hard to expresses just how bad an idea they are in every way.

For those who don't know, you have to press a button about over where the
trigger is, inside the holster. If you keep pressing into your draw, you may
as many have found out continue and press the trigger while it's pointed in a
unfortunate direction.

~~~
woodman
I'm going to have to disagree with you, I think thumb break retention holsters
(that have been the standard forever) are just fine. The usability problem for
holsters comes from the loss of fine motor control following an adrenaline
dump, you go all thumbs. Of course nothing beats boring old training - where
even very complex behavior can be ingrained. I blacked out my first fire
fight, but I was later told that I effectively performed three magazine
changes, manipulated the radio, called in a SALUTE and fired a signal flare.
I'm confident that if I spent several years training to not shoot myself in
the leg with a serpa holster, I could, but it would be a waste of time as
better holsters long predate that silly design.

~~~
hga
I'm actually not sure we're disagreeing, but I'll defer to you, seeing as how
I've avoided firefights up to now, and probably will in the future, and carry
concealed with a Summer Special, friction the only retention besides, of
course, having it covered.

Ah, also a Safepacker in winter weather, which is not even clearly a hostler:
[http://www.thewilderness.com/safepacker-concealment-
holster/](http://www.thewilderness.com/safepacker-concealment-holster/)

~~~
woodman
Oh yeah, we are talking about different use cases. I'd never advocate anything
that would make an IWB draw any slower than it already is :) For the more
block inclined, MIC trigger guards are nice for winter jackets.

~~~
hga
I worship at the alter of John Moses Browning, so no MIC holsters for me any
time soon.... But I have many many others to choose from, they've been
insanely, amazingly even for me popular with civilians for a long time.

And, yeah, slow is a good word to use there ^_^.

(#1 one overriding reason is that since I was a teen the M1911 fits my hand
like a glove, and I can shoot it very well. And 8 round magazines weren't a
big forfeit when I started buying handguns after leaving Massachusetts and the
Federal AW ban was in effect.)

~~~
woodman
For a long time I felt the exact same way (also big mitted), but I got
challenged to leave the Springfield at home and use a borrowed G17 for a week
long course. I still prefer the M1911 for sport, and satisfying my need to
constantly tinker (yes my feedramp is polished and ejection port flared). But
if I were pressed - I'd begrudgingly go with the utilitarian choice offered by
Glock. But everybody has their reasons for developing preferences in their
tools: I will give up my modal text editor when they peel my cold dead fingers
from around it.

~~~
hga
And I'll give up my non-modal EMACS when....

Although the grip angle of Glocks is just plain wrong for me, I've read that I
ought to try the Springfield XD if I wanted to go in that direction. Which I
don't, for concealed carry I believe an external hammer is essential for
holstering safety (put your thumb on it and either stop the drop if SA or feel
it rising if SA/DA or DAO).

And, yeah, given that I can shoot most guns well/very well (a couple of years
of JROTC rifle team with Winchester 52s, after informal starting in 1st grade
or so, made a big difference, but don't ask me to wingshoot), yeah, I should
give something different a serious try just to see. I'll put it on my list.

------
exabrial
Smart guns aren't going to hinder anyone but responsible people.

We need a few things:

1) Funding alternatives to incarceration. People that go to jail tend to have
a frequent flyer card.

2) Law enforcement sharing of critical data on offenders.

3) Funding treatment and therapy programs for drug abusers (ABUSERS, key word.
I know this isn't a popular opinion on HN, but ABUSE and USE are two different
things)

4) Finally, we need to wake up and realize there ARE bad people in the world,
and unless you live in a small community, you can't have 100% safety. You can
react by protecting yourself (yes, carry concealed), or if you're not
comfortable with that, take a professional classes on how to survive extreme
situations. Your safety at the end of the day is your responsibility
ultimately.

~~~
larrywright
I've always thought that the arguments from the anti-gun crowd defied all
logic. If access to guns was the root of the problem, then gun violence should
be going down, rather than up. Far fewer people own guns now than did, say 150
or 200 years ago (when it was probably close to 100%). Solving the problem by
focusing on guns is trying to treat the symptom rather than the disease.

~~~
hga
I don't think you're right about how pervasive gun ownership was, due to
changes in costs and wealth, and the ability to maintain guns in the days of
corrosive black gunpowder and corrosive percussion caps and primers (the WWII
M1 Carbine was the first US weapon system to use non-corrosive primers). And
of course blacks were largely disarmed post-Reconstruction, next up were post-
Civil War immigrants starting around the last turn of the century, etc. See
also Chicago post- _McDonald_ and the nationwide sweep of shall issue laws has
radically increased the utility of owning a handgun, now 43 states and ~72-3%
of the population.

------
dpflan
Smart guns have an interesting history. In the 90's Colt developed a smart
gun, but the results "backfired." Anti-gun groups were against it because of
the idea that safer guns meant that the barrier to entry to ownership was
lower (now that guns are "safer", why not have one?); people who depended upon
guns for their livelihood were skeptical: when you need to use one there needs
to be no questions that it will function (barring all the traditional issues
of "dumb" gun); if successful, other manufacturings would have to follow suit
and there could be legal actions against "dumb" gun manufacturing and
ownershpi...etc.

I've linked some articles that touch upon this attempt by Colt.

NRP Article: [http://www.npr.org/2016/04/07/473416699/how-an-idea-to-
devel...](http://www.npr.org/2016/04/07/473416699/how-an-idea-to-develop-a-
safer-smart-gun-backfired)

Hacker News Discussion of Article:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11462297](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11462297)

~~~
hga
From the beginning of the first comment in the HN discussion you link to:

 _he explained that it was only supposed to fire if the shooter was wearing a
special wristband with a little radio frequency transmitter inside. The CEO
put on the wristband and went to pull the trigger. ... And it didn 't shoot.
Just silence._

An "oops" which is entirely unacceptable for any law enforcement/self defense
use case.

------
bdowling
Smart guns are to self-defense and the gun industry what the Clipper chip was
to encryption and the communications industry, except the Clipper chip
actually worked.

~~~
grahamburger
Except that literally no one would die if clipper worked or didn't work. I
lean toward the side of fewer restrictions on guns, although I don't own any -
but I don't think that any comparison that removes the possibility of people
dying will really hold up.

~~~
bdowling
The reason that the government wanted the Clipper chip was to make it possible
for police agencies to listen in on the encrypted communications of suspected
criminals, often ones whose activities would certainly involve the possibility
of people dying.

Both cases are examples of government attempting to interfere with a
technology to further some legitimate public government interest (catching
criminals, reducing accidents) while compromising the private interests of
citizens (effective self-defense, privacy).

------
koolba
Everybody[1] who's actually owned a gun (or plans to) hates smart guns.

[1]: Okay maybe not _everybody_ but based on my anecdata it's everybody.

~~~
chillacy
That's the conclusion I came to when looking at the market for smart guns (I
was interested in smart attachments for guns, think Fitbit for your gun).
Smart guns drum up a bunch of press and buzz from people who will never buy
them. It's a failure to understand the target market, who hates the concept
for reasons mentioned elsewhere in this comment section.

------
appleflaxen
Washington regulates a million things over which is has no particular
expertise. Including, but not limited, to medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, food
production, law, agriculture, investment banks, the oil and gas industry, and
on and on.

The fact that the government is bad at regulating these things doesn't mean
that any step they take will be bad. The details matter, and it doesn't mean
you should terminate any regulatory effort before it is defined.

In many (maybe all) of these areas, some regulation _is needed_.

~~~
cloakandswagger
Most of those areas are regulated by boards and committees of dentists,
pharmacists, food specialists, etc.

For whatever reason, gun control is the one area where politicians refuse to
consult specialists, thus resulting in bills as ridiculous as the AWB.

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

~~~
ixtli
I think we all know why. In fact. This author implies it: the NRA actually
represents the business interests of people who manufacture and sell firearms.
They may mask these interests as a public service, defending your rights and
hobbies and whatnot but it is always the case that they oppose anything that
would reduce firearm sales and support anything that makes it easier for you
to get a gun.

~~~
jboggan
I disagree. The NRA has 4 million American members which I think makes it the
largest lobby by membership. I doubt they're all pawns of the gun industry.

If the NRA wanted to solely juice sales and sell more guns they would give
heavily to elect more Democratic candidates. The current presidency has been
great for sales [0].

0 - [https://www.fbi.gov/about-
us/cjis/nics/reports/nics_firearm_...](https://www.fbi.gov/about-
us/cjis/nics/reports/nics_firearm_checks_-_month_year.pdf)

~~~
cvwright
Left-wingers ranting about the "gun lobby" are like right-wingers ranting
about the "LGBT lobby". Everybody loves to pretend that the opposing political
party is driven by some strange, inhuman machine, not by a bunch of normal
people pretty much just like themselves.

~~~
atemerev
LGBT lobby? And what this lobby political agenda would be? Promoting skinny
jeans?

(I consider myself to be a right-winger, as I am certainly pro-gun and pro-
business, and straight as a rail, but I never heard about LGBT lobby concept,
except in jokes about fashion. LGBT guys and gals are fun.)

~~~
hga
Try
[https://www.google.com/#q=target+transgender](https://www.google.com/#q=target+transgender)
for example.

------
atemerev
I wouldn't say "hate", as it is too strong a word. But smart guns have the
same problem as self-driving cars: they take control from you and transfer it
to unknown actors (a random computer programmer? Clueless legislators? Various
three-letter government agencies?)

Conversely, anti-gun folks and self-driving car proponents consider guns and
cars too dangerous to be left in hands of _those people_. Those a better left
in hands of experts, they say.

~~~
yorwba
> Conversely, anti-gun folks and self-driving car proponents consider guns and
> cars too dangerous to be left in hands of _those people_. Those a better
> left in hands of experts, they say.

That sums up my position nicely. I would not trust myself with either of these
things.

~~~
GunboatDiplomat
Well, that's your self-confidence problem. It's not my problem, so don't try
to impose it upon me.

------
rdl
I'd be a lot more interested in a smart gun SAFE than in smart guns.

What I want most, specifically, is a bedside pistol safe, the size of a "gun
vault", which is actually secure, but still rapid-access.

(The problems with the "gun vault" style safes are numerous -- some of them
can be simply dropped 6" and they pop open from inertia on the locking
mechanism. Others can be defeated surreptitiously by peeling off a sticker and
inserting a paperclip to hit the reset button inside. They're not suitable for
leaving a loaded firearm inside when you have untrustworthy people about for
extended periods. The only reasonable model right now is to take a carry gun
and put it in the safe every night (which is great IFF you carry every day),
or to transfer a weapon from a "real" safe to the bedside vault every night.
The problem is at some point you might forget, and both false-positive and
false-negative kind of suck there.)

The tradeoff I'm willing to make is spending $1k for this vs. $100, and
accepting two distinct entry modes: an slow-path "unattended/unprimed" mode
which uses a UL group II electronic lock for access, with timeout-access, and
a fast-path "day gate" (which would actually be night gate...) which opens
quickly using (ideally) a chording keyboard mechanism, or biometric, or
something else.

What I absolutely want to defend against is surreptitious entry when
unattended -- i.e. for someone with kids, capable of entering hundreds or
thousands of combinations in a week, there should be very low risk of users
brute forcing the combo or otherwise gaining access in a way which doesn't
leave evidence/alarm. Ideally, tamper events would lock the safe down to full
TL-15 mode; if your kids can defeat a TL-15 safe, particularly surreptitiously
when it is monitored every day, they might deserve the firearm for their new
life of crime.

I'd be willing to have no override capability on the fast-path -- if it
misreads, or is at all suspicious, if fails back to the slow-path. The
mechanism for enabling fast-path might be unrelated to the slow-path entry
mechanism (i.e. you don't need to open the door); what I was thinking of was
some kind of presence-detect using bluetooth watch (Apple Watch) challenge-
response, or something like that.

I could accomplish this today by buying an actual UL TL-15 safe of some size
and putting a gunvault inside it, but that takes up a lot of space, and would
weigh half a ton. There has to be a better solution.

I'd also like to have it tied into my alarm system and notifications -- if
someone attempts to enter the safe, I want a notification on my phone. I'd
also like to be able to force slow-path-only remotely. (I'd _also_ like to
have lighting, cameras, etc. controlled by alarm events, but that's a separate
thing; I'd prefer NOT to have my bedroom recorded on video normally, but when
the gun safe is opened, I'd like video logs to be streamed offsite in
realtime.)

------
tomwilson
These threads are always so weird to me - from a country where I have never
known someone who owns a gun or ever seen one outside of police carrying them.

~~~
LyndsySimon
Growing up, I can't think of anyone I knew that didn't have guns, or who
professed to believe they should be restricted further.

------
nxzero
Interesting to me how many people feel so strongly about a topic, often to
such a degree that they openly void having an understanding of views counter
to their own and unable to express the reasoning behind their own beliefs in
any meaningful way.

To me, this is the real issue, not that there's a topic people disagree on.

_______

Re: SmartGuns — People kill people, and if someone wants to harm someone, they
will. To me, a more natural solution would be to have areas, much like
schools, that're gun free, and others that are not. Clearly this won't fit the
issues, but it might end the debates.

------
aaroninsf
...somewhere a tiny yellow light blinks at 20 bpm in a the NRA chapter tasked
with online argument response, and three pagers subsequently buzz...

------
anonbanker
DC v. Heller means nothing will come from any of this.

~~~
hga
Not clear. Prior to Scalia's death, on the ground if you don't count Illinois,
which was not appealed to the Supremes, and California and Hawaii, where it
looks like the appeals court will overturn the current shall issue decision
_en banc_ , on the ground there's been no changes, because the Supremes have
denied cert to _every_ case appealed to them aside from the Massachusetts stun
gun case just decided.

The bottom line is that _Heller_ and _McDonald_ mean we have a right to keep
some types of arms, and bear them inside our homes, nothing more. And surely
you've noticed how replacing Scalia is claimed by gun-grabbers as a necessary
step towards reversing, _de facto_ or _de jure_ , both of those decisions,
e.g. [http://thehill.com/regulation/277248-chelsea-clinton-
scotus-...](http://thehill.com/regulation/277248-chelsea-clinton-scotus-open-
to-gun-control-after-scalia)

------
fhrjfjc
I don't want backdoors in my guns just like I don't want backdoors in my
encryption. It's really that simple.

Also reminder that Marx was an advocate of widespread gun ownership by the
working class, much for the same reasons that the founding fathers of the USA
were. Solving the underlying economic issues causing suicide and violence
would make far more sense than covering up the symptoms. At the end of the day
it's all about poverty.

~~~
467568985476
I think that Marx comparison is pretty wrong. Marx expected a global workers'
revolution that would result in a classless society. He was an advocate of
armed revolution against the bourgeoisie. As far as I can tell, anything he
wrote about gun ownership was in the context of this armed revolution.

The second amendment reads, in full, _" A well regulated militia being
necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and
bear arms shall not be infringed."_ The notion of protecting a state lead by a
capitalist, slave owning class (think about what "people" means in this
context) is completely contradictory to Marx.

~~~
Turing_Machine
Marxists have enslaved far more people that were ever enslaved by the
"capitalist, slave-owning class" in the early United States.

------
venomsnake
Reasons against smart guns - smart appliances don't work well, never have,
never will. I prefer things simple, mechanical and working instead of praying
that some Dilbert style company developed an usable software.

I live in a country that has very restrictive gun ownership regime - and yet
every person knows instinctively about the gun safety rules:

1\. Always assume loaded, unless proven otherwise 2\. Don't point it at
something you don't want to kill.

I am sure that people will appreciate when their gun starts firmware update or
resets during a boar charging at you situation.

------
Animats
The vertical forward handgrip claim is a bit much. While not too useful for
aimed fire, as the author points out, it makes un-aimed "spray and pray"
shooting easier. So does a barrel shroud. Neither feature is needed on a
hunting rifle.

~~~
fiatmoney
You don't know what you're talking about and I'm guessing you may have never
actually shot a semi automatic rifle before.

This is a rifle with no scary barrel shroud, pistol grip, or vertical
foregrip. If you google "bump fire" you might notice it is pretty easy to
rapid fire just about anything as long as it's semi automatic and you don't
much care if you hit anything.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hlzuAzvuJQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hlzuAzvuJQ)

In fact I find pistol grips and vertical foregrips plenty ergonomic for aimed
fire, especially because I have a bit of carpal tunnel going on and cocking my
wrist is somewhat painful. That's why every olympic target rifle (eg the
Anschutz) uses some version of a vertical grip.

~~~
Animats
The US Army once taught me to use an M-16.

~~~
schismsubv
Being trained in a device's use does not an expert on its design make.

------
xorgar831
The irony being is that the gun community acts just as irrational and
certainly impractical. Even as a non-gun owner, I know what gun I'd rather
have for self defence than these guys. :)

Does a 50cal really seem like a sport rifle? The inventor goes on towards the
end of this video to suggest it's useful for personal self-defence?

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1n3usocws0E&t=0m42s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1n3usocws0E&t=0m42s)

Here's an example of a guy who has 1.5M subscribers explaining how he'd
protect himself answering the door in the middle of the night with a
completely impractical close range weapon.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLiWhFTfUCg&t=3m33s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLiWhFTfUCg&t=3m33s)

~~~
gnu8
Those youtubers are just jerking off. A .50 caliber rifle is just a big
expensive dangerous toy. No one is going to commit a shooting spree with one.
It's not practical. Regulating them only impacts people who like loud bangs
and will never hurt anyone.

~~~
Scramblejams
My congresscritter a while back put out a statement supporting the 50 BMG ban
in California, because she wanted "these dangerous weapons off our streets." I
emailed her, asking how many of these weapons, exactly, she'd happened to find
on our streets! I figure, they're so rare and expensive, if I could walk
outside and trip over one, I might as well go out and pick one up that'd been
left in the nearby hedges! She didn't respond. :-(

Tangent: It made me wonder what the longest distance criminal shot in American
history is. Anybody got any ideas?

~~~
rdl
Do you mean "criminal shot by police/civilians", or shooting-by-criminals?

Pure negligent shootings which happen to damage property or injure/kill people
happen at range all the time, and the shooter is by definition a criminal.
Celebratory fire, particularly at a 30-45 degree angle, is going to have
serious range, even if inaccurate, and is guaranteed to hit _something_.

Most of the fear of .50 was anti-armor, not so much pure range.

The "DC Beltway sniper" fucktards
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beltway_sniper_attacks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beltway_sniper_attacks))
were under 200m shots, but that's still solidly rifle distance.

Famously, Charles Whitman
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Whitman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Whitman))
had many shots resulting in injury or murder at 400-500m. He was firing from a
tower, and high angle shooting rewards flat trajectory even more than the
distance itself would indicate.

JFK was 81m, also well outside handgun range. I suspect there are a reasonably
large number of 50-200m range shootings with rifles (there are very few
shootings with rifles overall, but when they do happen); that's easily house-
to-driveway-end in a lot of places.

