

Guide dogs and guns: America's blind gunmen - jjp
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-28587041

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rdl
It was interesting how in the photo of him using the sonic scope, he had one
eye open and the other closed, in the manner a sighted person would use a
scope.

I'm really intrigued by the tech for this whole area - clearly these guys are
absurd 0.001% outliers, but I wonder if you could make a (lethal or non-
lethal) self defense device for reduced-vision or blind people which used
image recognition. It's going to happen at physical-contact distances, but
having some combination of camera, pepper spray or firearm, and safety
interlock (like a nailgun, where you press it against the material to allow it
to fire)?

Ideally something which requires even less physical strength, vision, or other
ability than a firearm (handguns are actually hard to use in self defense for
a variety of situations). An impaired mobility, impaired vision person totally
deserves some kind of protection, and probably needs it more than someone who
can see trouble coming from a distance, or run away.

~~~
noelwelsh
"An impaired mobility, impaired vision person totally deserves some kind of
protection"

It's the job of the police specifically and of government generally to create
a safe society. If one's community is seriously so unsafe that carrying
firearms is justified from the point-of-view of personal protection there are
better ways to fix it than arming blind people.

~~~
mgarfias
Police in America have zero responsibility to protect an individual. They
enforce laws. Also, even if they did, check on response times for a 911 call.
My wife is a dispatcher with the sheriffs dept here - 20-30 mins is normal
where we are at. Tell us again how the cops can protect us?

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claudius
Fix your police, then.

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bashinator
Can you recommend a fix which will reduce the average response time of police
to under say 5 minutes in a geographically huge, mostly unpopulated rural
area?

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claudius
Don’t live in a geographically huge, mostly unpopulated rural area but instead
in sufficiently large villages/small towns, each with their own local police.

 _Especially_ don’t live in a geographically huge, mostly unpopulated rural
area _if you are blind_. Self-defence is likely to be one of the smaller
issues in this case.

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marak830
Insanity. Even the author thinks so, by the tid bits at the end of the piece.

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wtbob
How's it insane? I think it's a pretty cool triumph of will over adversity.
And it takes away every excuse I have for my poor shooting if a blind man can
be a good wing shot.

~~~
curun1r
But while the test was meant to measure a skill, he beat the test without
having the skill. He used the sound of the targets on the range to aim which,
while impressive, is also completely unavailable in situations for which
concealed carry permits are intended. Range marksmanship can translate to
real-world scenarios for sighted shooters, but it doesn't seem like it would
for blind shooters.

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gglitch
I guess it's a sign of my age, but when I read stories like this, I no longer
try to carefully reason my way through to a solid judgment on whether it's
right or wrong, or sensible or foolish; instead I just view it as a sign of
the times we live in and wonder whether PKD, Gibson, Vonnegut, or Pynchon
wrote about it first.

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ExpiredLink
Funny. Reminds me of the Ray Charles scene in 'Blues Brothers'.

