Posted on 01/07/2003 11:20:22 AM PST by hoosierskypilot
New Jersey's state legislature has defied the state's gangsta rap again, with a recent first-in-the-nation vote requiring all new handguns sold to carry technology that allows only their owners to fire them.
(Earlier, the state took another gun-control lead as the first to require guns be sold with trigger locks.)
Even though such "smart gun" technology is not yet fully developed, New Jersey takes an appropriate gun- safety step by putting such a requirement in place.
Smart guns use sensors in a gun's grip wired to a microchip inside the gun. The chip "remembers" an individual owner's hand grip, and thus prevents the gun from firing if anyone else attempts to use it. Once the technology is determined to be safe and workable (in an expected two years), the New Jersey law requires the technology to be phased in over three years.
The safety ramifications for this move are significant. Smart guns can help prevent accidental deaths or suicides. Gun accidents, including suicides, took the lives of 1,200 children and teens in 2000 in the US. Further, some 18,000 young people aged 19 or younger were injured by firearms, and 1,776 were killed in homicides according to the Centers for Disease Control.
Now that Congress has approved pilots carrying guns on commercial airplanes as a security measure, issuing smart guns to them could help prevent those weapons from being grabbed and used by anyone else.
Smart guns would also be rendered useless if stolen.
Even though the weapon was a rifle, not a handgun, in the recent Washington sniper case, the gun couldn't have been used by the two individuals involved, had it been "smart."
Though New Jersey is first to make the move, Tennessee, New York, and Ohio are already considering similar smart-gun measures. They'll have to stand up to the NRA, which has said it will retaliate against New Jersey Democrats for passing the bill, and no doubt will be at the ready to put pressure on other statehouses to keep them from passing similar legislation.
But, my beloved Tennessee is contemplating a similar bill?
We've let too many left-coasters move in!!!
I think we need a smart chip for computers. It will check to see if journalists HAVE a grip before allowing them to write opinion columns.
How naive can you get.
I love that. What an empty, brainless statement.
Also, the police should be first to get issued these "safer" weapons.
The rocket scientists at the CSM need to 'splain that a teensy bit further.
Too many assumptions required for that to be an accurate statement.
(There goes the neighborhood!)
Given that police are far more likely to be killed with their own gun than some other gun if anyone is forced to have this stupid technology then police should be the first to prove it out.
Stay well - stay safe - stay armed - Yorktown
Not only does no technology resembling this description exist, none of which I am aware is even being contemplated. "Remembers an individual owner's hand grip?" Huh? How?
Now, for those of us who like to practice weak-hand shooting or for a cop who experiences an injury to his shooting hand, this would be a bit of a problem, wouldn't it?
<insanity>
"Liberal Logic" once again
Smart Guns
</insanity>
'Nuff Said!
Are we surprised that law enforcement agencies want nothing to to with systems that WILL break down exactly as Murphy's Law predicts?
The only small-arms electrically-based system I know anything about is the new electric ignition Remington rifle. Reads like a good cartridge ignition system, but not because it's "smart."
What incredible nonsense. This proves yet again that these people are up to no good. I know perfectly well that they're not so stupid as to not realise that a person who commits suicide with a gun most likely owns it. They are hoping that most of the sheeple are stupid enough to buy it.
Not if the microchip gets fried; then it's just a piece of metal with a hand grip--and then how safe will one be using it in hand to hand combat?
How hard will it be to rig up a photo-capacitor to some coils and create a mini EMP generator. Then you could neutralize the smart guns and have your way with old fashion 'dumb' guns.
Oh wait, I forgot, the cops will probably be exempt from this technology.
Hunters? How's about self-defense in cold weather? Excuse me, (Mr.|Mrs.|Ms.|Other) (rapist|murderer|robber|other) while I take off my gloves...
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