Joe Nocera in the New York Times continues to bring the reality of gun violence in America to light, especially the violence involving children.
For nearly two months, my assistant, Jennifer Mascia, and I have been publishing a daily blog in which we aggregate articles about shootings from the previous day. Of all the stories we link to, the ones I find hardest to read are those about young children who accidentally shoot themselves or another child. They just break my heart. Yet Jennifer and I find new examples almost every day.
Nocera goes on to wonder how anyone could be so stupid/careless as to leave a loaded firearm somewhere where a child can reach it. But the world is full of stupidity and carelessness. So how about childproofing guns?
And it turns out there is biometric technology available already that would render a gun unusable to anyone but it’s owner, by responding only when the gun “recognizes” the owners’ hand.
Why aren’t these lifesaving technologies in widespread use? No surprise here, either: The usual irrational opposition from the National Rifle Association and gun absolutists, who claim, absurdly, that a gun that only can be fired by its owner somehow violates the Second Amendment. Pro-gun bloggers were furious when they saw James Bond, in “Skyfall,†proudly showing off his new biometrically protected weapon. They were convinced it was a Hollywood plot to undermine their rights.
Nocera goes on to say that there are efforts to market and promote these technologies, but he is skeptical it will make much difference unless such safety features are legally mandatory. But the problem is, these efforts are mostly coming from do-gooder liberal gun control types. I agree with Steve M — “As far as I can tell, the gun community doesn’t want safety and doesn’t want to be responsible — not if we gun-grabbing liberals are the ones who seem to be defining safety and responsibility.”
So, yeah, if libruhls are fer it, they’re agin it. Having four-year-olds blow their heads off on a weekly basis is the price of freedom.
In other gun craziness news — earlier this week there was a New York Times story about the reluctance of courts to take guns away from those who have threatened to shoot current and ex intimate partners. The story includes a horrific example of a woman who got an order of protection against an ex-husband who had threatened to put a gun in her mouth and pull the trigger.
The judge’s order prohibited Mr. Holten from going within two blocks of his former wife’s home and imposed a number of other restrictions. What it did not require him to do was surrender his guns.
About 12 hours after he was served with the order, Mr. Holten was lying in wait when his former wife returned home from a date with their two children in tow. Armed with a small semiautomatic rifle bought several months before, he stepped out of his car and thrust the muzzle into her chest. He directed her inside the house, yelling that he was going to kill her.
“I remember thinking, ‘Cops, I need the cops,’ †she later wrote in a statement to the police. “He’s going to kill me in my own house. I’m going to die!â€
Ms. Holten, however, managed to dial 911 on her cellphone and slip it under a blanket on the couch. The dispatcher heard Ms. Holten begging for her life and quickly directed officers to the scene. As they mounted the stairs with their guns drawn, Mr. Holten surrendered. They found Ms. Holten cowering, hysterical, on the floor.
You’ve got to be pretty twisted to think Mr. Holten’s right to own firearms trumps his ex-wife’s right to not be terrorized by Mr. Holten. Yes, the gun rights absolutists are sick and twisted. And armed.
The N.R.A.’s blind defense of individuals’ gun rights has left a catastrophic toll. Stricter laws could help stem killings in domestic-violence cases. But legislatures would have to place prudent safety measures over Second Amendment absolutism. There is evidence that it would work: a study in the journal Injury Prevention in 2010 examined so-called intimate-partner homicides in 46 of the country’s largest cities from 1979 to 2003 and found that where state laws restricted gun access to people under domestic-violence restraining orders, the risk of such killings was reduced by 19 percent.
I’m wondering if there are any statistics showing that domestic violence perps tend to be gun absolutists, and vice versa?
These arguments about who has the right to carry guns and for what reason will continue to go back and forth until we as a nation addresses the culture of violence we live in.
As fewer and fewer people decide to be gun owners, I think it will become more and more evident who the people who have mental problems are – the ones who want to have guns.
Ms. Holten, and the rest of us, also have a right – a right not to be terrorized by guns.
The 2nd Amendment, itself, is not an ABSOLUTE right to own guns/arms.
The text of the 2nd Amendment:
“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 question asked of every current gun-owner, and future gun-purchaser, should be, “So what well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State are you with, Pal?”
And no, that White Supremecist group you like to meet up with, doesn’t count.
Sorry.
If the right to “keep and bear arms” were absolute, my one neighbor would have an Apache helicopter, another one, a tank, the guy across the way, a howitzer, another neighbor would have a fighter jet, still another, a bomber, and the rich guy at the top of the hill, an ICBM or two.
But they don’t, now do they?
So, it’s NOT an absolute right is it?
‘Keeping and bearing arms’ is already regulated, isn’t it? Just not very well.
So, there’s no reason, except cowardice in our politicians, to be able to regulate the ‘keeping and bearing of arms’ to single-shot rifles and handguns.
If you can’t kill an animal, or a person, with one or two bullets, then maybe you shouldn’t have a gun in the first feckin’ place, because you’re a sh*tty feckin’ shot.
Right, Pal?
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – NO ONE is trying to keep you from having a simple handgun or two to protect what little you, and your little family, have.
And NO ONE is trying to keep you from having a simple rifle or two to hunt with. FSM knows, since we don’t have the old 4-legged wolves to keep the deer in check, someone has to – and I happen to like venison.
BUT NO ONE I KNOW, HUNTS ANYMORE!
So, no more venison for me.
I am tired of having this conversation about guns, and people’s “rights.”
Especially after 20 Kindergartener’s got shredded to pieces, as if the were enemy soldiers.
If you can’t see that there’s a problem with that, then you, are part of the fucking problem!
What gun safety/control advocates fail to realize is the NRA and gun-nuts are basing their views on whatever crazy-ass what-if scenario they can imagine.
The whole pro-gun argument centers on a slippery-slope that, if they give an inch Diane Feinstein will come swooping in at the head of black-FEMA choppers to take all their guns away.
There’s no rational way to beat the irrational.
I think that’s why Sandyhook moved the gun control debate from non-existent to an actual issue; the slaughter of six year olds is so totally irrational that it got people’s attention.
You aren’t going to win fights right away, when you haven’t really been in a fight for nearly twenty years. It’ll take time to get back into shape.
I just hope the gun safety folks don’t get discouraged by striking out right now, because public sentiment is behind them and eventually, as they get back into fighting shape – by building coalitions that can pressure Congresscritters and state legislatures – they’ll start winning fights.
I am not sure I can add anything to this thread. But, I do strongly identify with the comments so far.
I read an interesting blog article on the “Culture of Rape” and I considered linking to it here. But, it was pretty disturbing and I am not sure it would have been received well. It was disturbing because it was well sourced and it seemed to hit the mark. I don’t pretend to have a handle on our culture or where it is heading. But, it is a violent culture and it is particularly violent towards women, whether that violence takes the form of teaching them “their place” or direct physical abuse. Of the many disturbing elements of the Steubenville case is that the young men involved corresponded to the remnants of the “American Dream”. People on the right, the news media, etc. all had a hard time making it conform to their usual narratives. Although, I am sure in sufficient time, we’ll all hear how it was all the hippies’ fault.
The young men involved are criminals, because they committed a crime. I am not absolving them of that. But, my left of center view sees the crime as an element of the privilege that they thought they deserved as part of their role as up and coming athletes. Something in the culture gave them the message that assaulting a defenseless young woman was not only something that they could get away with, but, one of the perks they receive as part of their status. For me, the greatest obscenities in this case are that, it seems that the young men didn’t even recognize her as a human being, they treated her like an inanimate object. They had such low regard for her that they didn’t even see what they were doing as criminal. We saw all the tears and what not after the verdict. But, how many tears would have been shed if they had never been caught?
Something similar is afoot in the “2nd Amendment Community”. They see it as their right and privilege to summarily execute anyone who makes them feel threatened. Moreover, they seem to lack the inclination to “ask questions later”. The gun whackos I know, seem to be living in a mashup of “Gunsmoke”, “Game of Thrones” and “Dirty Harry”. There is precious little about their worldviews that I can recognize as reality. As someone wrote above, the very people who should not be allowed to own guns are the very same who are mentally unstable enough to be obsessed with them.
Our venerable friend CUNDgulag wrote that he was “Tired of having this conversation about guns”. I know he was only using that phrase as a rhetorical device. But, the NRA and the various gun owners organizations, will never tire. A lot of them are making a very good living at making sure the conversation gets smothered as soon as it surfaces. Regardless of the many causes of the “revoltin’ development” we find ourselves in, we have to fit ourselves for the long, long haul. I firmly believe that there are cultural elements that engender the rape and abuse of women and violence of a more general nature. We need to take a good hard look at who we are and then decide who we want to be.
“There’s no rational way to beat the irrational.” Boy, ain’t it the truth.
I am willing to bet $5 that the judicial outcomes, and even the decisions on whether or not to bring charges, are very different in the cases of letting children kill with guns versus the cases of other shootings. But would not the charges be more equivalent in cases of physical beatings or robberies? The excuse that the families have suffered enough in the loss of their child rings hollow to me. We had a 12-year-old shot by his cousin of similar age down the road a few years ago. No jail, no charges, no nothing but a funeral. “They were just playing with it.” I do not maintain that the kid belonged in jail. But the non-supervising parents should have pulled time. They left two untrained kids alone with guns and ammunition that were not secured. If they had had an un-seatbelted kid killed in an wreck, they would have been more likely to face charges, I think. Some of the gun “freedumb” is defended because the defenders know they are vulnerable to being held responsible for the negligence they exercise quite regularly.
While biometrics is cool and interesting, it will hardly be an actual tool unless it can be retrofitted to all [or as close to all as practicable] of the worst offending firearms. It is also not particularly robust, as yet, though close (pushed by other uses). Then, expect howls from the people currently using food money to buy overpriced arms and ammunition into a bubble about the cost…
Football is at the heart of the violence culture – it is one of the key introductory tools used to introduce our youth to connecting violence with pleasure. To be sure, football, the sport, is in itself harmless; obsessing over football, and especially focusing on its most violent highlights, is indicative of a problem. Houston, we have a problem…
Note how this is yet another case where a different tool had far greater importance in preventing a crime than any gun could possibly have had. The wingnuts consistently believe that people possessing guns can use them, where the evidence virtually always indicates that anyone looking to perform violence will seek to catch the victim in a defenseless situation, even when they know the victim is unarmed – what makes the wingnuts assume that someone who is armed will be treated differently?
It seems that some kind of EMERGENCY BUTTON on cell phones that initiates an unstoppable live 911 call (with subsequent audio/video recording of the following situation) would be far more useful to the vast majority of people than a gun, with or without training.
After reading the comments from goatherd and Bill Bush,this reality hit me right between the eyes; in Florida, EVERY residential pool MUST have a fence to keep children from falling in. Also,many young parents have been prosecuted after their children have fallen into pools and drowned, particularly if the parents had been intoxicated or taking a nap when the child fell in the pool.
One of my neighbors lost her grandson in her pool last summer.I don’t know if there was a prosecution, but I know the accident devestated her family.
Swimming pools and guns kill many kids in the “Sunshine State” every year.It is your right to own a pool, but with that right comes responsibility.
http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=0500-0599/0515/0515.html
Jesus Christ biometrics on guns is about as no-brainer as you can get. Who the hell wants to get shot with their own gun? I suppose there might be some concern over whether the technology is reliable, but I somehow doubt that’s what the NRA’s objection is about. They mainly seem to oppose any legislation that might conceivably reduce the odds that somebody is going to get shot.
http://news.yahoo.com/teenager-mistakes-little-brother-intruder-shoots-him-155306542–abc-news-topstories.html
I am typing on a Thinkpad with a biometric fingerprint scanner. I use it and like it, but sometimes it takes several ‘swipes’ before the computer decides I am me. In a life and death situation, the biometric sensor has to work perfectly. Nobody ever needs a weapon for self defense when the police are a phone call away. Maybe.
Years ago in Sacramento my brother had someone who had crossed the fields behind his new home pounding on the back door to let him in because ‘they’ were going to kill him. My brother called the cops and it took over 20 minutes for a car to show – they could not find his house. By that time the visitor was gone. Had the person – whoever he was – intended harm, he could have done ANYTHING. Help was not on the way.
I’m a gun owner. Gulag is right – extended mags are needed as a device of compensation for men with short peckers. (See if that gets past the censors.) The actual shape of a gun is not material but the Giffords shooter was overpowered when he had to reload. It seems that in Sandy Hook, adults were trying to rush the shooter and failed partly because the shooter did not have to reload since he had an extended mag. But a rifle with a handgrip is not more or less deadly than a deer rifle, except for the mag.
It’s proper that the nation be emotional about Sandy Hook. The legislation that results needs to be very rational. What no one is pushing (except me – and you knew this was coming) is training. Make it required. Require extended training for more exotic weapons. There is no cure for stupidity, but ignorance can be cured. A gun owner should be as well educated in shooting as a car owner is in driving.
Wow, Maha! What a target-rich post and comment thread. Thank You for bringing up this topic again. Sorry that I’m late to the party, but I’ve been involved on the local front with some important issues in addition to this one, that I hope to share here sometime soon. You know, all politics are local (not meaning that I’m actually involved with any political parties – my truly lovely town is supposed to be non-partisan under our local electoral laws…).
But the vitriol that is fomenting on the gun and ‘2nd Amendment rights” issue locally and on other blogs has forced me to reach out to the Mahablog community with a suggestion to hopefully help push us to a new level of sanity on the gun issue. BTW, many of you regular posters here have presented points that I agree with and also touch on my proposal. You guys & gals are great – I’ve relied on y’all as a primary (and one of the most accurate) ‘news’ sources ever since Brian Lamb messed up early one morning and interviewed Barbara on his C-SPAN ‘daily show’ (pun intended) a long time ago.
Anywho, I encouraged a friend of mine to post on a local ‘news’ blog a streamlined 3-point, market-based, constitutionally-conservative plan which I know can fix this ‘constitutional’ weapons mess. The current nut-job food fight atmosphere requires simple elegance, especially since those with the greatest access to the media (you know, the crazies) can’t handle complex thought processes much.
So, I suggest a MARKET-BASED, CONSERVATIVE! approach:
1) (Mostly Market-Based): Repeal the Federal civil tort & criminal liability gun exclusions – Why should gun manufacturers, marketers, gun owners and users not be required to be legally responsible for their actions when they ‘mess up’? Once gun manufacturers, marketers, vendors, gun owners and other weapons promoters are subject to be held liable for their misfeasance or malfeasance (note: not more proper uses of firearms), their legal proxies surely will help find better 2nd Amendment issue cures through regulations, insurance, punishments, fees, taxes, prison cells and the like.
Firearm tort and criminal liability exclusions have been achieved through the corrupt practices of lobbying and campaign bribery which are intended to produce legislation that is contrary to the public interest at large, so why should we be so beholden to them? Why shouldn’t injured parties be entitled to justice and compensation? If licensed gun owners were held to be truly responsible for their actions, they wouldn’t let those guns out of their prudent control – or they would face the consequences.
Once the guilty parties are exposed to legal and financial liability for their wrongs, the marketplace (probably beginning with insurers) will then work fervently to limit liabilities through more rational gun control policies and legislation. This happens all the time in many other fields (think Ford Flame-backs [does anyone remember the Pinto?], seat belts, automobile stability [Corvairs, SUVs, etc.], tobacco products, workplace safety, etc).
2) Implement intelligent universal registration with thorough background checks, AND ban non-licensed and non-regulated gun transactions. No more gun show sales, car trunk sales, or liability-free gifting or other transfers.
3) (Here’s the conservative Constitutional part:) Reestablish well-regulated militias.
For those true patriots: get in shape, get regulated, and then go spend all of your free time and weekends at the county arsenal/shooting range and practice firing hand guns, assault rifles, shot guns, machine guns, bazookas, tanks, assault aircraft, propelled grenades, shoulder-fired rockets (short range, of course) or anything else that can be ‘well-regulated’. Navy excluded, since it has its own Constitutional authority.
Being well-regulated, of course, all such activities would be properly supervised, and participants would be trained by the militia organizers and officers. Participants also might be required to self-finance the purchase of said weapons, ammunition, equipment and the real estate needed for all the lead-filling and big explosions, etc., since the US Constitution is silent about national financing of state and local matters. You know, “Let the states decide” or “the local governments know best”.
But the 2nd Amendment would be preserved as our Founders intended.
See? That was as easy as 1-2-3! And I did it all without taking away our guns! Now go talk amongst yourselves, and spread the word to others please. Enjoy!
Oh, and if anyone wants them some fresh venison, come on over to my house! I’ve had a herd of about a dozen on the hoof living in my and neighbors yards all winter, chewing up my flora & giving my cat ticks, all just about 12 miles west of Central Park, NYC. Bet I’ve got a 2nd Amendment solution for them!
Doug, the problem is the fetish aspect of assault weapons, not that they are more deadly.I think a good anology is comparing a pink Vespa scooter to a crotch rocket type motorcycle (a pink .22 pistol vs a Bushmaster)
OT.
Not gun related, but plenty of “Teh Crazy” – how the home schooling advocates heroically defeated the Senatorial allies of the blue-helmeted SocialistFascists from the UN, coming to take away their handicapped home-schooled children (as if being schooled by religious adult morons in their homes isn’t enough of a handicap) and using them for mulch, or restoring golf courses to wetlands, or some other crazy thing, and making sure that poor old Bob Dole has has one last “a sad…” before leaving this mortall coil:
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/2013/03/23/the-story-washington-gridlock-seen-through-the-eyes-bob-dole/zyQ05CKoGMKjPBDcNJGAVP/story.html
It’s really pathetic when the idiotic Republican politicians are so afraid of the morons in their base, that they even, basically, spit in the eye of their party elder, and former Presidential candidate.
Pathetic.
Sad.
And dangerous, for the nation.
I say we split into two nations, and we can work out the trade for the good Liberals in the Red States, for our, mostly rural, inner-Confederates, here in the Blue States, later.
We can’t as a nation, long survive, being half half rational, half moronic.
Let them form their own country – JesusHomeSchoolsMyKidsAndYou’llGetMyGunWhenYouPryItFromMy-ColdDeadHandistan, or something like that.
I sometimes wonder, are the Conservative economists in the world any smarter than the old-timers who get on the bus with their life-savings in their wallets to go to Atlantic City, because, “Hey, I’m due to get lucky at the craps table THIS time. Yup! THIS time I’ll take home enough for the rest of my retirement.”?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/25/cyprus-bailout-deal-eu-closes-bank
Are they aware that there are actual people who live on Cyprus, and that it’s not an island with just banks on it?
This won’t just hurt the Russian Oligarchs – it’ll hurt a lot of Cypriot’s even more, over the next decade or so.
Please, please, Oh Great FSM, let Mitt Romney and the Koch Brothers have some money socked away there!!!
The gun has become a false idol for the gun nuts. They absolutely worship guns, holding their proliferation and reverence above everything else, in complete disregard to any semblance of common sense. This means rejection of safety features such as bio-metric sensors. I hate to even think about how many kids could have been saved had the guns they picked up and accidentally shot themselves or others had this feature.
They want “unfettered access” to guns without a shred of responsibility, and they shouldn’t be allowed to have both. If I have to register and insure my car, which I can kill somebody with, why shouldn’t I have to register and insure my gun, the sole purpose of which is to kill??
Regarding Robert Dole, while it could be said that some might consider him to have been a “master of bipartisanship”, I don’t agree with author that he fairly ‘earned’ the reputation, since he mostly functioned as an RNC party organizer, whip, spokesperson or other type of a combination of prostitute and pimp for whatever personal gain seemed right at the time. Besides that, I don’t think there really are any good qualities in ‘bipartisanship’ for its own sake. We employ bartisanship in order to appease truly bad actors, and accommodate those morally challenged folks much as in the way that we permit them to profit from bribes (‘campaign funds’) they either pay or receive. Dole’s case is particularly ironic because the only moderate or ‘liberal’ cause he ever championed was one which he personally could benefit from – aid to those with disabilities.
About Cyprus and other recent events in Europe, the same types of bad actors are creating an atmosphere of fear in order to steal public assets and gain more control over the more common citizens. Despite what you might hear via the MSM, the rich folk are now roiling the markets in order to achieve exactly what the RNC, its affiliates and proxies are looking to do here: gain quick profits and exclusive ownership by converting common assets into their own. These movements are coordinated globally by the major ‘conservative’ political parties and their corporate masters. This is in part what major political consulting organizations, law firms and lobbying organizations do in their ‘off’ years; although for the true pros, there is no off season, just different markets to enter and dominate – look at the modern New Jersey operation against public schools (a state crown jewel) for a good domestic case study.
What today has the international financial markets up in arms is the fact that in closing Laiki (Cyprus Popular Bank) and protecting small depositors, the EU is finally taking a small stand against the bankster gansters who are trying to run the show. The power that the international bankster gangsters wield is their ability to cause regional and, indeed, worldwide financial panic while blaming it on the little guys or small countries which are mostly not important in the scheme of the world’s economy. Not to mention that rich folks of all stripes, especially Russian mobsters (oops, should I have written ‘oligarchs’?) have been using Cyprus’ banks primarily for tax avoidance and money laundering purposes, but I digress.
The good news today (which the ‘markets’ don’t like) is that the little guys won a small battle by the EU financial regulators’ enforcing their equivalent of the US’s FDIC bank account insurance, and took a stand against the moral hazard of bailing out larger depositors – who exceeded the contractual and legal account insurance limits – in full, and on the backs of all of the European Union’ taxpayers. This event also is the first time that the EU’s deposit insurance has been needed to be used, and the failure to implement it properly could ultimately undo the EU in its entirety.
But back to the Gun Crazies, maybe I should have put quotes around my “MARKET-BASED, CONSERVATIVE!” banner to warN you all to check your snarkmeter batteries. I meant the headline as a clever Luntzian way to raise the issue in important or dimmer circles. Should I have called it “MARKET-BASED, CONSTITUTIONAL!”? Just lay off the snark? Any better buzzwords?
Speaking of buzzwords, one that has been too effective in ruining our country in recent decades is “privatization” and its derivatives. Does anyone here have a suggestion for a better, maybe passively-snarky relabeling by which we can defeat this monster? “Theft” seems too confrontational…
Thank You,
How about “Privatizing what government used to do, costs tax payers at least 3 to 4 times more to have some corporation do what your government has done with your tax dollars?”
Or, “Why pay mid-level BP executive salaries to the low-paid workers in corporations tp peel potato’s for the same salary that the actual soldiers would do at a KP salary?”
“KP hourly salaries shouldn’t cost as much as the mid-level executive salaries at BP!” Especially since the workers don’t acually get to keep any of that money – the corporation does.
“Privatization,” is the greatest scheme ever created, to make sure that the “public’s” tax money goes into “private” walllets and bank accounts – with enough left over to take care of the politicians who support it, with either stipends, or lifetime jobs for themselves, their family members, and/or their cronies.
How’s that sound?
Thank you:
“Piratization”.
“Privation”.
“As fewer and fewer people decide to be gun owners, I think it will become more and more evident who the people who have mental problems are – the ones who want to have guns”
Wow another irrational statement from a reactionary wing-nut. I don’t see much difference between you and the knuckle-draggers wanting guns for everyone with no restrictions, just two sides of the same coin!
[The Congress shall have Power] To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
[The Congress shall have Power] To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States;
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.
Oops, that wasn’t supposed to post…
Anyway, that is the entirety of “gun rights” and “Militia” in the Constitution. I’ll let others interpret the meaning.
Piratization... 🙂
Salvation Army Correctional Services.. They’re no longer bringing in the sheaves… Now,they’re bringing in the dough.
♫ Let us go rejoicing- bringing in the bread ♫
Word is..Don’t piss the Major off, cause he’ll send you up the river.
Very good, paradoctor!
Interesting ideas, “Thank You!”
‘Gulag. The Cyprus situation is VERY complicated; Go to Eric Margolis.com and read what he thinks. As usual, there is spy vs spy stuff, a VERY large natural gas field, and international swordsmanship. Very James Bond-esque !
Weighing in a bit late on this thread, but here goes.
I’m a bit of a techie, so I’d love to know just how this bionic gun works. The idea of customizing a gun so that just one individual user can fire it sounds appealing. But I can see some technical hurdles that might make it impractical. Guns are mechanical – this lock would have to be some sort of electronic device that has a blocking pin to prevent the trigger from being pulled, and would only release it when the correct user puts his/her hands on the gun handle. So some sort of electronic scanner has to be built in, and the device will need batteries. If the batteries are dead, so is the gun. To prevent having to recharge the thing every week, you’d probably want to turn if off – so a gun with an on/off switch. I’m certain that any such device could be defeated, though it would take tools, time and knowledge to do so, which means it would probably prevent almost all accidental shootings.
Manufacturing such a bionic lock is probably doable, provided it’s built into the body of a new gun. I don’t see any practical way to retrofit one of these onto an existing gun. So the millions of guns already out there won’t benefit from this.
Interesting idea all the same, but don’t hold your breath waiting for these to go on sale at Walmart.
. So some sort of electronic scanner has to be built in, and the device will need batteries. If the batteries are dead, so is the gun.
Oh, no! They’ll keep it in a charging holster just like a dust buster. They can even call it a crime buster®. Yeah, use it to cleanup evildoers and marauding @&%$*#*.
Paraquat..I hope you don’t percieve my comment above a ridicule of your comment. You are 100% on the mark with your comment. I’m just frustrated with the mentality that holds guns to be a sacred amulet, and the only way I can vent my frustration is to ridicule that mentality by coming against sound logic and reason.
uncledad…I find your comment interesting..Somehow I see that Ann Romney never worked a day in her life. It’s strange because were talking about guns while at the same time we’re not talking about guns, we’re talking on a different level, somewhat esoteric where guns are only representative of what we’re talking about.
Thank You!:
Your proposal for the revival of citizen militias is spot-on. I’d like to see every purchaser of certain classes of firearms, i.e., semi-automatic military-style weapons as opposed to ordinary hunting rifles, be automatically inducted into a militia and required to report to their local armory for inspection and training within 30 days of purchase, and thereafter every six months for as long as they own the weapon. If they want the Second Amendment, let’s give them the whole thing.
Swami,
Not sure what my comment has to do with Ann Romney? I am merely pointing out that some commenters here and elsewhere are anti-gun absolutists, much like the pro-gun absolutists on the right, their arguments have no basis in reality. That’s all!
uncledad,
Much as I would love a world, or a country, without guns, I’m not the absolutist you might think I am.
I have repeatedly acknowledged that people have a right to bear arms.
And I see nothing wrong with people having a simple handgun or shotgun, or two, to protect a person’s home and familiy with, and I don’t deny those who like to hunt, the right to guns and rifles to do that.
What I AM an absolutist about, is ownership of modern “assault” weapons.
Unless you are in an organized state militia, or the military, you have no need for one.
If you ain’t chargin’ up a hill assaulting the enemy, or defendin’ one from assault by the enemy, then the only thing left to assault, isn’t any real enemy – just some perceived enemy.
Gulag
You say ” I see nothing wrong with people having a simple handgun or shotgun, or two, to protect a person’s home and familiy” but earlier you say “I think it will become more and more evident who the people who have mental problems are – the ones who want to have guns”? Nothing about assault weapons at all?
uncledad,
I’m tired of this whole argument.
I am 55, and grew-up and lived in some pretty shitty neighborhoods in NY City, Philly, and Fayetteville, NC, and never wanted, or even felt I needed, a gun.
I was a bartender and bouncer in the East Village of NY – sometimes in what was called “The Alphabet Jungle.” I went to Hell’s Kitchen, and Harlem frequently – Black, and Spanis. I went to the other boroughs to go to see bands, or have some “ethnic” food. Never wanted, or felt I needed, a gun.
I ran a company that sold cable tv channels via satellite dishes, and many of our customers lived in ghetto housing complexes. I was out there on a very frequent basis – day, and night. Never wanted, or felt I needed, a gun.
So, while I’m not the worlds most mentally healthy person myself, pardon me if I associate some paranoid, and probably delusional, need for self-protection with guns, with some form of mental inadequacy, if not disease.
The whole world’s not against you, just because you think it might be.
There’s probably no one out there who thinks you’re so very important a malignant force in their lives, that they want to shoot you, so that you have to defend against that with having a gun of your very own.
The chances of your house/home being broken into, is negligible. And the person you suspect is a thief, and go reaching for your gun, may be one of your kids who had to go to the john in the middle of the night.
And that potential murderous sociopath knocking on your door in the middle of the night, so that you have to come to the door armed like Yosemite Sam, only with assault weapons, not six-shooters? Well, it’s probably just some guy whose car broke down in front of your house.
If I could leave my bartending job at 2 or 4 am, carrying my hard-earned cash through the deserted streets of the Lower East Side, a “drug den” if there ever was one, and didn’t feel I wanted or needed a gun, who do other people?
Outsized ego’s, and overly assessed sense of self-worth?
Paranoid fears?
Over 1,000,000 people have died via guns in the US since John Lennon was gunned down on a December night a little over 30 years ago, on the Upper West Side of NY City – outside of his apartment building, The Dakota, which is, inarguably one of the most exclusively wealthy pieces of real estate in the entire world.
1,000,000.
If that’s not fucking madness, then I don’t fucking know what fucking madness is.
One guy brought a bomb into an airplane in his shoe 10 years ago, and every airline passenger has to de-shoe.
ONE GUY!!!
Over 1 million people dead, DEAD – not just wounded – D-E-A-D!, from gun violence, and in the past 30 years, what few gun control laws were passed, have been, for the most part, repealed.
One guy brings a bomb in a shoe, we, as a nation, do something drastic about it.
1 million dead from gun-violence, ho-hum. “Hey, ‘Dancing With the Stars” is on tonight!”
So, yeah, maybe at heart I’m really saying is that all y’all who feel you want and need guns (outside of people who have them, exclusively, to hunt and eat what they shoot), ARE FUCKING NUTS!!!
There, I said it!
Happy?
“There, I said it! Happy?”
Whatever floats your boat. What I have tried to point out in this whole debate is that restrictions on gun ownership and armaments that can and will save lives is not advanced by pursuing the argument that everyone who owns a gun is “FUCKING NUTS!!!”. You are entitled to your opinion, but if you really want to lessen gun violence that attitude is not helpful, all it does is legitimize the crazies on the other side argument that the anti-gun folks are coming for everyone guns.
In my opinion, the only people with a legitimate case for guns, are hunters, those who live in areas in the country where there are bears, or other animals that people need protection from, and of course, those who raise animals, and need guns for control of those animals, to protect them from their predators.
Oh, and the people who live in shitty, gun-filled neighborhoods.
Since probably no one in those shitty gun-filled neighborhoods hunts, and there ain’t no bears, and nothing to herd, and the only predators are other humans, they just feel that they want and need to have guns to protect themselves and their property from other gun-owners in their shitty neighborhoods.
In other words, outside of hunters, and people who live near animals, or need to control their herds, needing guns is kind of a self-fulfilling prophesy.
Ooops!
After having said all of that, I forgot to mention another group that has a legitimate case for owning guns: members of well-organized state militias!
But, how many gun owners in this country are actually members of well-organized state militias?
My bet is, it ain’t nowhere near a majority.
OK. ‘Nuff said!
Ok, now I’m really tired of this conversation.
Let’s just agree to disagree.
Thank You, paradoctor! – I see how both can be perfect when used properly!
Of course, I expect I’ll have to lead with ‘piratization’ for its bluntness and easy recognition by all segments of American society (Aaarrrggghhh!!!), but then I’ll always try to work ‘privation’ into the conversation to show how the consequences can be much more dire than romantic Hollywood kidnappings.
Watch for them on a blog thread near you! I’ll honor royalties if anything becomes of this… Thanks again!
I’m wondering if there are any statistics showing that domestic violence perps tend to be gun absolutists, and vice versa?
I can’t address that, but where I live, there is a very high incidence of domestic violence among law enforcement, so that guns are present and help ain’t comin’.
Thanks for the talking points, Gulag. I’ll be happy to use them also, including those in your responses to Uncle.
But your, Uncle’s and others’ debate points regarding assault weapons and other non-appropriate firearms, including military-style or -grade arms, can be solved effectively by the first point of my 3-point plan. ‘Just’ remove the legal liability exception artificially provided for those and other types of weaponry by the current and prior Congresses.
Our legal system routinely provides this solution for other matters, allowing the courts to “sort it out”. That’s the type of “tort reform” I’d like to see! Furthermore, Congress can impose statutory criminal penalties for recklessness and criminally negligent acts as well. All types of weaponry already are criminally banned Federally, by states and localities – bombs, bazookas, machine guns, laser devices, switchblades and brass knuckles. Sadly, I haven’t heard any mention of this from Capitol Hill or in the media. Write I must, over the holidays I guess…
Oh, when I saw a couple of pregnant does in my front yard an hour ago, I warned them that I would send them to the Gulag! 😉
“But your, Uncle’s and others’ debate points regarding assault weapons and other non-appropriate firearms, including military-style or -grade arms, can be solved effectively by the first point of my 3-point plan. ”
Show me where I ever supported civilian use of assault rifles in this thread, I never made mention of any specific armaments. Get your facts straight before you sell your 3-point plan! And for your information I have always thought the legal liability for weapons manuf. is a bad idea, so piss off!
I meant to say “the legal liability waiver is a bad idea” of course.
“Talk of the Nation” had a very interesting segment on the epidemiology of gun violence on Tuesday, March 26th. One of the most interesting moments concerned the impulsive nature of suicide, particularly teen suicide. The population sampling was very specialized, survivors of suicide attempts in which a gun was used. But, evidently, what emerged was that the period of time in which suicide was considered and weighed as an option was less than five minutes in most cases. Poor impulse control would seem to be a major factor in suicide attempts.
It seems like a classic case of “Guns don’t kill people, but they certainly make it easier.” Having said that, this doesn’t seem to be the kind of problem that can be remediated legally. The mental state of a given person is fairly labile, a well balanced person can be temporarily unhinged by a romantic breakup, a job loss or road rage. Moving a gun just a few steps further away might improve the odds considerably.
As written before, teenager’s brains and bodies are in a state of a very unsettling transition as is their social status. If I were a gun owner with a teenager in the household, I think I would make it very difficult to access guns and ammo.
goatherd,
Ok, last thing for a while on guns from me.
Herein lies the dilemma in having a gun in your home, to keep you, your family, and your property safe:
The gun is there for your defense, in case someone breaks in.
But it has to be kept safe, presumably locked-away and protected from getting into the hands of anyone but a, supposedly, trained and responsible adult who lives in the home.
How do you judge how safe the gun has to be from someone else, but still make it easily accessable enough if it’s needed, to be ready at a second’s notice?
If you make it too difficult to get to the gun, and put bullets in it, you lose precious seconds – giving the intruder the advantage.
But if it’s too easily accessable, it won’t exactly take having a “Young Sherlock Holmes'” as your child to figure where it is, and how to get access to it. In other words, it can’t be in the den, or basement, because it will take some time to get to. It has to be in the bedroom, where you’ll most likely be if an intruder breaks in. So, how do you make it safe?
A combination lock on that gun-safe in your bedroom is the solution, you say?
Well, if you need to get access to that gun at a second’s notice, the number has to be something easy so you’ll remember it in the pressure of having to access is ASAP. But, doesn’t your teenager know everyone’s birthday, and phone numbers – or, at least where to find them on a calendar or phone book?
If the kid can crack the “Parental Control” on your TV, or into your PC or laptop or cell-phone, he/she can crack into that safe, given enough time when you’re not home, to try to figure it out.
Ah, so it’s safe or gunrack with a lock, you say?
Ok, that key needs to be easily accessable, too. And ready at a second’s notice. Have you ever tried to, not only find your keys, but fit them into the lock, when there’s pressure?
Now, I’m not saying people shouldn’t have guns in the home for protection.
But, solving this dilemma, is not easy – at least for me.
Unless I lived deep in the boondocks, where, “In Cold Blood”-like, it would take police awhile to come and help me, I’d prefer to have a land-line and a cell-phone handy. This way, the minute I think an intruder is inside, I can dial 911 on my landline, and announce ‘that the police are on their way, and will be here soon – just long enough for you, the intruder, to get away’ – maybe…
And my cell-phone would have the police on quick-dial, so that, in the unlikely event the intruder cut the land-line, I can still call the police pronto, and announce ‘that the police are on their say, and will be there soon – just long enough for you, the intruder, to get away’ – maybe…
This seems a hell of a lot easier to me than making sure I can balance safety with speed with a gun in the house.
And so, unless my teenager decides to commit suicide by hanging him/herself with the land-line phone-cord, or swallowing the cell-phone and choking to death on it, at least I can rule out shooting themselves with my gun as a suicide option.
There are always other methods to commit suicide – but at least I’ve ruled out the easiest path.
Yes, ‘gulag, I agree with you about the difficult logistics of having a gun for defense.
I think in the hypothetical case I was citing, I would judge that the risk of having a gun accessible to a young person who might susceptible to mood swings or emotionally vulnerable would outweigh the home defense benefit I might gain by having a gun handy. But then, we haven’t had any break ins or violent crime in our neighborhood in the 14 years I have lived here. But, I wouldn’t watch “In Cold Blood” alone late at night.
When we have coyote or other predator sightings I think of how dangerous it is to discharge a gun even with neighbors being so distant, I’d probably wind up taking out one of our horses and missing the coyote. Home intrusions, predator attacks (I don’t mean drones) and good guys confronting bad guys all seem a lot simpler in the movies. It’s a very important rule NEVER to shoot at anything you can’t see or clearly identify. Pretty obviously, some otherwise responsible and level headed people break that rule in the heat of the moment.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathaniel_Brazill
Nathan got the gun to kill Mr. Grunow from his grandfather’s nightstand drawer. He claimed the gun fired accidentally due to an overly sensitive/ faulty trigger.