Worst plan ever.
Added 2015-07-26 02:53:26 +0000 UTCEverybody sane wants guns out of the hands of murderous criminals and lunatics. But passing gun-grab laws only disarms the scrupulously law-abiding. Leaving them unable to shoot back, should they be attacked. Which suits authoritarians who regard the people as exploitable livestock very well, but I don't wanna go there (yet!).
Disarming the victims, while leaving aforementioned loons and criminals armed to the teeth, is kind of the exact opposite of what you want to happen.
So what's the solution to this dilemma? Don't ask me, for I do not know.
I also don't know what my Patrons want most to see in these Saturday postings. Please feel free to speak up - I actually do care about your opinion, not just your money.
Comments
The NBA threw a shit fit and did everything in their power to stop the technology.
Piltheser
2015-07-26 11:24:06 +0000 UTCA few years ago, a rifle manufacturer embedded CPU running Linux into a rifle that could make aiming better. It worked most of the time... but didn't sell all that well. Meanwhile, banks standardized Near Field Communications, or NFC, for tap-and-pay cards (two of my cards are like that). Android smartphone makers started embedding NFC into their phones after a while, and when things got shaken out, Apple put in NFC with extra security features for Apple Pay. I bring these to points to say, why don't they put in a chip in the gun that jams if the person operating the gun doesn't wear NFC enabled gloves or a NFC dogtag? Granted, it'll make it much harder for criminals (you have to steal the gun AND the dogtag/gloves or physically mod the gun). It'll also make it slightly harder on the enthusiast (gotta pair up the gloves/dogtag with the guns before shooting for the first time, and maybe swap out AAA batteries every few months). Most pistols won't have this, alas, but rifles? Ideal, especially for the dogtags. There will be a time where the NFC communications between the gloves and the gun will not be very secure, because lets face it, gun manufacturers only know security to be "put a bullet in the other guy's head." That will change if the military puts in a NFC authentication requirement in their future orders, and that's a big if. I'm definitely overdue to shake-off the 30 years of rust on my shooting skills.
STrRedWolf
2015-07-26 11:10:42 +0000 UTCAnd, uh, satire is funny when it's actually satire, and not self-satisfied "Look how dumb my opponent is" - this reads like a really, really terrible Chick Tract for guns. And honestly, I'm half expecting to see the part two which invites you to join the NRA or get pitched into a crowd of "99 percenters" by some angelic figure styled after Clint Eastwood. Worst tract ever.
Anonymous Person
2015-07-26 06:50:16 +0000 UTCIt's, uh, it's not the "authoritarians" who are playing you - it's the gun lobby, i.e. the gun companies which couldn't see their profits go up by exploiting a larger market. Their market is at its maximum, and they have investors to please with record returns. How to do it? Ratchet up demand in the existing market instead of expanding the market, while keeping costs low. Continue to pump out the same garbage weapon technology developed a century ago while fighting safety legislation. For instance: can you, by looking at the outside, tell if a gun is loaded? You have a gas gauge on your gas tank... If you look at what the gun lobby is fighting (first off, it owns the NRA which used to be all about hunting, and now is about gun love and patriotism), it fights any attempts to make guns safer, to limit their sale in any way, to in any capacity try and dissuade people from their desperate fear, and sells the solution that only more guns will make you safer. Convenient that it also helps their bottom line, and their investor's bottom line. The people who want to scare you with crazies are the gun lobby. The "authoritarians" are inviting you to weep with them over the massive kills that people are able to accomplish, and ask what we can do about it. The gun lobby would simply answer: "more guns."
Anonymous Person
2015-07-26 06:48:11 +0000 UTCNo, "arm everyone all the time" is not a good idea, and not my point. What I'd like to see is the criminals and lunatics disarmed FIRST. Then the people who don't use their guns to hurt anyone, can safely disarm. Or not. What difference does it make, since they're not hurting anybody? As for comparing the USA's gun culture to other countries, well, those are different countries, with different cultures and attitudes. Apples to oranges. For example, Switzerland has near-universal ownership of fully-automatic military rifles, via their citizen army model. Also a very low crime rate, and no mass shootings I've heard of. This does NOT mean the Swiss model would work here. Or any other country's. A perfect society requires perfect people to man it, and there ain't no such critters. We must deal with things as they are, in the here and now. And I freely admit I don't have the answers.
Kjartan Arnorsson
2015-07-26 05:38:49 +0000 UTCIf your logic was true, then why is it countries with gun control laws have (as percentage of population) fewer gun-related crimes, fewer gun deaths, fewer instances of lunatics brandishing their guns, etc. If this NRA fallacy were true then Canada would be the murder capital of the world. Yet it's not. If your "Arm everybody all the time" theory is correct, then how do you explain this fact (and it is a "fact" not a belief).
Paul Lenoue
2015-07-26 05:24:40 +0000 UTC"cut off sources", eh? Including the option of making them yourself ("Zipguns")? Gosh! I wonder why no-one's thought of that. So how would this cut-off be accomplished, exactly? Do tell - I'm genuinely curious. Keeping in mind the military-industrial complex might have a problem with that approach. And there's also that pesky Second Amendment....
Kjartan Arnorsson
2015-07-26 04:24:12 +0000 UTCIt's true, if you cut off sources of guns, criminals will still be able to use magic wishing power to conjure guns from thin air.
Piltheser
2015-07-26 02:55:59 +0000 UTC
