Saturday, September 29, 2007

The Smart Gun...S&W's New Hillary-Hole?

"...consider the fact that New Jersey has adopted a law mandating that when the technology becomes available, all guns sold in the state (except those sold to law enforcement--more on that later) will be required to possess technology that will only allow the gun to be fired by the authorized user (presumably, the registered owner).

In short, if "smart gun" technology had been ready for prime time, thus allowing the New Jersey legislature to render a woman's husband's gun useless to her, the law could very well have been an accessory to her rape/torture/murder. I wonder what Ceasefire New Jersey and the Million ("million"--hah!) Marching Mommies would say about that.

Now, about the law's exception for law enforcement--why would police want to be the "Only Ones" exempt from this law? Could it be that they don't want their loved ones to be unable to use lifesaving firepower registered to the officer? Could it be that they don't want to be helpless if an injury to their dominant hand forces them to use their off hand? Could it be that they don't want to be forced to rely on the vagaries of electronics and batteries in a mortal confrontation? Would not every one of those objections (and others) apply to even us lowly citizens?

On a side note, this part of the article about "smart gun" technology further perturbs me:
Gun manufacturer Smith & Wesson was awarded a $1.7 million federal grant last year to work on developing the technology and has spent $5 million on development since 1993.
I had been willing to let bygones be bygones with regard to S&W's deal with the devil in 2000, because S&W is under new ownership--ownership that has renounced the HUD agreement. Now, I find that they're profiting from the very same kind of Bill of Rights erosion that sparked such (justifiable) outrage before. I realize that the "smart gun" article is almost five years old--I'll have to see if I can find anything more recent about S&W and "smart guns."

If they are still involved with this back door assault on the Second Amendment, perhaps a new boycott is in order."

In 2000, the William J. Clinton Foundation donated $300,000 each to Smith & Wesson and FN Manufacturing in order to begin work on smart guns. While still in office, he proposed spending $10,000,000 for such efforts, calling it Common Sense Gun Safety Measures.

Aimed at us.

Not the bad guy who will then create a cottage industry to defeat the smart chips or simply not bother with certain types of weapons at all, not the criminal will always find enough weapons.

Not at law enforcement. Sworn officers would have exemptions. The very men and women who carry the most guns in public don't want a damn thing to do with such techno-babble and would not be forced to give up their present firearms.

Just us. Our old guns grandfathered in for a time, then the push will come to ban them altogether for the smart-gun.

S&W continues to work on the technology, having taken the money they must, and are in all likelihood petitioning certain gun-grabbers for more funding. I say in all likelihood because there is no smoking gun nor will S&W speak about this, and such silence in and of itself is damning enough for me.

Come clean one way or the other. Yes, we continue to work on developing a smart-gun, or no, we are not.

Thanks to Armed and Safe.

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