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Comment by 67726e | Hacker News Reader

I don't think I would ever purchase one of these things...

> Smart weapons recognize their owners' fingerprints or hand grip, or unlock when they wirelessly interact with a special watch or ring worn by the shooter.

So what happens if I'm wearing gloves? What happens if I lose the ring or it comes off while I'm drawing? What happens if my girlfriend needs to grab my handgun out of my nightstand while I'm in the shower? There are so many ways for this to fail, I would never purchase it over a regular firearm.

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Do you have small children in the house? Do you regularly use your gun for hunting or practicing? That seems like the intersection where you want a smart gun.

PS: Adding more than one user seems like a really simple feature.

A non-zero number of people don't have fingerprints - I'm (mostly) one of them. I can't reliably use the fingerprint scanner on my iPhone.

IMO it's more important to make sure that a firearm is shot by whoever's authorized to do so, rather than making it convenient to shoot them per se.

It might not apply for an average american shopping guns in Walmart, but hopefully it will be important for defense forces, police, etc.

edit - typo

Reliability is a huge, huge concern with guns. That's why a weapon like an AK-47 is so popular. It shoots if it's muddy, sandy, you name it.

A failed fingerprint recognition (even due to the conditions listed above) when you intend to use a gun means you're probably dead.

Edit: I listed wet as a condition an AK would fire under, but I don't believe that's accurate. The original point is still true though, the AK is touted for it's reliability.

Ultimately, when it comes to firearms, you really don't want a lot of failure modes. This piece of technology adds way to many. Something I didn't see in the article, but how is this device getting power? What happens if my battery dies?

Most people manage to keep their phones/laptops charged. A smart gun should have less ongoing drain and surely you could hook it up to charge in your gun safe. Never going to happen if people start issuing death threats to anyone trying to market one, though.

Meanwhile, more attention to the "shoots curious kids" failure mode seems appropriate.

> more attention to the "shoots curious kids" failure mode seems appropriate

This is a solved problem. The negligent parents who store guns in the open without securing them (and who don't teach their kids to be safe with guns) are abhorrent. But they're also not likely to be buying "smart guns."

The laws that charge adults with negligence for kids having access to their guns are almost never enforced.

When those start being enforced, then we can examine whether it's a solved problem.

I don't mean it's solved in that it never happens. I mean it's solved in that a solution is available to those willing to bother.

> : I listed wet as a condition an AK would fire under

An AK-type will actually fire whilst a metre or so underwater... and cycle too.

It's less a matter of convenience than reliability. Inserting electronics into the cycle of operations adds additional points of failure, and purely mechanical devices are not vulnerable to firmware bugs or electromagnetic interference.

> if I'm wearing gloves

Are you currently holding the gun? If not, take off the gloves and then pick up the gun.

> if I lose the ring or it comes off

Same thing that happens if you lose your wallet or car keys. You go find it immediately or get a replacement quickly.

> girlfriend needs to grab my handgun

Hopefully they can make smart guns that can have two authorized users.

> so many ways for this to fail

Regular handguns can also fail - anyone can pick them up and shoot anyone else. Some people consider that a bug, not a feature.

> Are you currently holding the gun? If not, take off the gloves and then pick up the gun.

Sorry would-be assailant, please hold-by while I remove these gloves.

> if I lose the ring or it comes off

Sorry would-be assailant, please hold-by while I drive to my local sporting goods store and have them clone me a new ring.

What specific case are you afraid of? You are outside in the wintertime with a gun concealed on your person, and a would-be assailant comes along? Then get the kind that uses a ring, not a fingerprint.

And when you lose the ring, get a new one immediately instead of waiting for the would-be assailant to come along.

Among the questions I have from the article:

* What is the ring/watch material made of? How durable is it.

* For the "smart ring", can I get this sized-to-fit?

* What exactly is powering this scanner? What happens without power?

These are just concerns off the top of my head; I'm sure there are other concerns I'm not thinking of. Should my fob become damaged/dislodged in a scuffle what happens then? With a firearm, what you don't want is fragility.

I don't know personally, but presumably companies designing these guns have thought of the same concerns and made the rings to be durable and sizable.

Re battery dying - if I was designing a smart gun, I would have it default to a regular, usable-by-anyone gun if the power dies. That way you don't have to worry about mastermind criminals with EMP devices either.

So the whole thing is pointless, since I can just remove the battery?

I've got kids toys that require a minute or two of swearing to get the battery compartment open. If my would-be assailant has the power to keep me contained for that long while he tinkers with my smart gun, I've got other troubles.

It'd at least prevent someone from grabbing your gun and immediately shooting you with it.

So would a retention holster.

> So what happens if I'm wearing gloves?

Don't wear gloves on the shooting stand

> What happens if I lose the ring or it comes off while I'm drawing?

You secure the gun, pick up the gun and continue practicing.

> handgun out of my nightstand

A handgun should be stored securely in a safe.

All those questions were answered on the assumption that you aren't specially threatened in some way. Except for those very few persons that are specially threatened, weapons actually lead to a greater risk than the security they can provide. Even in the case you are going to get robbed at home, it's more likely that the robber takes control of your guns and uses them against you than that you can use the guns against them.

> Even in the case you are going to get robbed at home, it's more likely that the robber takes control of your guns and uses them against you than that you can use the guns against them.

Care to back up that claim?

Sorry I'm currently unable to find the source where I got this from under the tons of statistics how having a gun at home is actually making you more unsafe. Maybe I'm just not using the right vocabulary because English isn't my native tongue.

I don't know about robbers wrestling your gun from you and using it against you, but the data suggest that your idea about "I'm going to protect myself with guns" is a fiction.

Here's one thing worth reading:

http://www.thetrace.org/2015/07/defensive-gun-use-armed-with...

(though I suspect it'll make you uncomfortable and you'll just look for ways to discredit it, because it's a heck of a lot easier to hold onto a John Wayne-esque "I'm a big man with a gun" self-identity...)

> you aren't specially threatened in some way

So only people with some special justification are allowed to defend themselves?

> weapons actually lead to a greater risk than the security they can provide

Wrong, although this "fact" is bandied about depressingly often.

> it's more likely that the robber takes control of your guns and uses them against you than that you can use the guns against them

Completely wrong.

> So only people with some special justification are allowed to defend themselves?

In many countries the legislation is like that. For most of the rest, if there's no extraordinary risk of someone targeting you you're actually putting yourself and those around you in an unnecessary risk.

> In many countries the legislation is like that.

That may be. But of the many worthy things other countries have that we might emulate, this is not one.

> you're actually putting yourself and those around you in an unnecessary risk

This is just 100% wrong.

It isn't wrong. The data show so very clearly that guns are far, far, far more likely to accidentally (i.e. negligently) injure someone than to be used in self-protection.

You might feel better to carry one with you, but that is a feeling. Reality does not reflect that personal feeling.

Please link to the particular "data" you're referring to, so that I may eviscerate it.

https://www.quora.com/Am-I-more-likely-to-kill-an-intruder-o...

There are some serious methodological issues with that paper.

http://www.tbuckner.com/KELLERMANN.htm

http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2011/01/william-c-montgomer...

http://www.guns.com/2015/08/24/kellermanns-gun-ownership-stu...

Why? You're acting out of feelings, not out of a respect for data. Your position on guns is faith-based, not reality-based, and saying "show me a study so I can disagree with it" just confirms that.

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