An Appalachian gunsmith’s robot army (2009)
newyorker.com
newyorker.com
Pointing a firearm an anyone, even unloaded, even (especially?) robot controlled, is a terrible idea. This bothers me to no end, and it's so strange that someone who works with very powerful weapons can act like this. Perhaps he feels that he's smart enough that no mistakes will happen? Perhaps he has confidence in the robot not to fire any rounds? He's a brilliant man, very good at what he does; certainly he's spent lots of time with these things, and understands them more than I ever will.
That said: mistakes happen, don't point guns at people you don't want holes in.
Apparently writers from the New Yorker fall within that set for him.
“I don’t want that on my conscience—something I
created going out and killing people all over the damn
place,” he said. “I’m not worried about what it does
over in Iraq or Afghanistan. That’s fine.”
It seems to me that the only right way to work with robotic firearms is to keep a chamber flag in them at all times except when they're on a hot range.
This doesn't sound as though he has really thought this through. Either that or he has a rather nasty definition of "people".
Granted, the question remains of whether US foreign policy, inasmuch as it deploys our military, is morally or ethically acceptable to you, but that's a point on which reasonable people can differ, and Baber's opinion on that point appears to differ from yours. If, from that difference, you choose to infer that Baber doesn't consider Afghans or Iraqis "people", that is of course entirely your prerogative.
That said, he stated he didn't want to sell it to police departments, not the public, who couldn't legally buy it anyway, so I don't see how you think it is obvious that he means criminals when it says police.
"Police departments asked for AA-12s, but Baber decided that the gun was too powerful to sell outside the military."
Nor did he state what you claim he did; it's the article author, not Baber as quoted, who equates civilian police and the military -- if Baber didn't want it in the hands of civilian police, why'd he donate one to the county sheriff?
What?
> his own weapon: a fully automatic shotgun called the AA-12.
"Auto Assault-12 (AA-12), originally designed and known as the Atchisson Assault Shotgun, is a shotgun developed in 1972 by Maxwell Atchisson." [0]
What?
Can someone please explain to me what's going on here? Is this just my own ignorance or are these factual errors?
Looks like there was a bit of exaggeration going on, but not anything terribly out of line.
> In 1987, Max Atchisson sold the rights of the AA-12 to Jerry Baber of Military Police Systems, Inc., Piney Flats, Tennessee
Quoting the New Yorker in full
>[...]he started producing, from start to finish, his own weapon: a fully automatic shotgun called the AA-12.
it is obvious that he was the first to produce a mass market ready model. The article doesn't claim that he invented it.
Expecting someone who writes for the New Yorker to understand how firearms work is, I think, expecting rather too much.
...a dainty, short-haired woman in high heels casually grips the gun and fires off eight hundred balls of .20-calibre [sic] metal in four seconds...
Although this is pretty bad, it would have been worse if the "balls" were described as 20-gauge as the author intended rather than 20-caliber which is just silly.
And you hope they don't capture the robot because they then have
> the most deadly close-range weapon ever created.
Like, yes, we have drones, and yes, we have firearms, and yes, we can add one to the other--but is it really a good idea?
The potential for abuse of such systems is absurd; I cannot believe that any engineer with a shred of morality would voluntarily work on such things without at least a solid explanation of why doing so is permissible.
Mark my words: these things will mostly be used against civilians and dissidents--not standing armies.
Which is why I (German) really hate our weapons law. War will come back to Europe, we are on the fringe of a fucking Cold War turning into a Hot War with the Russians in Ukraine. Not to mention the rising inequality in Europe - if it blows up one day, it will hit hard.
I'd like to be equipped and trained properly instead of being restricted to gas revolvers, stones and arrows. Or knives, which are useless as I'm a terrible close-range fighter.
I refer you to this beautiful Onion article. http://www.theonion.com/articles/62yearold-with-gun-only-one...
I'm particularly happy with our German gun laws, and I highly doubt that war will easily come back to mainland Europe. And if Russia really decided to start a war and bomb Germany, dude, not having a gun will be the least of your problems.
In those wars, was it both parties using airplanes, bombs, and tanks? Or was it one side using those things, and the other side holding out without them for over a decade? The opposing tanks in Iraq were shredded in hours, it was the guys with rifles and improvised weapons that held out.
In Berlin there is a Soviet war memorial that is known by some locals as "The Tomb of the Unknown Rapist". You can imagine why. When you are in a warzone, you cannot depend on anyone but yourself to keep you safe from the soldiers of the conquering army. Having a gun will not put you on equal footing with them, but at least it will give you the opportunity to attempt to defend yourself.
> "You would shoot the guy going through your trash? Or the guy stealing your bike?"
Where the hell did those suppositions come from?
Actually, he is not far from what I'd do. I'd just keep the bastard at gunpoint until the cops come. Not the first time I had to resort to this with my gas revolver.
Lesson learned (for the two fools): never go to a shooting with a knife (the fact that one had a knife actually yielded him a bigger sentence for the attempted theft; it's called "Diebstahl mit einer Waffe").
EU vs Russia may not be fought on German territory any soon, but civil wars inside the EU are not that far away (hell, they're hunting down jews and black people already)...
Also, I'm not really a supporter of big-caliber shotguns in private hands - but we're not even allowed to own handguns! Fine, not being allowed to carry in public is something I accept and deem necessary, but not even being allowed to possess them is just ridiculous given the huge number of illegal guns.
What are you talking about?
As for the blacks, there have been multiple attacks of right extremists where they have beaten black people near to death in Germany.
And I don't even want to talk about the anti-Roma sentiments ALL over Europe, beginning from France with the rise of Front National and ending in Hungary with Viktor Orban and his cronies doing NOTHING at all to stop mobs from even killing Roma.
We have in our midst a civil war brewing.
And hey, I'd like to have a gun when the left+right wing extremists are all armed to the teeth with illegal guns, pipe bombs and stuff. Add in motorcycle gangs and the various Mafia clans, and you have a shitload of guys with big guns and no respect for anyone but their own safety and cash.
That said, I did a cursory search for the gunmaker...didn't see any big update, I saw a mention that it's in rotation with the Marines...but no contemporary mention of what sounded like an impending revolution of shotgun-wielding-robots.
We added the date.
Edit: Perhaps I should clarify. By "more, please" I mean we want substantive articles on unexpected subjects, archival and historical material welcome. Not necessarily more on this topic.