German-designed ‘smart’ guns rerouted after cultural backlash in U.S

I own half a dozen firearms and I wish smart gun technology worked. The main problem with RFID smart guns is that they can be jammed. If such tech was required by law, any criminal with a jammer would create a zone where only they could shoot. This makes RFID guns useless for any sort of self or home defense. Likewise, police wouldn't be able to use them. There are similar problems with fingerprint reading. Reading a fingerprint isn't very reliable (dirt, cuts, etc), and the owner may need to use the gun while wearing gloves.

On the sort-of bright side, unintentional gun deaths are only around 3% of all firearm homicides. One could save many more lives by further restricting handguns. For example: make getting a handgun more like getting a private pilot's license. Unfortunately, such restrictions are probably unconstitutional.

I'm not typically a gun person, but this seems like a really flawed idea. As the article describes it, it's a gun that only works against an unprepared enemy. Anyone with an RF jammer could completely stop its use, if I understand it correctly. It wouldn't be much more complicated to make a device that could pick up its frequency from a distance and use it on a stolen weapon either. Of course some cryptographic exchange between the watch and the gun would fix that, but it still doesn't prevent you from jamming it.

In cases like many school shootings, where the gun was stolen ahead of time, all it does is require the culprit to steal the watch too. A physical key (old-fashioned or cryptographic) would do the same thing but more reliably.

The term "smart gun" brings to mind a development that I think most users of HN would agree is a bad idea. Making a gun that tries to automatically determine who's authorized to shoot whom, like a Dominator from Psycho-Pass, seems to open up a whole mess of problems. Making more reliable non-lethal weapons is the direction I'd rather see the problem attacked from.

I can't help but think that gun control activists have, pardon the pun, shot themselves in the foot with the New Jersey law:

Once a personalized weapon went on sale in the United States, the law said, then within three years, all guns sold in New Jersey would have to include such safety features.

How could they not have seen that passing such a law would impede advancements in gun safety by creating opposition which would not have otherwise existed (or at least to this extent), but for this law?

I suppose it is possible that gun safety was never actually the goal to begin with, but it still seems like such a predictable result, given the ferocity with which any real or perceived encroachment on the Second Amendment is met.

On the one hand, it's kind of amusing, in a way, to watch the instant, reflexive backlash which invariably erupts in response to even the slightest suggestion of tighter gun control. On the other, it might make some sense if one were inclined to take a conspiratorial view of the true purpose of laws like this one in New Jersey.

Two problems with this:

1- It could be jammed by a 10 euro/dollar device.

2-The smart watch(via Patriot Act) is going to require the government has a back door or mechanism that could disable it remotely when the government wants it disabled, like they do with computer software and hardware.

The second amendment reason for existence is controlling the people in power against abuses on the people. Of course people in power want to get rid of it while militarizing the police(because hard times are coming).

The "nuts" in this story seem to have a very acute understanding of the legal and propagandistic climate in their country and the medium to long term implications of mandatory "smart" technology in personal handguns.

Of all the gun uses I am aware of among every person I have ever known, only one single bullet would have been prevented from leaving the barrel by a system like this.

That bullet killed a child and sent the (accidental) shooter to prison.

What would prevent people from disassembling this, replacing a few parts and making new gun? Making hand gun is very simple once you have basic components, such as barrel and bullets.

I am worried that this will become yet another obstruction for gun holders. Germany (and EU) is crazy, pepper sprays or even pocket knives are banned. Neighbouring Czech rep. is more liberal and has comparable crime rate.

This article is very reminiscent of "The Weapon Shops of Isher"- it's always a strange feeling when the lines between science fiction and reality start to blur.

Not really sure why smart guns have to be so dang hi tech? How about a gun that can't be left with safety off for more than 30minutes, and requires a pin-code to remove safety?

We can make pill jars impossible for 5year olds to open. How hard can it be to make a gun too hard to use?

Crazy. So in the name of "freedom", these gun-nuts want to deprive other people of the freedom to buy a safer gun if they want. I really wish they'll find a way to sell it anyway.

PS to all the gun-nuts dowvoters: Thanks for showing how you really value freedom.

  They flooded the Facebook pages of both stores with angry comments; some even called in death threats, according to a video later posted by Andy Raymond, an owner of Engage Armament.

Thank god they are the ones with guns....