Pirate's Cove

When not attempting to force outright bans on guns and gun ownership, anti-gunnites attempt to force stealth bans. Forcing the use of technology that barely works, and makes guns about as useful as a paperweight when needed for self defense is a stealth ban

(Breitbart) On December 14, Newtown Police Chief Michael Kehoe said police departments and the various branches of the military need to use the leverage of purchase contracts to pressure firearm makers into building smart guns.

Kehoe did not say his officers would carry smart guns nor did he express an opinion that military personnel should carry them. But he believes gun manufacturers should be making such weapons.

His officers would rebel if he attempted to make them carry smart guns, first, because they are all low caliber, and second, because they very often do not work correctly. Some reports have the failure rate up to 20%. They can be slow in reading your fingerprints or connecting with the watch. Sounds exactly what LEOs need when facing a crazed nutjob charging with a knife, right?

Some tests show them failing just 1% of the time: do you want to bet your life or that of your family on that 1%? If your smartphone failed 1% of the time when trying to unlock it, you’d return it. Of course, rarely is a smartphone involved in life or death situations. Think about how slow using the fingerprint to unlock it can be.

According to CNN’s Deborah Feyerick, Kehoe suggests we “leverage gun buying power” to force gun manufacturers to fall in line. She said Kehoe believes this is possible “because the biggest consumers of U.S. firearms are the U.S. military, U.S. law enforcement, along with civilians.”

Neither would ever use the technology. Will Chief Kehoe carry one himself?

Breitbart News reported Washington state Sheriff John Urquhart’s January 28 contention that smart guns are still too dumb to be trusted. According to the Homeland Security News Wire, Urquhart told attendees at the Washington Technology Industry Association that “[Smart gun technology] is not ready for my officers yet.” He added, “If it worked 110 percent of the time, I’d be interested.” But as it stands right now, he is not.

Smart guns will one day be perfected, where they are manufactured in higher calibers, and not only work 100% of the time, but work as immediately as a standard gun. That time is not now.

This doesn’t even address all the other issues, such as having the electronic pairing signal blocked, the ability of the computer processor to being hacked, government shutting off the gun, government tracking the gun (ya think?), criminals stealing the gun and the watch, criminals stealing the gun and hacking the biometric reader, and others.

Crossed at Right Wing News.