Gun With Wireless Arming Signal Goes On Sale Soon 457
An anonymous reader writes "Armatix has built a pistol that will disarm itself when it is taken away from a watch that sends it a wireless arming signal. The .22 caliber guns will go on sale in the US within months, and the initial price is 7,000 euro. Higher caliber models will follow. To activate the gun, users must enter a pin code on the wristwatch, and then keep it within roughly 20cm of the gun. If the person is disarmed, the gun can't be used against them. Also coming soon this year, civilians will also be able to buy three-shot Tasers, rubber bullets, as well as Heckler and Koch black rifles." This might not be good news for the citizens of New Jersey.
Re:Wait hold on mugger... (Score:4, Informative)
The idea is that the PIN will be entered when the watch is put on. Then you can put the gun where you can quickly get it, knowing that your kids can't use it even if they find it. Obviously the watch should disable itself when the wrist band is opened or torn. I'd worry about the battery life: What good is a gun that you can't use when you need it?
Re:My H&K 91 has always been black (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Wait hold on mugger... (Score:1, Informative)
I believe the target market here is peace officers; so their guns cannot be taken from them and used against them. Not you and me.
Re:Civilians with rubber bullets? Cops are bad eno (Score:5, Informative)
1) Know your target and what's behind it.
2) Assume every gun is loaded.
3) Do not aim at or pull the trigger on anything you don't want to kill or destroy.
Re:Here's an idea... (Score:3, Informative)
There's no replacement for shot placement. The only reason no one has ever been shot 31 times with a
Re:Wait hold on mugger... (Score:5, Informative)
What use is a gun that won't shoot? (Score:2, Informative)
And a similar system has been available since the 70's: The The Magna-Trigger Conversion [tarnhelm.com] is a ring that activates a firearm.
Costs about $350 + $60 for each ring.
Re:Even more useless... (Score:3, Informative)
All fine points. And don't forget that it's only a .22. One would need to achieve a series of headshots to effectively stop a violent criminal actor. Center of mass with a .22 won't stop a violent actor intent on killing you. And at the 7000 euro price point, they're not going to sell many of these except to maybe a few government agencies or people with more money than brains.
Re:Wait hold on mugger... (Score:4, Informative)
No, when the gun comes within 20cm of the "armed" watch, then it is automatically armed as well. When the watch is not "armed" (PIN not entered after putting it on) or the gun is not within 20cm of the watch, then the gun is locked. You don't have to enter the PIN whenever the gun comes within range of the watch.
Re:My H&K 91 has always been black (Score:3, Informative)
Some of us from non-US countries aren't quite as up on the gun slang as you guys.
Re:Wait hold on mugger... (Score:5, Informative)
And yet the most common firearm for police officers doesn't have an external safety. Glock pistols have some internal safety's that prevent mechanical failures or dropping it from causing the gun to fire, but there is no external mechanical safety. When you pull the trigger it fires, when you don't pull the trigger it doesn't fire. Exactly the way it should be.
Re:Wait hold on mugger... (Score:2, Informative)
Parent is correct. The primary market of this kind of weapon is for military and law enforcement because there's a lot of fatalities/serious injuries caused by the bad guy grabbing the weapon from the police officer.
That may be true, but the police unions will never let this happen. The NJ law referenced in the article exempts the police from this requirement.
Re:Wait hold on mugger... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Wait hold on mugger... (Score:2, Informative)
Check out the big "smart gun" effort in NJ (see the entry for "smart gun" on Wikipedia, for one), and you'll notice an interesting thing:
For the animals more equal than others (police), such guns are intended to fail smart (that is, operable); for jes'
plain folks (unblessed citizens), to fail broke (that is, inoperable).
So the only guns that *would* work if taken in that scenario are the cops' -- which neatly removes one of the most common arguments that handwringing hoplophobes bring to the table on this.
timothy
Re:Even more useless... (Score:5, Informative)
Fail.
No Soldier, Sailor, or Marine I've ever known "picks up an AK-47" to use.
There is absolutely no advantage to using an AK-47 over an M4 or M16 -- in fact there are significant disadvantages. Logistics is one -- where are you going to get ammunition for your battlefield pickup AK? Are you going to pick up some old left-over 1970's ammo the bad guys use? Ball ammo that doesn't fragment like XM-193 does, nor penetrate like M855 or SS109 does? Also, the legal jeopardy a person who did that unnecessarily would put themselves in would be an issue as well.
The M4 actually has a dust cover -- wonder why? It's so that dirt and sand don't get in the action. The AK has none of that -- and will certainly fail if it has sand and dirt dumped into it. Either weapon will fail if dirt and sand get into the action.
The weight of the bullet has very little to do with the performance of the bullet against the human body -- trust me, you'd far rather be hit by an old 7.62x39 ball round than a modern XM193, SS109, or 77 grain TAP round in 5.56 (any of which will cut right through IIIA body armor, while 7.62x39 will not).
And btw -- there's no such thing as "Nato 223" -- the spec is 5.56x45 NATO, and there is a significant difference between .223 and 5.56 -- such that firing 5.56 ammo from a weapon chambered in .223 may result in the weapon failing. The diameter of the bullet is the same (.224"), but the chamber specifications are different.
Ironically, you posted that people get outside their comfort zone, then you posted outside your realm of knowledge. .22LR is not generally considered adequate for a self-defense round.
The one thing you did get right is that
Re:Wait hold on mugger... (Score:4, Informative)
Man shoots, kills intruder who broke into his home [lvrj.com]
Resident Shoots Home Invasion Suspect [cbs13.com]
Three held in Palmview home invasion [valleycentral.com]
Home invasion suspect recovering [krqe.com]
I know they are just anecdotes, but they are good examples of what can happen in a home invasion.
If I were in any of these situations I would not want anything getting in the way of my firearm working.
Re:Even more useless... (Score:3, Informative)
No -- if you put a 5.56 round into a .223 chambered weapon, you run the risk of blowing up the weapon. The chamber specs are different.
The bullet is the same diameter (.224"), but the chamber is different, which means it is dangerous to interchange them -- and incorrect to state that they are the same, which is why I called you on it.
Citing Wikipedia as an authoritative source on anything firearm related destroys your credibility, btw, as does all the other errors you made in your post.
Citing a "physicsforum" article as authoritative on what US Soldiers do overseas (I've spent time carrying an M4 over there, just fyi -- I speak from experience, not an internet forum) also destroys your credibility.
FAIL.
Re:Even more useless... (Score:3, Informative)
Also: The US Army does not use the .223. We use 5.56mm. It's close and a .223 will fire a 5.56, but a 5.56 will not safely fire a .223 because the round is too light.
Wrong. The .223 and 5.56 case is close enough to ignore the difference. 5.56 cases may be built more thickly in certain areas to handle higher pressures, but on the outside they're dimensionally exactly the same.
The one important difference follows: the 5.56x45 chamber was designed to handle longer or heavier bullets, or bullets with more pronounced ogives. i.e. the cartridge can be loaded to a longer overall length, to accommodate steel tipped and tracer rounds, so that bullets with the same (or similar) ballistic profiles can be used.
When loaded into the chamber, these bullets may impact the rifling on a .223 chamber, and when fired this can lead to a pronounced pressure spike as the bullet is swaged into the bore. It could rupture the case and damage your rifle. In other words, the 5.56mm NATO chamber has a longer leade. That's the bulk of the difference. The 5.56mm chamber is also slightly bigger, to accommodate fowling, gunk and inconsistently manufactured ammo.
It's safe to fire .223 Rem rounds in a 5.56mm weapon, but it may not be safe to do the opposite.
Re:Wait hold on mugger... (Score:1, Informative)
Only partially right on the last one, he was apparently supposed to call the police and tell them to pick it up:
http://www.thisissurreytoday.co.uk/news/Ex-soldier-faces-jail-handing-gun/article-1509082-detail/article.html
FTA:
Quizzing officer Garnett, who arrested Mr Clarke, he asked: "Are you aware of any notice issued by Surrey Police, or any publicity given to, telling citizens that if they find a firearm the only thing they should do is not touch it, report it by telephone, and not take it into a police station?"
To which, Mr Garnett replied: "No, I don't believe so."
Prosecuting, Brian Stalk, explained to the jury that possession of a firearm was a "strict liability" charge – therefore Mr Clarke's allegedly honest intent was irrelevant.
Just by having the gun in his possession he was guilty of the charge, and has no defence in law against it, he added.
Re:Wait hold on mugger... (Score:3, Informative)
> Pursuing an attacker once the threat to yourself and family is clearly over is no longer self-defence.
Right, because having been chased once, criminals immediately become law-abiding citizens. No chance at all that they guy was running away to get some more buddies to come back and finish the job. I have no problem at all with someone who wants to ensure that crooks are available for the police to deal with.
Oh dear, a criminal getting a "permanent injury" from a victim. My heart is bleeding for him. Dude: you break the law, you're taking a chance. You'll get NO SYMPATHY if someone strikes back.
I assume the case in question is this one: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timcollard/100020129/the-criminal-justice-system-is-just-not-cricket/ [telegraph.co.uk]
Munir Hussain found his family home in High Wycombe being burgled in a rather painful way. His wife and three children had been tied up and threatened with death. [emphasis mine] Munir himself, rather bravely, escaped by throwing a coffee table at the men, putting them to flight, and then chased after them. Thinking, understandably, that he might not himself be able to overpower and capture them, he armed himself with a cricket bat, and got hold of his brother Tokeer and, apparently, a couple of other people as well. There is no point in trying to apprehend criminals if you don't bring along the power to overcome them. [emphasis mine]
Don't know about you, but the last line makes a lot of sense to me.