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.
Wait hold on mugger... (Score:5, Insightful)
I gotta enter the pin so that I can use my gun to defend myself.
You want a perfectly "safe" weapon? (Score:3, Insightful)
You want a perfectly "safe" weapon?
Just don't buy one.
There! Can I have 7000?
Re:Wait hold on mugger... (Score:5, Insightful)
Better yet. Sell a small device that jams the signal! Disarm him without firing a shot. Then you can take your time to aim.
Product in Search of a problem, creating more (Score:5, Insightful)
If I go target shooting I have to play "Pass the Wristwatch" to enjoy it as a communal activity and pay 10x as much for the privileged. If want to use it for self defense I have to wear the watch at all times and go through an extra layer of complications. Better yet in that situation if the gun is taken from me as we wrestle on the ground it's entirely likely that the gun will never move far enough to deactivate before I'm shot repeatedly in the chest and the watch and gun are taken.
Sounds like a lot of money to acquire a possibility of safety as well as making previously safe activities more complicated.
Re:Why a complicated transmitter/receiver combo? (Score:4, Insightful)
Even more useless... (Score:5, Insightful)
At 20cm the average person WILL move their hand/watch past the authentication range. Will they need re-authentication.
The gun will fire if the attacker has twisted the gun to face the victim because the watch is within range.
The victim will need to fire with their off-hand because they used their good arm to defend against the initial attack. (This happened recently here.) The gun will not fire because it isn't close enough to the watch.
This setup is a recipe for disaster. In the name of safety, we will give up everything that gives us a chance against the bad guys.
Re:Sorry but how? (Score:5, Insightful)
Civilians with rubber bullets? Cops are bad enoug (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not anti-gun -- I have many myself. I grew up around them, and I am completely comfortable with them. I also know that if I point a loaded gun with real bullets at a person, I better be absolutely willing to kill them when I pull the trigger. Cops and soldiers are trained to know this, too. But they seem to be more than willing to pop off rubber bullets and beanbags for "crowd control," and death has been a consequence a higher-than-zero number of times.
The last thing we need is Joe Bob getting ahold of them and shooting at cats, neighbours, or even robbers. You know all those times that burglars have sued property owners over getting hurt while they're there to rob them? Imagine the lawsuits over "he shot me with a rubber bullet, broke my rib, punctured my lung and now just look at me!" I also envision a slew of YouTube videos of drunk-ass morons popping their friends with these to see what it feels like.
In short, this is pretty much the worst idea ever made.
Re:My H&K 91 has always been black (Score:3, Insightful)
With a Guarantee... (Score:2, Insightful)
All these handicapped munitions come with a guarantee that you will have a higher chance of being killed in a confrontation. .22, if it is match grade. Nobody smart keeps one for self defense anyway and the safety feature will help ensure that the stupid have another layer of security against kids screwing with it that is largely taken care of with standard safety practices anyway.
Gun owners know this.
The only sensible one is possibly the
Re:Wait hold on mugger... (Score:5, Insightful)
You're an idiot if you believe this. This company is actively counting on and courting the hoplophobes in order to legislate their products into existence.
Re:Wait hold on mugger... (Score:3, Insightful)
People in this thread seems WAY to obsessed about the scenario which almost never plays out "someone tries to take my gun" vs the scenario that is all too common "children playing with their parents guns".
Re:Wait hold on mugger... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wait hold on mugger... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a .22. Peace officers really don't have much use for a .22. This is aimed at the loons who think that the phrase "safe guns" means something (as opposed to "safe gunners").
Re:Strange fascination (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh. You just wanted to register your arrogant distaste? I wont be so bold as to presume you're from a nation on another continent that bans ownership to its own citizens but happily exports them to nations around the world, but I will say you'd be surprised how much more understandable the interest is when they're a common and generally harmless part of your existence rather than an evil bogeyman.
Re:Wait hold on mugger... (Score:4, Insightful)
I do see this being marketed to police who have the highest risk of having their service weapon taken and used on them. I'm not so sure about the whole watch/pin-code concept though. Most people are right handed and wear their watches on their left hand. 20cm is not an overly large distance and while 2-handed shooting is more accurate, there could be cases where the officer has to shoot 1-handed. If they used a passive RFID, maybe fingerless gloves or, if possible, sub-dermal implant would make more sense. I bet these designers got their idea from the 1995 Judge Dredd movie where the gun was bound to the owners DNA
Re:Wait hold on mugger... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, I gotta hand it to you; you guys nailed pretty much everything wrong with this idea in the first three posts. The only people who could love this idea are liberal gun grabbers who are afraid somebody might get hurt with a gun. The idea that it would be good for police is equally silly - the added layer of complexity can only further muddy the waters at times when speed and reliability are paramount. I already mourn for the police officer who will be killed when this system fails.
Guns aren't supposed to be safe, they're supposed to be dangerous as hell and for a very good reason. The entire mindset that spawned this abortion ignores the most basic natural right to self defense. Said mindset also has an unconscionably low opinion of people's judgments in such situations. It's the same mindset that recommends "passive resistance" for rape victims, as if a woman lying dead in an alley, raped and strangles with her own pantyhose is somehow morally superior to a woman explaining to a cop exactly why she had to shoot her attacker.
Re:Wait hold on mugger... (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately you are probably dead on in your statement, but it won't be muggers you have to worry about disarming you, it will be government agencies.
This type of legislation / device is a wet dream for those who do not understand the premise or need for the 2nd Amendment.
Civil unrest? The serfs don't agree with you? No worries when they try to resist your commands and actually attempt to revolt, disable their means of meaningful resistance!
Re:Wait hold on mugger... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Wait hold on mugger... (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is not that the gun can be fired, it's that if children are old enough to find and play with reasonably stored guns they're old enough to be educated that guns aren't toys.
Re:Wait hold on mugger... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Product in Search of a problem, creating more (Score:4, Insightful)
In this case however, if they've got a hold of your gun then you can simply back off and then the attacker may attempt to shoot, before discovering that it's disabled and that will give the LEO an advantage.
It makes sense that police officers would behave differently with a weapon like this.
Re:My H&K 91 has always been black (Score:3, Insightful)
Ya, subtle anti-gun marketing by the media, to subconsciously perpetuate the 'evil nature' of a particular class of guns.
Nothing beats common sense firearm safety... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:World's most expensive .22 (Score:3, Insightful)
Your first link is to a .40 caliber, not a .22. Probably the "Glock 22" name fooled you, but Glock's numbering scheme as nothing to do with caliber.
In general, you don't have to be an expert to tell the difference between a .22 and a 9mm - the hole in the front is way smaller on the .22
Re:Strange fascination (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, frankly, it's a hell of a lot of fun to take a few targets out into the desert and spend an afternoon shooting holes in them.
Or down to the range, if you don't have a convenient desert.
Re:Even more useless... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wait hold on mugger... (Score:3, Insightful)
If it were "reasonably stored" as you say, then children would not be able to get their hands on it. Period.
You can get an in-wall gun safe that fits between the studs, has a quick code-release, will lockdown and alarm with more than 3 wrong code entries, and even presents the gun to you in a ready-to-fire orientation, for less than the price of most guns. And it has been around for many, many years.
I will agree that it doesn't negate the need to talk about gun safety with children, just like any other kind of safety. But a gun is NOT SAFELY STORED if children (or anyone else for that matter) can access it.
Re:Wait hold on mugger... (Score:2, Insightful)
When was the last time a liberal expected people to take responsibility for themselves and their choices/actions? We USED to be a country where common sense and personal responsibility prevailed. Now we're full of a bunch of pussies who are terrified of their own shadows.
Re:Wait hold on mugger... (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no way in hell any law enforcement or military organization would ever go for this!
While I can see why the gun banners want this, I can not see why anyone would want one for themselves. I get disabled and can not hand my gun to my wife to defend us? I have to sleep with my watch on, and gun within 20cm, or type in a pin in groggy half sleep? My "watch" battery goes dead?
Re:Wait hold on mugger... (Score:5, Insightful)
The only people who could love this idea are liberal gun grabbers who are afraid somebody might get hurt with a gun.
And we all know how utterly stupid it is to expect something like this. I mean, when was the last time in the US someone got hurt with a gun?!
You miss the point. Not that people get hurt with guns, which is the intent, but that some people are afraid that people will use guns as they are intended.
Frankly, I trust my neighbors with guns more than I trust the politicians trying to "regulate" them.
Re:Sorry but how? (Score:3, Insightful)
The range (20cm) is so short that keeping the gun ANYWHERE other than in your hand (such as a holster) means it needs the pin entered to work. The Heller decision already said that a nonfunctioning gun is not a gun for purposes of the second amendment, so thiere's a good chance this won't fly. Hint: read the part of the transcript where the DC attorney says that a disassembled gun is ok because the city won't prosecute for assembling the gun when faced by an intruder (which is wrong; the city HAS prosecuted for that crime), and one of the justices says ok, so first he has to turn on the nightstand light, get his reading glasses, put the gun together, load it, and now he's ready to use it ...
I do not think you understand the purpose of guns. You only understand that they scare you and you don't think anyone should have anything which scares you.
Re:Here's an idea... (Score:4, Insightful)
As well as the fact that a .45 makes large holes that let in a lot of air and let out a lot of blood.
Long story involving a friend back in the '70s with a Class 3 FFL, I ended up with a chance to fire a Thompson 1928 (among a number of other weapons that day) at a hanging wild-hog carcass that weighed around 200 lbs. The entry points were just a bit bigger than the bullet (.45 ACP FMJ) however the exit wounds were anywhere from 2-1/2"/3" up to about 6" or a bit more that I attribute to how the bullet happened to tumble.
The bottom line was the thing was a mess after 2 or 3 rounds, and after the 5th and 6th, there just wasn't much left to hit except chunks hanging together even using FMJ ammo. I asked about hollow-point and soft-nose ammo, but I was told the Thompsons (and many other MGs and SMGs, and even some semi-auto pistols) tend to experience jams and feed problems with non-jacketed ammo.
Personally, my home-defense weapon-of-choice is a 12ga pump shotgun like the Mossberg 500. The ability to choose the type of load makes it particularly suited to home-defense.
I keep 2 rounds of birdshot first, followed up with buckshot for the remaining rounds. At ranges of 25 feet or less as within a typical home or apartment, it doesn't much matter if the shell is birdshot or a slug, it will still put a 2"-3" hole in a person. Birdshot is far less likely to over-penetrate and/or penetrate walls/floors/ceilings possibly causing collateral damage to innocent bystanders.
If I've fired 2 rounds of birdshot and going for more, I then figure I must be in a firefight so it's buckshot and all bets are off as I'm fighting for survival.
Strat
Re:Wait hold on mugger... (Score:5, Insightful)
While I can see why the gun banners want this, I can not see why anyone would want one for themselves.
And I think that sums up this invention quite nicely: It's something you want everyone else to have.
Re:World's most expensive .22 (Score:3, Insightful)
I know you're joking, but the truth is that a .22 round is more than capable of killing.
I can't find the reference at the moment, but I've seen statistics showing the .22LR as the cartridge that kills the most people annually in the US. It's not recommended as a self-defense round because it is less likely to result in a quick stop than heavier cartridges, and the fact that it's a rimfire makes it less reliable than centerfire rounds, but it kills people just fine.
If you believe that simply holding a functional weapon is a deterrent, your enemy probably isn't going to have time to inspect the details...
Since 95% of firearms self-defense incidents do not involve a shot being fired, not only is caliber unimportant, it usually doesn't even matter if the firearm is functional.
Re:Here's an idea... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd just tape the watch onto the gun with duct tape.
Re:Strange fascination (Score:5, Insightful)
I find this system to be completely intrusive and unnecessary, as an American.
No criminal record is acceptable, I suppose, though here in the US that bar seems to be getting lower and lower over time. When it was limited to felonies, and felonies were violent crimes, that was fine. But now it is expanded to white-collar crimes and domestic assault that results in a misdemeanor.
No failed psych eval makes sense, but again - that bar keeps getting lower too. I've heard tales of ex-military being denied a weapon because of a decade-old PTSD diagnosis. This only makes it less likely for them to seek treatment.
Safe storage? Fifth Amendment. No law enforcement officer will ever enter my home unless they have a warrant or are acting on an emergency.
Working knowledge of guns? How do you propose to measure this? Anyone who can read can have a "working knowledge of firearms and their use" in about 30 minutes. Sounds like an arbitrary test, to me. One that can be manipulated by whomever is responsible for administering it.
See, we Americans have a widespread cultural mistrust of government.
Guns are equalizers (Score:4, Insightful)
Guns are the great equalizers: swords and arrows require a heckuva lot more practice to become proficient than guns. It's no wonder governments are afraid of mere citizens having them. What is surprising is the number of ordinary people who have nothing to fear from guns but a lot to fear from governments who have somehow managed to swallow the government anti-gun propaganda. Think for yourself.
People using guns save far more lives and prevent far more crimes than do criminals using guns. Studies show anywhere from 1.5 million (by the gun hating CDC) to 2.5 million (by a gun loving professor) crimes prevented by the use of guns, usually no more than the criminal seeing it or hearing it, seldom by actually using it. Most gun crimes in the US are by criminals on criminals. Cars kill far more people.
Considering there are more guns in the US than cars, 300 million of them, one per citizen, they are used incredibly safely. Those who think guns are bad no doubt must think worse of cars.
And the most fun gun statistic in the US: if you have one neighbor with guns and one neighbor with a swimming pool, your kids are seven times as likely to die in the pool neighbor's pool than from the gun neighbor's guns.
Re:You want a perfectly "safe" weapon? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not a matter of not having a weapon; it's a matter of not having a significantly better, or at least equal, weapon than the criminals.
A weapon can be anything: your arms, a knife, a baseball bat. Chances are that violent thugs are going to come up-armed: they're going to have one or more of those things and/or a gun, and they're going to come in numbers greater than your own.
By having a gun, you greatly increase your own odds. You keep the enemy at greater-than-arm's-length, and you are reduced from being at their whims to being in control in your own home.
Every now and then you see about an armed robbery going horrifyingly right, with the criminals in question staining the homeowner's carpet. Not so often do you hear about a homeowner shot by criminals with their own gun - at least not that I have seen.
Re:Wait hold on mugger... (Score:3, Insightful)
It might me a small sample size and anecdotal evidence, but I have had many neighbors over the years and in that time, the collective number of homicides committed by every person I've ever lived nearby.. is less than the number of people killed by Ted Kennedy. Senators are far more dangerous.
I'd suggest you not even try to find any info on your last question, that's worded almost exactly like some of the shit put out by the antigun lobbies and they use so much bad reasoning in those things.. I'd cite an example but I gloss over them after finding a few mistakes, but I can cite a few mistakes. I recall one from the past few years where they included as "deaths in the household" occasions when an intruder was shot and killed. Yes. They included "SAVING YOUR FUCKING FAMILY" into the "people killed by guns inside your hosue!" number, while implying the whole time that "people killed by guns inside your house" meant "your family is more likely to die!". They often also don't discriminate between legal and illegal gun ownership, though i don't think any reasonable and sane person would expect anything but a higher rate of shootings when guns are owned illegally by felons -- most shootings are drug related, full stop, and painting them as being caused by guns instead of a violent black-market culture is akin to blaming cars for drunk driving fatalities.
Re:World's most expensive .22 (Score:3, Insightful)
Not unless you're in panic-mode. A .22 is so much smaller than any other pistol caliber (except .25, which is also a weeny round) that it can't be mistaken for much else from the front.
Now, if it's not pointed at you, you might be forgiven for making the mistake of not recognizing a .22 - there are .22 adapters for the M1911, for example. But not if you're looking down the barrel.
When you're being threatened with a firearm, it focuses your attention marvelously. That's when you're MORE likely to notice little things like that tiny hole in front.
Re:Another manufacturer down the drain (Score:2, Insightful)
or a "free speech permit" to complain about their elected officials.
Ummm...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech_zone [wikipedia.org]
Re:Wait hold on mugger... (Score:3, Insightful)
On the contrary, I think it's is the wet dream for those that DO understand the Second Amendment, but don't want it.
Re:Wait hold on mugger... (Score:3, Insightful)
Hmmm...
Lets analyse this shall we. So you're asleep, We can assume the assailant has already gained access to your house. Is already in your bedroom all whilst you are asleep. Now in a self admitted state of grogginess you are expected to be able to operate a firearm with decent accuracy and efficiency that you are able to disable a fully alert assailant before they are able to react.
What kind of fantasy world do you live in?
With a regular firearm, in your scenario you are already screwed. An assailant will have attacked and disabled you long before you are able to grasp the firearm, let alone use it.
Lets ignore the fact that at your state of grogginess in near darkness you aren't capable of telling the difference between an assailant and your own wife.
Re:Strange fascination (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Why bother with wireless? (Score:4, Insightful)
Because the reality is people don't want smart guns PERIOD. Every time you make a gun more complex it becomes more failure prone. The Glocks that almost all police departments use don't even have a safety on it period - because it's an extra point of failure and something to fiddle with. Just like code, a good gun should have SIMPLICITY, both in operation and in design, as a major design goal. Needless "safety" features and ESPECIALLY anything that depends on a battery are needless fluff. A nice semi-stiff double action trigger pull is a perfectly viable "safety" mechanism for 90% of shooters. For the other 10% they need nothing more than a simple manual safety.
Re:Strange fascination (Score:5, Insightful)
For the 60 some million people (a rate that increases every year) owning over 200 million firearms 15,000 would be small even if it didn't include police shootings and intentional acts of self defense and is even less if you're cynical and feel that the another third or so shouldn't be counted because the victims were either committed by drug dealers or against them.
Re:Wait hold on mugger... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why should we assume that? A lot of people will wake up while hearing someone in the middle of trying to gain access to their house. There's a brief period of time between hearing some glass break, or a screen being cut, etc., and being able to arm yourself. That time has to be a lot longer if you have to fiddle with your magic wristwatch, and make sure that it never gets farther from your gun than eight inches from it. It would be a shame, wouldn't it, if you had to put the gun in your other hand while you grabbed your phone to dial 911, or reached for a lightswitch or flashlight or to restrain a dog, and had your gun disable itself. What an absurd thing.
With a regular firearm, in your scenario you are already screwed.
Sure, not counting all of the times that people in home invasions are not screwed, and are in fact saved because they reached for a gun. Not counting the number of people who simply turn and run when someone brandishes a gun, or who are held at gunpoint until the cops arrive. We slowed down a crazy guy trying to breack through our back door in the middle of the night, and did so by quickly displaying a gun. Still took the cops a long time to show up... and he would have been through that glass and into the house if not for even his drug-addled brain recognizing the deterrent being showed to him at 3:00AM. I'm very glad that no magic battery-powered wrist transmitter was required. I would never rely on such a device. It's crazy.
Re:Wait hold on mugger... (Score:5, Insightful)
They are busy legislating away all forms of self defense.I've seen several news reports of guys getting arrested because, oh noez! they fought back against their attacker. Many of them used a knife or other household item to save their own or a family members life, only to be incarcerated later. There was even one report of a military vet who found a shotgun in a park or something. He turn it in to the cops and was arrested for illegal possession. Now keep in mind that the police station he took it to had passed out flyers a short while before telling citizens it was their duty to bring any illegal weapons they find to the police.
Re:Strange fascination (Score:3, Insightful)
Here are things that we are fascinated by...
freedom
the right and ability for self defense
freedom
freedom
self defense
OH, did I mention FREEDOM?
You, wherever you are at, are not any more enlightened, civilized, or intelligent than anybody in the United States. If you do not believe that you have an inherent right to self defense, and the right to bear arms which is part and parcel of the right to self defense then I'd say that you are less intelligent, less enlightened, and are actually an uncivilizing force in the world.
Re:Strange fascination (Score:3, Insightful)
Ever been to Detroit? There IS something very wrong with the society we live in. There's scores of places across America that are closer to shitholes in Africa than any first-world nation. Oh, sure, they might have a cell phone, and a 360 at their crib, and a nice car.. but functionally the values and attitudes are pretty in-line with what you'd find in some of the most awful places around the world.
Re:Even more useless... (Score:2, Insightful)
If your target were stationary, with good light, and several seconds to steady yourself, with no stress -- sure, one could hit a target an inch across.
Now do that under stress, in poor light, with a very small moving target, covered by clothing and hair, and don't forget that you have about half to two seconds in which to land that shot.
Every moment that ticks by is another moment that the assailant has to kill you. A violent criminal actor is not going to stop because you've shot him in the chest with a .22 -- odds are pretty good that even if you hit his aorta, he'll still have about 20 to 30 seconds more to do what he's going to do to you.
There's a reason that people who carry a handgun for self defense often go for larger calibers. Primarily because they're more effective than smaller calibers.
Re:Even more useless... (Score:4, Insightful)
Given the choice between being stabbed and shot with a
Re:Wait hold on mugger... (Score:5, Insightful)
Gun enthusiasts who keep guns in the house teach their kids about guns. Conservatives or not.
Note, IMO, darwinistic outliers that do meth, pop out the occasional sickly underweight baby, and keep a few AK47s are not proof of violations of the rule. Some people are simply so screwed up that they don't follow any standards of practice.
Maybe it should be "Gun enthusiasts who keep guns in the house and care about their kids, teach their kids about guns."
Re:Here's an idea... (Score:3, Insightful)
Then go for a 12 gauge shotgun with bird shot. Perfect up to 10 meters, and yes, it can and does kill, even with less-than-perfect shot placement. At less than five meters, you have the same effect as a huge Glaser safety slug that upon impact, transforms from a solid bullet into a frangible one, for a fraction of the cost of that new-fangled bullet and it's legal everywhere where smooth-bore shotguns are legal (which might make it California, Ohio and New Jersey-legal).
However, there's not much over-penetration, if any. A brick wall will stop the pellets, and at more than 10m, even a wooden door might.
And most criminals, upon hearing a shotgun being racked WILL rethink their idea to burglarize your home. And if you're against taking life, just do what Marsellus Wallace did in Pulp Fiction on Zed.
Re:Wait hold on mugger... (Score:5, Insightful)
And yet, for some reason, living in Britain I feel perfectly safe at home alone without a gun. I feel perfectly safe walking down dark streets alone without any kind of weapon at all. Even the police don't bother to carry lethal weapons unless they are actually responding to a specific incident which requires it.
Turns out that when guns are outlawed, outlaws don't need them either.
Re:Wait hold on mugger... (Score:5, Insightful)
In Britain you are allowed to use reasonable force to defend yourself and your family and property from attack; and the important part is that it must only be reasonable to you at the time of using that force. If in the cold light of day it might seem unreasonable, if you thought it was reasonable (and can get a jury to agree with you that you thought it was reasonable) then you should not be found guilty.
The problem comes when someone uses clearly unreasonable force, then they cannot claim self-defence. In the case that has recently been in the news, the householder, once he'd driven off the attackers went on to chase them down the street and when he caught them he smashed a cricket bat over his head inflicting permanent injury on him. Pursuing an attacker once the threat to yourself and family is clearly over is no longer self-defence.
From what I heard of the case, I would agree that he went beyond the use of reasonable force to defend himself and his family and so should not have been able to use the self-defence defence. However, I do agree with the appeal judge also that this was an exceptional situation and given the extreme provocation of the attackers, he should not be significantly punished for going beyond self-defence.
The main debate in Britain at the moment is whether the law should be changed so that people won't be guilty if they go beyond "reasonable" force; only if they use "grossly disproportionate" force. If this proposal from the Tory's gets into law then it will be legal to use unreasonble force to defend yourself, and legal to use disproportionate force to defend yourself. Personally I like the term the reasonable force - there haven't been any cases that I heard of in Britain where someone used anything like reasonable force in their defence where they've been convicted, so to me it feels like the law is working as it stands (but then I'm not a Daily Mail reader who thinks it should be justifiable to kill someone who has trespassed on your property).
Re:Even more useless... (Score:3, Insightful)
Sigh: http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=118133 [physicsforums.com]
In addition, the NATO round was designed off of the .223. It's like saying that Ubuntu isn't Debian because some of the packages won't work in it. .223 is a whole lot faster to write out and that's how it was originally designed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.223_Remington [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5.56x45mm_NATO [wikipedia.org]
With the U.S. military adoption of the ArmaLite AR-15 as the M16 rifle in 1963, the .223 Remington was standardized as the 5.56x45mm. However, the .223 Remington was not introduced as a commercial sporting cartridge until 1964.
Or for the Car Analogy. It's like arguing that the Hummer H1 isn't the same as the Humvee. Even though they were designed and built by the exact same company. I'm sure a few parts aren't interchangeable, but for the most part they're the same damn vehicle.
Re:Wait hold on mugger... (Score:3, Insightful)
Like the UK with it's rising violent crime rate now that the entire population has been relegated to "Sheep" status?
Re:Wait hold on mugger... (Score:3, Insightful)
Gun enthusiasts who keep guns in the house teach their kids about guns. Conservatives or not.
No doubt. But kids are known for doing stupid things, even when they have been carefully told not to. Given that, I don't see anything wrong (at least in principle) with a gun that can only be fired by its owner, and won't fire for anyone else.
Re:Wait hold on mugger... (Score:1, Insightful)
I am a police officer, and I'd love to see this, if it works properly and cannot be jammed/subverted. One of the biggest dangers to police officers is the gun they carry to the scene...many felonious murders of police officers involve their own firearm or the firearm of another cop which is stripped from the officer during a confrontation. It is why many of us throw away the level 1 holster our departments give us and upgrade to level 3 holsters...we may not be able to win a gun draw (though I've gotten pretty fast at drawing my weapon from my level 3 holster) but when we are fighting on the ground with a criminal intent on stripping our gun, that level 3 holster is a life-saver.
Re:Strange fascination (Score:3, Insightful)
Why do you need a fire extinguisher? Poorly maintained extinguishers are dangerous, and I can't think of one place that doesn't have a fire department. You can rely on them just as you expect everyone to rely on the police department.