The Sandman Gun-Coming Soon?

[Mistral]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090605/ap_on_re_us/us_cop_shoots_cop

In the book Logan's Run, each Sandman gun would only work based on the owner's DNA. In anyone else's hands they exploded. Now NYPD wants guns that talk to each other to avoid accidental shootings between officers like the one that recently took place. The down side to this idea is a criminal with a cops' gun w/the ID system couldn't be brought down by another cop. So the next logical step is to make it so only the individual cop could use his own gun, just like in Logan's Run. Or is there another solution?

 

[Gepard]

Saw this on another forum, where someone raised the question: what happens if a criminal steals one of the guns and uses it to hold an officer hostage?

 

[CuttingEdge100]

RFID Tags in guns could be very dangerous if they became mandatory in all guns (civilian). Essentially the government could track the location of every single gun owner...


CuttingEdge100

 

[hyzmarca]

There are several problems with any such firearm locking system. In this case, as a friendly fire prevention system, the huge problem is that it encourages bad practices. Essentially, this tragedy occurred because the officers involved, particularly the shooters, were idiots who did not follow one of the most fundamental firearms safety practices - do not, under any circumstances, shoot at an unidentified target. This one ranks right up there with "I thought he was a deer" in the annals of shooter stupidity. It isn't an accident; it's criminal negligence, pure and simple.

The problem is that any system that makes it impossible for a police officer to accidentally shoot another encourages officers to pull the trigger before identifying the target, knowing that friendly fire is impossible, except when the system fails, which it will, as have military Friend or Foe identification systems. This is statistically good for police officers, since it won't fail very often. It's statistically terrible for civilians, who will not be protected by this system, and thus will take the brunt of negligent shootings. The only reasonable solution to the problem of friendly fire is training. Drill target identification into officers so much that it becomes second nature to them. Use simunitions training to run them through a number of shoot/no-shoot scenarios in order to reduce their trigger happiness, and tighten up the rules of engagement so that the exercising of a citizen's exercising of his Constitutional Rights is not, in and of itself, sufficient justification to shoot. This must be done religiously. When holding a gun, safety is your god.

Now, the systems suggested in the article don't lock, they just warn, but similar issues apply. When you're in a state of the art vehicle with state of the art cameras and sensors shooting things from miles away (and it's a good bet the guys in the tank you're looking at aren't civilians), a friend or foe ID system makes sense. When you're on foot and unlikely to have engagements beyond the range of human eyesight, it just encourages laziness. Laziness in target identification is not a good thing at all, especially when one is going to have contact with innocent civilians who may be difficult to distinguish from a legitimate target. Due diligence should always be maintained.

The other type of locking mechanisms, that which prevents an unauthorized user from firing the weapon, has two drawbacks. It can fail to permit an authorized user to fire, which is bad in a crisis. More importantly, it is a logistical nightmare which pretty well defeats weapon standardization and interchangeability efforts.

 

[All Seeing Eye]

Saw this on another forum, where someone raised the question: what happens if a criminal steals one of the guns and uses it to hold an officer hostage?

What if the guns were connected to a network and a signal could be sent to delete certain guns from the network allowing police to shoot? So if a criminal gets a hold of a gun the police disable its safety feature.

 

[noknowes]

What if the guns were connected to a network and a signal could be sent to delete certain guns from the network allowing police to shoot? So if a criminal gets a hold of a gun the police disable its safety feature.

thats right just dodge the responsibility and dump it on to someone/something else as brain dead moron can't be bothered or too busy watching x-fatso on his cellphone.




We are all criminals as everyone of us has broken some law or other of 236786 laws on the books.

 

[All Seeing Eye]

What if the guns were connected to a network and a signal could be sent to delete certain guns from the network allowing police to shoot? So if a criminal gets a hold of a gun the police disable its safety feature.

thats right just dodge the responsibility and dump it on to someone/something else as brain dead moron can't be bothered or too busy watching x-fatso on his cellphone.

What the heck are you talking about?

If a criminal gets a hold of a police officers gun and other police officers can't shoot him because of the safety feature then there needs to be a way to shut down the police officers gun that the criminal has.

Seriously dude, WTF?

 

[CuttingEdge100]

There are several problems with any such firearm locking system. In this case, as a friendly fire prevention system, the huge problem is that it encourages bad practices. Essentially, this tragedy occurred because the officers involved, particularly the shooters, were idiots who did not follow one of the most fundamental firearms safety practices - do not, under any circumstances, shoot at an unidentified target. This one ranks right up there with "I thought he was a deer" in the annals of shooter stupidity. It isn't an accident; it's criminal negligence, pure and simple.

The problem is that any system that makes it impossible for a police officer to accidentally shoot another encourages officers to pull the trigger before identifying the target, knowing that friendly fire is impossible, except when the system fails, which it will, as have military Friend or Foe identification systems. This is statistically good for police officers, since it won't fail very often. It's statistically terrible for civilians, who will not be protected by this system, and thus will take the brunt of negligent shootings.

Good observations

 

[Mistral]

There are several problems with any such firearm locking system. In this case, as a friendly fire prevention system, the huge problem is that it encourages bad practices. Essentially, this tragedy occurred because the officers involved, particularly the shooters, were idiots who did not follow one of the most fundamental firearms safety practices - do not, under any circumstances, shoot at an unidentified target. This one ranks right up there with "I thought he was a deer" in the annals of shooter stupidity. It isn't an accident; it's criminal negligence, pure and simple.

The problem is that any system that makes it impossible for a police officer to accidentally shoot another encourages officers to pull the trigger before identifying the target, knowing that friendly fire is impossible, except when the system fails, which it will, as have military Friend or Foe identification systems. This is statistically good for police officers, since it won't fail very often. It's statistically terrible for civilians, who will not be protected by this system, and thus will take the brunt of negligent shootings.

Good observations

I agree-the fault lies not in the stars but in our selves.

 

[CuttingEdge100]

I think this problem would be better fixed with improved training.

 

[gastrof]

...We are all criminals as everyone of us has broken some law or other of 236786 laws on the books.

Such a quaint sentiment.

Of course, it overlooks the fact that there are people who conscientiously obey the law, and only on occasion accidently go over the speed limit (or some such thing), while others do whatever they think they can get away with, some not even caring at all.

There's a big difference.

Let's not point a finger at everyone when the fact is some people are law-abiding and others are scofflaws.

Let's also not overlook the fact that this entire post (and the one it replies to) has NOTHING to do with the subject being discussed.

 

[CuttingEdge100]

NoKnowes,

Good point. All of us probably have in one way or another have broken a law, such as speeding, jaywalking, maybe even running a stop-sign or a red-light...

That's one reason why I think it's dangerous when people start obsessing about crime and punishment and extreme surveillance, because if you truly look into anybody's life you'll find something bad they did. In the past the ability to monitor all those miniscule foibles and petty things didn't exist, but now we're getting able to.

Also when an obsession with crime and punishment takes root, it is very common for civil rights, such as right to privacy, and rights against unreasonable search and seizure often end up thrown over the wayside.

And in case you're wondering, I'm not one of those people who goes around doing anything I think I can get away with... I generally behave myself, I follow the laws and I try to do the right thing whenever possible, I rarely even speed.


CuttingEdge100