This weekend there are a few posts I want to do about the Annual Meeting, so things won’t be so dead around here. Today is always difficult though, because it’s my office day, and when most of our meetings happen. But here are some mini links. The links are not small, but there’s not as many of them:
Looks like the Armatix Smart Gun almost got another vendor, but backed down after a backlash. It would mean the death of Second Amendment rights for everyone in New Jersey. The only problem I have with Smart Gun technology is that our opponents mean to mandate it, rather than letting the market decide.
The limited Constitutional Carry bill is dead in Florida. It’s hard to pass, especially in big states with politically diverse populations.
Polling shows Vermonters want stricter gun laws. Vermont has practically zero crime. This is a solution in search of a problem, but the default position of many people is that there has to be controls.
I thank the other side for this tool, which lets you know whether your 401K investments have made the wise decision to invest in gun companies. I want my investments making decisions based on their return, not based on PC garbage.
The Second Amendment in South Africa.
Tom Ridge may have quit Bloomberg’s group, but he’s still no friend.
That investment PC garbage can come back to haunt a company. It’s called “fiduciary responsibility” and not doing your best for your client can hurt too. Damned hard to prove but “social investing”, as it is called, is fraught with peril too. Especially if promised social responsibility and rate of return don’t coincide.
We need an alternate tool to encourage our 401k provides to invest in guns and ammo companies as they are doing quite well. I’m fine as my provided, per said link, is quite deep in the gun maker’s pockets. Fine by me.
Many articles on “smart guns” lately. The keyword to look for is “police.” If you see it, go ahead and read the article. If you don’t see it, the article is clueless or propaganda. Ignore it.
As a professional electrical engineer, I can tell you that the “smart gun” will never be workable. There are too many ways for the biometric sensor, or RF ring or bracelet, or magnet, or whatever, to fail “safe” – the gun is useless except as a club.
I have a standing challenge to any “smart gun” or “smart lock” manufacturer – send me a test item and I will defeat the “smarts” and render the gun operable by anyone in an hour or less.
I’m an E3 guy (Electromagnetic Environmental Effects) guy. Ain’t no way in Hell you can build an electronic “safety” in a concealable (heck, even reasonably portable) gun that I can’t interfere with with fairly inexpensive off the shelf stuff. You simply cannot shield the circuits well enough. For darned sure if it uses RF (why, you’ve just CREATED a path I can exploit!)
Also, any electronic “smart gun” that uses RF will not help in the area where smart guns would be most useful — a cop in a wrestling match for his (or his partner’s) gun. Because the activation transmitter will be in range of the receiver if the signal is strong enough to be reliable.
The Tom Ridge article brought flashbacks of the political hardball and dirty tricks the NRA used to get him elected governor in Pennsylvania, in 1994, over the objections and resistance of grassroots gun owners, who were perfectly aware of the gun-grabber he was. And of course that required the NRA to cover for Their [Republican] Man, when he demanded that a comprehensive gun control bill be part of his Special Session on Crime, in 1995. I’ve always savored the name they provided for it; “The Sportsmens Omnibus Anti-Crime Bill.” That way, they got to crow about a gun control bill being one of their greatest legislative victories of the year, in the October 1995 members magazines.
Damn flashbacks.
As a mediocre chemical engineer, I can tell you that any acceptance of smart gun technology will step us closer to the day when the rf bracelets won’t be available and/or the guns will eventually age and fail electrically.
A smart article about “smart” guns:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/josephsteinberg/2014/05/04/smartguns/
Perhaps most telling about the deficiencies inherent in smartguns is the fact that law enforcement is not converting to them. Many policemen and policewomen have children at home and have strong incentives to want weapons that only authorized parties can fire. They also face dangerous criminals in the line of duty who might try to grab their weapons. But, as of today, no law enforcement agency has converted to smartgun technology; in fact, the New Jersey smartgun mandate specifically exempts law enforcement. The aversion of police to these so-called “safer products†is very telling; if the expert professionals don’t trust smartguns, why should civilians?
Tom Ridge is trying to be ready to be on the list of people to be considered for veep. He will go around and suck up to gun owners. He is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Don’t trust him.
I’m still trying to figure out why the Florida Sheriff’s Association has a voice at the capitol. It seems incestuous for elected officials to be lobbying elected officials to thwart the will of the people.
Perhaps it’s because I am not sympathetic to their cries of, “this makes our job harder!” If more liberty makes it harder to be an elected official, they can always go get a productive job because I’ll take the liberty; thankyouverymuch.