Smart guns are stupid science

The smart pistol that went into production several years ago, forgot the name of it, met with enormous resistance, it being claimed that gun stores that carried it received threats (!). End of product line.

In this electrical age lots of stuff from cameras and cell phones to vibrators to drills need charged-up batteries. It's not that big a deal to make sure your smart gun is charged up or has new batteries in it. Some folks will forget; well, they might forget to have a non-smart gun at hand too when they need it.

Take the quick opening gun safes that recognize your fingerprint. Guess what! They got batteries, or are plug-ins. What happens when you need your pistol real real quick and the freekin' battery is down or the safe unplugged so you can't get to your gun in time? So what are we to do, get rid of those little gun safes that are so good at protecting the lives of our kids? Leave guns out where we can get to them but where kids and angry spouses can too? What are the probabilities here, that you are more likely to need a gun in self defense or that your kid will be playing with your loaded gun? Gotta tell you, it is far and away the latter.    So that article is stupid -- STOOPID!   

You can make the same assertion about gun safeties. Safeties slow your response. From a purely self-defense standpoint, you're better off without a safety. Or are you? Glocks don't have safeties; Glock tells you that the safety is having the pistol in a secure holster where nothing can actuate the trigger; so what happens when you are in trouble and have to draw your pistol fast and fumble the draw and grab the trigger as you are clearing the holster? Like this guy here 3rd or 4th example:    www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXtBZPONSCc    Well, you fire a round into the ground or your foot or leg.

Absolutely, a smart gun means you are at the mercy of technology and battery capacity. But think about it: you are at the mercy of cartridge misfeeds too! You draw your gun in a self-defense situation and squeeze the trigger and ... nothing happens; except that you die if you are being attacked by someone who wants to kill you. Misfeeds in semi-autos happen. You're probably better off with a revolver -- but how many revolvers are sold versus semi-auto pistols?

I should come clean and say that this self-defense business is by and large a load of crap in my opinion. In your house, if you hear a break-in or prowler, then yes, you are in a situation to deploy your gun to defend your life and your family's lives -- hold up a minute, let me qualify that. If you fire a gun in your home and your hands were not rock steady and you are not a trained shooter, then your bullet can go through walls and kill your kid or other loved one several rooms away. So unless you are alone in your home you'd better be a damn good shooter to be able to safely use a gun in self defense, and then you have to worry about your bullets hitting a neighbor.  

And when I say "a damn good shooter" I don't mean accurate at a firing range where you stand still with your arms locked shooting at a fixed target 15 feet away.   "Damn good shooter" means you have trained under conditions of stress shooting at a moving target.     "Conditions of stress" might for example mean shooting after having run a hundred yards at top speed right before firing.     You get into a life and death situation and most likely your hands will be shaking and your heart will be coming up into your mouth and you'd be lucky to hit a man-size target at 10 feet.    

It's out on the street that self defense gets very very iffy. Here's why: you're not supposed to draw or display your gun unless there is a definite threat; you draw or display and there is no threat and you may get arrested -- or you may get shot in self defense: somebody else's self-defense against YOU!

What this means is that you can't go around pulling your gun out on suspicion. What THAT means is that if somebody wants to kill or hurt you, you don't have time to do anything about it.

There have been tests about this. A knife-wielder can cover 15 to 30 feet (!) to kill you before you can get your gun into play. And if you are fast on the draw and succeed in not shooting yourself, what can happen is a struggle for control of your gun, so you need to be trained for that.

To repeat, In your car or home you can pull out your gun and get ready. Out in public you do not have that luxury because you need to behave like a responsible citizen and wait until there is a definite threat. If your attacker doesn't know what they are doing, you get a pass; if they do know then you're dead.