Smart Gun Outrage

By Douglas V. Gibbs

A common thread among gun owners is the importance of gun safety.  Even if a person is absolutely positive a gun is unloaded, every gun must always be treated as if it is loaded.  Keep your finger off the trigger until it is time to shoot.  When loaded, and you set the gun down, even if for a short moment, point its muzzle away from all persons.  Point the firearm away from you, and all persons, while loading it (as the owner of three revolvers, this is one that especially applies to me).  Know your gun, understand its mechanisms, and know how to operate it safely.  Wear eye and ear protection.  Never allow access to your firearm by unauthorized persons.  Keep the gun clean and constantly check it for deterioration.  Know your target, and everything around you.  Be professional, alcohol free and drug free. Never fire your gun at a person unless it is your intent to kill them for the purpose of protecting yourself.

In other words, the problem with gun violence is not the responsible gun owner.  It is the criminal element, or the nutcases like the recent shooter in Isla Vista, Elliot Rodger.

Historically, big government types, a.k.a. the purveyors of tyranny, seek to remove guns from society.  The British tried to do it to the American Colonists, the communists in Russia did it, Hitler did it, and now the American Democrat Party is trying to do it.

But. . . confiscation is a losing proposition, and gun control is being met with negativity from the voting public.  So, the liberal left is seeking other ways to regulate our guns, and position us for confiscation. . . someday.

Enter, stage left, Smart Gun technology - guns that only fire in the hands of the owner.  Easy to require to be registered because configuration will require registration, electronically traceable, and limited to only one person.  The good intent on the surface, the "for the common good" argument being used by the liberal left, is that these guns will ensure that unauthorized persons won't shoot your gun.  Eventually, the gun control supporters suggest, all guns will be Smart Guns.  It is for safety.  It's okay, they tell us, if you sacrifice just a little freedom for some safety.

Smart Gun advocates argue that the technology will stop kids from shooting themselves, undermine the market for stolen guns, and protect the police from having their guns used against them.
Smart Gun opposition argues that the technology adds yet another thing that can fail on the firearm, and yet another obstacle for a gun owner to maneuver through in the haste of preparing to defend oneself against home invasion.  Also, the criminal element always finds a way around electronic limitations.

The National Rifle Association said, regarding Smart Guns, "The NRA does not oppose new technological developments in firearms.  We are opposed to government mandates that require the use of expensive, unreliable features, such as grips that would read your fingerprints before the gun will fire."
The inevitability of Smart Guns winding up on gun store shelves approaches, and the opposition of the technology understands that the guns will eventually become a part of the firearm market.  The problem is, as you normally see with liberal left political strategies, if you disagree with the left's tactics, you are labeled as a hater. If you defend your gun rights, you are told you want children to die.  For the sake of their hatred, you are lumped into the same group with the criminals, killers, and nutcases.

Constitutionally, it is illegal for the government to mandate that all guns be smart guns, and it is illegal for them to suddenly make other guns ever sold unlawful - it's that thing in Article I Sections 9 and 10 of the Constitution that disallows ex-post facto law.  The government cannot lawfully make guns obtained lawfully retroactively illegal.

Then again, we must remember that the current administration, and the current crop of leftists at all levels of government (federal, State, and local) has a history of lawlessness.

As long as the Smart Guns remain a part of the market, but is not mandated to be the only firearm available in the gun market, the way to stop them is through the free market.  Don't buy them.  If, as consumers, we refuse to purchase them, the economics of the issue will resolve the problem. . . or at least that's the way it normally works in free societies.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Poll Finds Americans Skeptical of So-called Smart Guns - NRA-ILA