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Moral of the story? Police and federal agents must be more transparent and accountable for their actions and expenditures. The whole concept of "spend money so

• pionar 13y ago
  > Would people flip out if there was a bill proposed to require all guns in the US to have a GPS tracker? As a gun control advocate who also owns guns, yes, I would flip the f* out. While I have no problem if the government knows I own a gun (they know I own a car), Putting a GPS tracker on it would result in two things: 1. The government would know where I am at all times (I carry my Kahr CM-9 everywhere that allows it). 2. Criminals would just remove the tracker.
  • herbig 13y ago
    You already carry a cellphone, I presume. Also, I am against most forms of gun control, being otherwise very liberal in my worldview. However, I cannot possibly understand why a developer would need to carry a gun at all times. You are inviting trouble with that, and more likely to die to your own gun than you are to protect yourself from some bad guys. If you want to carry a gun with you, I support your right to do so. But it's the objectively wrong play.
    • CompelTechnic 13y ago
      "Objectively wrong play" is a bit too much. Carrying a gun does have benefits, and it does have drawbacks. Lots of room for this to be subjective, and lots of room for someone to subjectively find this to be a good thing to do.
      • strlen 13y ago
        Yep, it's a personal decision to make. It would be simple for me to get a non-resident CCW permit in number of shall-issue states I visit, but I've chosen not to. That's, however, my choice based on my own circumstances. I don't think I can "objectively" decide this for others.
    • wylee 13y ago
      A question (maybe a nitpick) about the word "liberal"--wouldn't it be more "liberal" to be against gun control since less control means more liberty?
      • hbags 13y ago
        It probably depends on whether you believe guns are more likely to create liberty or destroy it. There are some very reasonable arguments that guns destroy more liberty than they create, and thus it is liberal to be against tools that make violence so easily accessible.
      • Crito 13y ago
        Nearly all political terminology is heavily overloaded. The best you can do is take the words as they are used; trying to infer meaning from them etymologically won't work. For example, if we were to take the term "conservative" literally we would expect Republicans to be rabid environmentalists.
      • aric 13y ago
        Yes. The more classical term "liberal," unfortunately, has been steadily eroding into a term used by people who espouse much the opposite of any form of liberation or freer society. Both major political wings amount to funnels for increasing government power and reach. Thus, the nation has learned to largely solve its social issues through docile hope (e.g. deferring to the spending decisions of oligarchical interests and trickle-down economics) and through the torture of imprisonment to settle nonviolent disobedience. There are people who think that giving a central group the authority to prohibit an entire general population's ability to use guns is justified. They feel it would personally give themselves an increased sense of liberation. I empathize with the wish to see a more peaceful world (a highly subjective idealism). However, from my vantage, putting faith into a heavily centralized form of constraint is not "liberal" in any way that actually respects that word at a human level.
  • dm2 13y ago
    1. The government doesn't care where you are at any time. Individuals might, but that's why there would be a warrant required to access the system that monitors GPS trackers on guns. There is GPS in your phone and in your car, what's the difference? 2. Of course many would. If you make it slightly more difficult to remove then many would not (and would get caught easier) or would opt to not steal the weapon. I've known many guns to be stolen in a random burglary and even someone who lost their gun. Criminals might be able to remove the GPS tracker, but they would need to take the weapons somewhere first then remove them, and that would be tracked. It wouldn't be too difficult to require a grinder of some sort to remove the GPS tracker, depending on how it was made and attached. My main point is that there would be more benefits than drawbacks, but people would fight a bill like that to the bitter end, just because they "don't want the government track them", which is already easy for the government to do if they want to. I support the right to carry a weapon, you can't trust that everyone you meet will not try to harm you, that's just a fact of present day society.
    • maxerickson 13y ago
      Bikes are stolen using battery powered angle grinders. And those locks don't need to be as compact as something securing some fragile electronics to a gun. And guns can actually be worth something.
  • cgore 13y ago
    The problem with gun registration versus car registration is that there is no real use to having a list of car owners, other than legitimate ones. But, a list of people with weapons would be the first thing any would-be dictator would love to have. I realize I am inviting the wrath of Godwin's Law here, but, as a real-world historical example of the threat of gun registration, the Nazis: "In 1931, Weimar authorities discovered plans for a Nazi takeover in which Jews would be denied food and persons refusing to surrender their guns within 24 hours would be executed. They were written by Werner Best, a future Gestapo official. In reaction to such threats, the government authorized the registration of all firearms and the confiscation thereof, if required for “public safety.” The interior minister warned that the records must not fall into the hands of any extremist group." "In 1933, the ultimate extremist group, led by Adolf Hitler, seized power and used the records to identify, disarm, and attack political opponents and Jews. Constitutional rights were suspended, and mass searches for and seizures of guns and dissident publications ensued. Police revoked gun licenses of Social Democrats and others who were not “politically reliable.”" http://www.nationalreview.com/article/365103/how-nazis-used-gun-control-stephen-p-halbrook http://www.nationalreview.com/article/365103/how-nazis-used-...
    • talmand 13y ago
      Oh, people down voting because of Godwin's law? Fine... Armenians in Ottoman Turkey, Anti-Communists/Stalinists in Soviet Union, Anti-Communists in China, Mayan Indians in Guatemala, Christians in Uganda, General Population in Cambodia There are lots of examples of gun confiscations preceding mass murders. Not that every gun confiscations lead to mass murder since there are examples of that not happening. But to ignore the possibilities in some areas of the world is just being naive.
      • pjungwir 13y ago
        Even if the situation does not progress to dictatorship or mass murder, gun registration often (inexorably?) leads to confiscation. See Canada and New York State.
        • 13y ago
  • bandushrew 13y ago
    if you carry a cellphone, the government does know where you are at all times. this is now established fact. why do you care so much more when the discussion is around guns?
    • lwhalen 13y ago
      We don't have a Constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to own cell-phones, for one.
      • mayneack 13y ago
        I don't know. > A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. Legislating away cell phones seems like it infringes my right to regulate my militia.
        • lwhalen 13y ago
          I'll take "'What is a non-sequitur?' for $200, Alex".
• cschneid 13y ago
  Would people flip out if there was a bill proposed to require all guns in the US to have a GPS tracker? Ohh god yes, they would. I live in Colorado, and 2 of our state reps got recalled when the democrats limited clip size to 15, and required more background checks on purchase. That restriction got people so angry that they did mid-term recalls. Not even just waiting till next election.
  • wl 13y ago
    FYI, using the term "clip" in this way is common but incorrect. Colorado limited the size of magazines to 15 rounds. Magazines hold ammunition in a way that a gun can pull a round from it when the action cycles. Clips are a specific kind of device for loading some types of magazines.
    • Crito 13y ago
      If we are being pedantic, then the issue becomes fairly fuzzed when you consider guns that have you insert the clip, not just the ammunition, into a fixed magazine. The M1 Garand for example. I don't know of any examples of guns with this sort of setup that would get anywhere near 15 rounds, but I suspect that the M1 specifically has something to do with the common misuse of terminology. It may also be related to some of the loonier misconceptions about guns, such as the idea that "clips" (actually magazines) are disposable (and therefore somehow also not reusable) (example of this misconception: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diana_DeGette#Gun_control http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diana_DeGette#Gun_control).
      • HNaTTY 13y ago
        You can fix an SKS with a 30 round magazine, which is reloaded via 10 round stripper clips (don't do it though, they're unreliable). In the case of the M1 and the SKS, the magazine, eg the device that holds the ammunition inside the gun, is the restricted item. The only difference is the magazine is not removed in the field, like with most other guns where that's how you reload.
    • cschneid 13y ago
• RankingMember 13y ago
  It's for this reason that I'm strongly in favor of body-mounted surveillance cameras for all public servants. The key is making sure that everyone has access to the data, not just some surveillance team in a back room. For stings and such like this, the footage would be held until the end of the operation, but would be required to be released immediately at the end of the operation. "Missing time" would be rigorously scrutinized. If we really believe that our law enforcement and other public servants are serving the public, there should be zero opposition to allowing anyone to review video archives of officer-mounted cameras at any time via an anonymous, no login needed, web interface. Sunshine is the solution.
  • gizmo686 13y ago
    I think you are slightly to extreme in your publication of the video. I agree that law enforcement officers (and probably most public servants) do not have an expectation of privacy while on duty, however other people who get recorded do. If the police have a video of me talking with the police than I would not necessarily want that video publicly accessible. However, if I am charged with a crime, those videos should be made available to me along with all the other evidence. Furthermore, If I am the subject of a video, I should have a right to it, and to publish it myself (possibly with the consent of other third parties in the video). Also, if the video was from a clearly public place/event than there is no expectation of privacy in the first place, so it should be publicly available (possibly also by request for practical reasons).
    • RankingMember 13y ago
      You're right. I was spitballing; there'd need to be safety mechanisms (The devil/corruption potential is in the details) to ensure situations like the one you hypothesized wouldn't result in the privacy of people who aren't public servants being compromised with cameras involved.
• hfsktr 13y ago
  "...if you purchase a gun without a license..." Isn't that by state? Can't private parties sell guns to each other and not even have to report it to anyone in some states? Other than someone reporting a crime (theft of the gun or violence etc) the tracking would only serve to tell you where someone keeps their gun. You'll have to forgive my skepticism that needing a warrant would be a huge barrier. That said I haven't read the article yet so maybe there is something that changes how I see this comment.
  • talmand 13y ago
    That's true, the rules of private sales can vary from state to state. But it is absolutely in your best interest to record the details of a private gun sale for your own protection. If you purchased the gun at a licensed shop then your name is on record with the Federal government (US) for purchasing that weapon. If the gun turns up at a crime scene then you will most likely be getting a knock on your door at some point. Hopefully it's a friendly knock but you never know with the police these days wanting to show off their breaching skills. In fact, I would never do a private sale of a gun, I would do so through a licensed dealer so that the same checks done to me would be done to the new owner.
• bambax 13y ago
  > On the other hand, if you purchase a gun without a license or attempt to hire a contract killer and it turns out to be a police officer you are in contact with, then that sting just save a life, which is good. How do you know that? How do you know the whole thing wasn't completely created by the police, enticing unstable individuals to do things they would never have done without their help? Stings are not just "slightly unfair", they are fake and immoral and the people who carry them out are despicable (as this story shows).
  • Crito 13y ago
    (Replacing guns and drugs with cars, so that it isn't a topic we feel strongly about (I am pro-legalization for either, in any event)) If a unstable person walking down the street is enticed by a bait car and attempts to steal it, I think we can caulk that up as a win for society. Maybe they would not have tried to steal a car that day, but they are evidently the sort of person that is willing to steal cars. It is better to get them into the justice system now, rather than wait for them to steal a non-bate car and possibly get away with it. The bate car scenario eliminates the possibility that the officers involved talked the person into it. Entrapment certainly is problematic, but I do not think that sting operations in general are.
    • bambax 13y ago
      > The bate car scenario eliminates the possibility that the officers involved talked the person into it It also doesn't make much sense; what's the difference between a "bate car" and a regular car? Do we need bate cars and people watching those, or regular police officers patrolling the streets and protecting ordinary cars from getting stolen? The whole sting concept lies on the idea that there are inherently bad people and that society just needs to somehow flush them out with clever traps. But that concept is at odds with the fundamental humanist idea of "punishment" and human perfectibility; the purpose of punishment is to help people improve and amend their behavior. If some people are just "bad" then punishment won't help them.
      • Crito 13y ago
• logfromblammo 13y ago
  Your proposed bill has some flaws. - It could be considered an unreasonable search. - The data would be accessed and used by police without warrants, despite your admonishment that they shouldn't. - The system would be used by criminals to track gun-carrying police and identify gun-owning households. - Criminals would remove, disable, or spoof the trackers, or simply make guns that didn't have them. - Gun rights devotees would flip out and kill the bill deader than a mayfly on the Moon. There are perhaps 10 districts in all of America where supporting such a bill would not seriously endanger any supporter's chances at re-election. Additionally, you are a horrible person for even suggesting it. If you have guns, agents of the state will be arriving shortly to transfer them to more worthy owners with less unfortunate bone structure. As compensation, you will be given a cake--not that you need to eat another one today.
  • dm2 13y ago
    Many home burglaries are in effort to steal guns. Let's assume that most of those criminals are not the brightest people in the world, let's say half don't bother removing the GPS, those low-hanging fruit are quickly arrested and deserving go to prison. A good percentage of thieves would simply not risk stealing the weapon, especially if the GPS was difficult to remove (like a sticker GPS that was either internal or very difficult to remove). Some would steal an entire safe or lock box and as soon as it's open the GPS would track where that lock box is located, those people would be caught. The point is not to stop all gun crimes, just to lower the amount of burglaries looking for firearms and to try to minimize the amount of firearms in the hands of criminals. No, my proposed bill isn't perfect, but it would undoubtedly save lives. It's not even a serious suggestion, more of a thought experiment, people who NEVER allow such a law to be in place.
    • logfromblammo 13y ago
      Most gun safes are Faraday cages when closed and locked. This means that not all guns are locatable at any given time, and the majority of non-locatable guns would be entirely legitimate. And as counterexample to your claims, I propose the smartphone. Every smartphone, intrinsic to its normal operation, is locatable with a high degree of precision to a single building, yet most smartphone thefts are not ever prosecuted, nor any attempt at recovery ever made. The carriers themselves have even resisted efforts to remotely deactivate those stolen phones, even though it would be trivial from a technical standpoint. Clearly, GPS beacons do not prevent, deter, or reverse thefts. I have no reason to believe that cops would be any better at catching tracked-gun thieves than they are at catching smartphone thieves.