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Accepting the premise that it's a good thing that the population at large can own guns, their argument is that they're thinking a few steps ahead: If smartguns

Accepting the premise that it's a good thing that the population at large can own guns, their argument is that they're thinking a few steps ahead: If smartguns become popular, the government can then outlaw non-smartguns without too many people caring (they can still own and fire guns). Then the smart-stuff is leveraged to "enhance" security - transferring ownership, for an example, could be made subject to a government permit, which can then be used, explicitly or implicitly - imagine a "no fly list" for guns, with the same opacity - to prevent large groups of people to own guns (well, specifically, to fire them). Further not-very-fantastical "enhancements" could include remote-disabling of guns, initially for law enforcement use, but quickly extended to much broader use. All this, of course, while the criminals (who are already obtaining guns illegally) keep using "dumb" guns and aren't affected by this. These are the simple, practical reasons - there's also the ideological reason founded on the historical reason for the 2nd amendment: A government can't turn on it's own people if said people is armed. If the government can effectively control the guns of the people, that stops being a factor.

arenaninja 12y ago
Honestly, these arguments make sense, and I don't own a gun. I wish the public at large could understand these are largely parallel to the arguments FSF makes (at least to me, they are)
- grayclhn 12y ago
  I won't hold my breath waiting for the followup news report, "GNU software is now more likely to kill you than a car is in the U.S." edit: to make this comment more than just a dumb throw-away joke, I'll add that sometimes the consequences of an argument are as important as its assumptions/logical soundness.
  - sliverstorm 12y ago
    If smartguns run Linux, maybe we could make that article!
apetresc 12y ago
Is the "keep the government in line" thing really a reason that anybody actually believes anymore? Like, if things got so bad that the government was "turning on its own people" with weaponry, somebody really thinks some guys with guns from Wal-Mart are going to be what stops them?
- philwelch 12y ago
  Honestly? It's not a far step away from the kind of firepower they lost to in Vietnam and Iraq.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - ashark 12y ago
    A US government worth overthrowing by armed insurrection and that couldn't be overthrown some other way would practically by definition be willing and able to engage in some really nasty practices to put down a domestic rebellion. Like, filling-mass-graves nasty. Shooting at them wouldn't help. Sympathy from the armed forces and various forms of political pressure, foreign and domestic, would be far more helpful than a few deer rifles, and if you've got that your private arms aren't really necessary. A domestic rebellion wouldn't win by shooting enough people, it'd win when the tactics necessary to stop it were beyond what the government and/or military were willing to do. Guns are much more useful when: 1) the enemy is foreign (killing enough people actually might make them go away), and/or 2) your position doesn't actually have popular support so other means are unavailable to you, and/or 3) foreign powers have the will and capacity to bomb the shit out of your country if the government goes too far in its attempts to suppress your uprising (this, or loss of military support for the government, are basically the only reasons authoritarian states fail to stop revolutions in the modern world)
    - jnbiche 12y ago
      >Sympathy from the armed forces and various forms of political pressure, foreign and domestic, would be far more helpful than a few deer rifles, and if you've got that your private arms aren't really necessary. Actually, having closely studied the dissolution of a modern European country (the former Yugoslavia) and seen the fallout from up close, it's not that simple (at least not always). What happened in that case was that although the Yugoslav government [1] retained control of most of the heavy weaponry (artillery, tanks), and although the succeeding republics (Croatia and Bosnia) were initially limited to small arms belonging to local militia and hunters, the republics did have an abundance of active and retired officers with loyalty to their ethnic homelands who were quick to raise and lead battalions of troops into the field [2]. Those troops then went on to capture some heavy arms from the Yugoslav army, and scored lots of small arms, and eventually heavy arms and aircraft, from overseas allies. Eventually, after lots of brutal warfare, ethnic cleansing, and in Bosnia, genocide, the republics did gain their independence from Yugoslavia (with significant help from the U.S. and other countries). What was key in this case were the experienced military leaders who quickly assumed charge in the succeeding republics. I suspect a worst-case, nightmare U.S. scenario would look much the same, with experienced military leaders taking control of ad hoc forces in their respective states and/or regions, and then fighting with small arms until they were able to capture heavy arms, receive outside help, or were defeated/captured. 1. Essentially, Serbia and Montenegro, plus ethnic Serbs elsewhere 2. Slovenia's succession was a different story than that of Bosnia and Croatia, for a variety of geographical, cultural, and historical reasons.
deleted 12y ago
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sesutton 12y ago
This is just a variation of the slippery slope argument except this slope doesn't seem very slippery to me. Gun rights have been getting stronger in the US not weaker, courts in recent years have decided that the 2nd amendment is an individual right and that it is incorporated against the states. I don't see how a libertarian, as many gun advocates but certainly not all, can make a rational argument for preventing a private company from selling smart-guns to individuals.
- Jaecen 12y ago
  I don't think anyone is trying to ban smart-guns. What they're trying to stop is regulation requiring guns to be smart.
  - sesutton 12y ago
    Maybe not through legal means but the one gun store that tried to actually sell a smart gun got death threats.
- MrMember 12y ago
  It isn't a slippery slope, it is already reality. The New Jersey Childproof Handgun Law outlaws the sale of non-smart guns once a smart gun becomes available for sale anywhere in the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Jersey_Childproof_Handgun_Law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Jersey_Childproof_Handgun_...
- scott_karana 12y ago
  Numerous other countries have substantially curtailed the right to own guns, so it's no large stretch of the imagination.
sliverstorm 12y ago
Another practical reason where pro-gun vs. anti-gun traditionally do not see eye-to-eye is proximity/availability of police forces. In the city, where most people are anti-gun, the police are often very close by, and rhetoric often talks about how guns are not needed because of the police. In the country, where most people are pro-gun, the police can easily be very far away. I have co-workers who live at least an hour from the closest police station. Naturally, rhetoric covers the fact that the police very likely cannot help you.
glenra 12y ago
The simpler objection is that smartgun technology - being a brand new thing - is likely to be expensive and complicated, which makes the guns that use it expensive and complicated. Forcing people to install it anyway is like a tax - it makes gun ownership more painful and expensive. If you care that lower-income people should be able afford guns for personal defense and that guns should be easy to use, you ought to oppose smartgun mandates as a matter of reflex. At least until the technology in question actually exists so we can see just how expensive and complicated it turns out to be, and probably well past that point.

arenaninja 12y ago

Honestly, these arguments make sense, and I don't own a gun. I wish the public at large could understand these are largely parallel to the arguments FSF makes (at least to me, they are)

grayclhn 12y ago
I won't hold my breath waiting for the followup news report, "GNU software is now more likely to kill you than a car is in the U.S." edit: to make this comment more than just a dumb throw-away joke, I'll add that sometimes the consequences of an argument are as important as its assumptions/logical soundness.
- sliverstorm 12y ago
  If smartguns run Linux, maybe we could make that article!

apetresc 12y ago

Is the "keep the government in line" thing really a reason that anybody actually believes anymore? Like, if things got so bad that the government was "turning on its own people" with weaponry, somebody really thinks some guys with guns from Wal-Mart are going to be what stops them?

philwelch 12y ago
Honestly? It's not a far step away from the kind of firepower they lost to in Vietnam and Iraq.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- ashark 12y ago
  A US government worth overthrowing by armed insurrection and that couldn't be overthrown some other way would practically by definition be willing and able to engage in some really nasty practices to put down a domestic rebellion. Like, filling-mass-graves nasty. Shooting at them wouldn't help. Sympathy from the armed forces and various forms of political pressure, foreign and domestic, would be far more helpful than a few deer rifles, and if you've got that your private arms aren't really necessary. A domestic rebellion wouldn't win by shooting enough people, it'd win when the tactics necessary to stop it were beyond what the government and/or military were willing to do. Guns are much more useful when: 1) the enemy is foreign (killing enough people actually might make them go away), and/or 2) your position doesn't actually have popular support so other means are unavailable to you, and/or 3) foreign powers have the will and capacity to bomb the shit out of your country if the government goes too far in its attempts to suppress your uprising (this, or loss of military support for the government, are basically the only reasons authoritarian states fail to stop revolutions in the modern world)
  - jnbiche 12y ago
    >Sympathy from the armed forces and various forms of political pressure, foreign and domestic, would be far more helpful than a few deer rifles, and if you've got that your private arms aren't really necessary. Actually, having closely studied the dissolution of a modern European country (the former Yugoslavia) and seen the fallout from up close, it's not that simple (at least not always). What happened in that case was that although the Yugoslav government [1] retained control of most of the heavy weaponry (artillery, tanks), and although the succeeding republics (Croatia and Bosnia) were initially limited to small arms belonging to local militia and hunters, the republics did have an abundance of active and retired officers with loyalty to their ethnic homelands who were quick to raise and lead battalions of troops into the field [2]. Those troops then went on to capture some heavy arms from the Yugoslav army, and scored lots of small arms, and eventually heavy arms and aircraft, from overseas allies. Eventually, after lots of brutal warfare, ethnic cleansing, and in Bosnia, genocide, the republics did gain their independence from Yugoslavia (with significant help from the U.S. and other countries). What was key in this case were the experienced military leaders who quickly assumed charge in the succeeding republics. I suspect a worst-case, nightmare U.S. scenario would look much the same, with experienced military leaders taking control of ad hoc forces in their respective states and/or regions, and then fighting with small arms until they were able to capture heavy arms, receive outside help, or were defeated/captured. 1. Essentially, Serbia and Montenegro, plus ethnic Serbs elsewhere 2. Slovenia's succession was a different story than that of Bosnia and Croatia, for a variety of geographical, cultural, and historical reasons.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

sesutton 12y ago

This is just a variation of the slippery slope argument except this slope doesn't seem very slippery to me. Gun rights have been getting stronger in the US not weaker, courts in recent years have decided that the 2nd amendment is an individual right and that it is incorporated against the states. I don't see how a libertarian, as many gun advocates but certainly not all, can make a rational argument for preventing a private company from selling smart-guns to individuals.

Jaecen 12y ago
I don't think anyone is trying to ban smart-guns. What they're trying to stop is regulation requiring guns to be smart.
- sesutton 12y ago
  Maybe not through legal means but the one gun store that tried to actually sell a smart gun got death threats.
MrMember 12y ago
It isn't a slippery slope, it is already reality. The New Jersey Childproof Handgun Law outlaws the sale of non-smart guns once a smart gun becomes available for sale anywhere in the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Jersey_Childproof_Handgun_Law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Jersey_Childproof_Handgun_...
scott_karana 12y ago
Numerous other countries have substantially curtailed the right to own guns, so it's no large stretch of the imagination.

sliverstorm 12y ago

Another practical reason where pro-gun vs. anti-gun traditionally do not see eye-to-eye is proximity/availability of police forces. In the city, where most people are anti-gun, the police are often very close by, and rhetoric often talks about how guns are not needed because of the police. In the country, where most people are pro-gun, the police can easily be very far away. I have co-workers who live at least an hour from the closest police station. Naturally, rhetoric covers the fact that the police very likely cannot help you.

glenra 12y ago

The simpler objection is that smartgun technology - being a brand new thing - is likely to be expensive and complicated, which makes the guns that use it expensive and complicated. Forcing people to install it anyway is like a tax - it makes gun ownership more painful and expensive. If you care that lower-income people should be able afford guns for personal defense and that guns should be easy to use, you ought to oppose smartgun mandates as a matter of reflex. At least until the technology in question actually exists so we can see just how expensive and complicated it turns out to be, and probably well past that point.