| ▲ | Antibabelic 12 hours ago |
| Why can't the manufacturers market "smart guns" outside the US? Surely, the NRA's grip isn't world-spanning. |
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| ▲ | aloha2436 12 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| The US is the largest market for firearms, so the NRA can use the threat of boycotting a manufacturer within the states to prevent the technology gaining traction elsewhere. |
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| ▲ | Antibabelic 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | Aren't there manufacturers that only really target local markets that could profit from this technology, e.g. in China, ex-USSR or South America? | | |
| ▲ | anonymous908213 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | To profit, they would first have to sell the goods. Who is actually in the market for a smart gun? Consumers aren't, surely. There is virtually no upside to your gun tracking you, at your own expense of buying a more complex piece of tech to boot. So that leaves something like (apparently) New Jersey where the government would compel purchases of smart guns because they were interested in the tracking. But eg. China simply don't allow citizens to purchase guns period. There may be some application to applying it to state-owned firearms to track military and police usage, but deploying that at Chinese scale would be an extremely expensive endeavour for what appears to be a solution in search of a problem. Not to mention the biometric lock concept, if implemented, is introducing an entire new axis of unreliability to a life-or-death tool. | | |
| ▲ | pabs3 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Gun owners in the US probably wouldn't want their gun to be used against them in a home invasion, or by their child at a school. Seems like that could be a large-ish market. Especially if you can lobby regulators in favor of making it a requirement for all or some people. | | |
| ▲ | avidiax 9 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | You are right that gun owners wouldn't want those things, but they are unlikely to want a smart gun as a solution to those things. They want the gun to be available to them, and not be under duress to use a fingerprint reader or pin pad or RFID ring to do it. Responsible gun owners keep guns out of children's hands by locking them up or supervising them, and irresponsible ones aren't going to want to pay extra for smart features. I think there's a very narrow range of smart features, something like a gun that is unlocked when removed from a holster, but locks up if it is dropped or grabbed, that might be interesting. That makes having the gun taken from an officer less of a threat, which might have an institutional appeal. Give it a 10-hour maintenance mode so that it can be used as a "nightstand gun" while automatically being locked if left idle for longer, and it would basically meet the needs of police both on and off-duty. | |
| ▲ | derbOac 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | In my personal experience gun owners want mechanical foolproofness too. They want something that's not going to lock up or fail or discharge at the wrong time. Smart features just add a layer of complexity with fail possibilities to address a problem that many of them would prefer to be addressed differently anyway. | |
| ▲ | 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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| ▲ | skissane 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I think a country like Australia could be a good starting point for smart guns. Yes, not a very big market-around 8% of US population, with significantly lower rates of gun ownership-but culturally more open to gun control, with a much weaker gun rights lobby, and a marked political tendency towards surveillance and “nanny state” regulation | | |
| ▲ | numpad0 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | IIRC Australia doesn't have legal frameworks for gun ownership for the purpose of self defense, and there's no great implementation of smart guns in the first place. A smart gun is like an AWS authenticated motor twisting ballpoint pen. Just no one ever seriously pays for such a thing, and it has not even been seriously made if it ever was actually conceived. Making it a requirement is basically out of question. | | |
| ▲ | skissane 40 minutes ago | parent [-] | | > Making it a requirement is basically out of question Why? If there’s the political will, it is doable. There are Australian gun manufacturers (e.g. Lithgow Arms, owned by Thales)-and if none of them are willing to cooperate, the government can always start their own gun manufacturer. Indeed, Lithgow Arms was founded in 1912 as a government-owned arms manufacturer, and remained in public hands until the Australian federal government sold it to Thales in 2006. |
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| ▲ | xixixao 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I could not locate credible evidence of a major firearm manufacturer that completely refrains from selling into the U.S. civilian market. (ChatGPT) Glock, Koch, Taurus, even Czech Zbrojovka all sell to US. Kalashnikov can’t atm, but also probably doesn’t share the safety concern. |
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| ▲ | numpad0 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| The tech just isn't there; hand-held guns don't benefit from a computerized firing system at all. So any smart feature on human sized guns and less will be totally removable addons, and that completely defeats its purpose. Many tanks and planes do have smart guns. Electronic firing control with additional software features that impede firing are beneficial and totally fine at that scale. |
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| ▲ | actionfromafar an hour ago | parent [-] | | Seems it's coming though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMASH_Handheld | | |
| ▲ | numpad0 29 minutes ago | parent [-] | | That's just a scope. Comes right off and reverts to a regular M4. Most(though not all) other smart gun attempts work in a similar fashion; the host gun works exactly as it were, except an extraneous metal bit inhibits firing. If the bit was removed or held down, it reverts to the original host gun and fires normally. As such, the extra bit is literally extraneous, irrelevant to the gun's working. |
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| ▲ | xixixao 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I see at least two problems with smart guns though: 1. Temper resistance is not temper impossibility
2. If a tag allows tracking, bad actors might track good actors? |
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| ▲ | atemerev 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| There are barely any civilian gun markets outside the US. US is really really unique in their relationship to guns. |
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| ▲ | setopt 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | This. There’s many countries that allow civilians firearms (e.g. Canada and much of Europe), but generally for hunting purposes and thus more likely to be rifles and shotguns than concealable handguns. |
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| ▲ | refurb 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| The correct answer is - all the designs so far aren’t great. The military would love a smart gun to cut down on accidental discharges. Cops would love it to stop weapons being used against cops. The issue is that it has to have a very high reliability (you don’t want it to fail to fire while a suspect is shooting at you). And not much point if it only works “sometimes” with unauthorized users. |
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| ▲ | rhinoceraptor 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I would imagine that any manufacturer being seen doing so, would face US consumer boycotts. |
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| ▲ | skinkestek 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Because it’s just a bad idea. Most of the world doesn’t need that whole setup because: - Our cultural baseline around firearms is completely different. Countries like Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, Austria, and the Czech Republic have plenty of guns at home - and historically, a lot of them were actual assault rifles, not “looks-spicy” semiautos. - We treat guns like weapons. They live in safes, not nightstands, and kids get taught safety early, the same way you’d teach them not to put a fork in a power supply. |
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| ▲ | throw-qqqqq 8 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > Countries like Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, Austria, and the Czech Republic have plenty of guns at home None of those countries are anywhere near US levels of gun ownership. See the table here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_g... USA has 120 guns pr 100 citizens. Of the countries on your list, Finland is next with 32. Denmark has 10. > and historically, a lot of them were actual assault rifles Fully automatic weapons are not legal for civilians in Denmark at least. Many semiautos are also banned. Semiauto shotguns must be restricted to hold only two shells and you need a special license even for that. I don’t disagree with your general point, but you’re not making a good comparison IMO. | | |
| ▲ | iviv 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Fully automatic weapons are not legal for civilians in Denmark at least. Same in Finland. |
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| ▲ | atemerev 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | The Swiss do have a lot of guns at home. However, you cannot carry (or even transport guns that are not discharged). Just take them at a shooting range - a popular pastime for Swiss people. |
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| ▲ | tonyhart7 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| smart guns is future dystopian |
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