Amusing: “Smart Guns” in Massachusetts
BY Herschel Smith1 year, 9 months ago
Coming on the heels of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling on New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, Massachusetts’ top law enforcement official Andrea Joy Campbell has taken action in court to protect laws intended to keep residents from experiencing gun violence.
Campbell, according to a release, filed the briefs in lawsuits pertaining to handgun safety regulations and a case taking opposition to a motion to block the state’s assault weapon and large-capacity magazines ban.
“Under my leadership, Massachusetts will continue to lead …
What she really means is continue to violate rights as given by God, enumerated in the constitution, and recognized by the supreme court.
This caused me to go read her court briefs for a bit. I stumbled on this.
Further, the handgun must have a “safety device,” as defined by statute, that prevents the firing of the gun by an unauthorized user.
What exactly does that mean?
Such safety devices include, but are not limited to, “mechanical locks or devices designed to recognize and authorize, or otherwise allow the firearm to be discharged only by its owner or authorized user, by solenoid use-limitation devices, key activated or combination trigger or handle locks, radio frequency tags, automated fingerprint identification systems or voice recognition.” Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 140, § 131K.
Massachusetts must have passed smart gun laws while I was looking elsewhere. What a cesspool of communist overreach. If there are gun owners who still live in Massachusetts, I just have one question. Why?
I reiterate my smart gun challenge – the one that has never been accepted by any gun controller.
“Perform a fault tree analysis of smart guns. Use highly respected guidance like the NRC fault tree handbook.
Assess the reliability of one of my semi-automatic handguns as the first state point, and then add smart gun technology to it, and assess it again. Compare the state points. Then do that again with a revolver. Be honest. Assign a failure probability of greater than zero (0) to the smart technology, because you know that each additional electronic and mechanical component has a failure probability of greater than zero.
Get a PE to seal the work to demonstrate thorough and independent review. If you can prove that so-called “smart guns” are as reliable as my guns, I’ll pour ketchup on my hard hat, eat it, and post video for everyone to see. If you lose, you buy me the gun of my choice. No one will take the challenge because you will lose that challenge. I’ll win. Case closed. End of discussion.”
Any takers?
On February 6, 2023 at 10:19 pm, Rollory said:
” I’ll win. Case closed. End of discussion.””
Why do you do this? It is manifestly NOT the end of discussion, because they will keep trying and they will ignore you. Simply announcing that a discussion is over does not in fact end it unless the other party agrees. It just makes you look like a blowhard. There are enough impotent blowhards on the pro-gun side already, don’t be another one.
Also: I couldn’t read through your challenge. I know it was just two paragraphs but the phrasing was entirely too tangled to follow. If it was two sentences – fairly simply constructed sentences – it might be a worthwhile challenge. Something you could put on an ad poster or 4chan meme – clear and pithy enough to be understood and remembered. But if I can’t make myself wade through it, gun control people definitely will blow it off, and the challenge will be as if it never existed. So what’s the point?
On February 6, 2023 at 10:51 pm, Herschel Smith said:
Gosh. I wouldn’t want you to think I’m a “blowhard.”
I’ll put it in a few simple words for you: “Compare the reliability of any one of my pistols with any smart gun, and the most reliable one wins.”
But you see, contrary to what you claimed, that’s not specific or detailed enough to be a challenge. The smart gun manufacturers already claim that their gun is as reliable as mine. Here is the reason. They’re ignoring the failure probability of the electronics/interlocks/solenoids to prevent or authorize the gun from discharging a round.
This is well-worn territory with me. In the original post years ago I was answering a supposed gun rights blogger who got caught up in promoting smart gun technology in an attempt to assuage the controllers. Alan Gottlieb (SAF) was deeply involved in this effort.
Fast forward to today. I reiterated my challenge, and made it specific when I said “Assign a failure probability of greater than zero (0) to the smart technology, because you know that each additional electronic and mechanical component has a failure probability of greater than zero.”
Does this help you a bit to understand the point of the post? I’m an engineer. I write like that.
On the other hand, it’s a feature and characteristic of readers today to be accustomed to reading snippets and small “chunkettes” of prose rather than larger swathes of information. Intelligibility is oftentimes a function of the reader rather than the writer. Attention span is greatly reduced compared to say colonial times when children had to study books on logic and rhetoric.
Rather than snippets creating clarity, most often they cloud the issue and demand more because of the very example I gave above with the smart gunners and me in a dispute over reliability.
Unless you become specific, there is no conversation.
I think you’re exactly backwards in what you said.
On February 7, 2023 at 7:34 am, June J said:
There are just too many women in positions of power whose actual intellect doesn’t match their perceived intellect.
On February 7, 2023 at 7:41 am, Dan said:
Smart and Massachusetts are two words that don’t belong in the same sentence.
On February 7, 2023 at 7:42 am, Bill Buppert said:
Herschel,
Your logic is clear as a bell to me; I’m an engineer and a writer.
Hanlon’s Razor: “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”
Occam’s Razor: “The correct explanation is usually the one made with the fewest assumptions.”
Hitchen’s Razor: “What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.”
Fault tree analysis is simple and elegant.
On February 7, 2023 at 10:39 am, Johnny Reb said:
S&W had those revolver locks that no one was asking for and they are located in the glorious people’s republic of Masshole.
They were owned by a UK company at the time.
Someone should print up a smart device safety free zone sticker/sign just for the laughs.
Massholes?
We don’t need any stinking Massholes.
On February 7, 2023 at 10:02 pm, X said:
“Such safety devices include, but are not limited to, “mechanical locks or devices designed to recognize and authorize, or otherwise allow the firearm to be discharged only by its owner or authorized user, by solenoid use-limitation devices, key activated or combination trigger or handle locks, radio frequency tags, automated fingerprint identification systems or voice recognition.”
So… ALL Massachusetts cop guns have such “safety devices”… right?
Right?
And the lesbian governor’s security detail is armed with guns that have such “safety devices”… right?