Smart Guns, Stupid Law

The New Jersey legislature has approved a bill requiring that all handguns sold in the state incorporate user identification technology to prevent them from being fired by unauthorized people. "Smart guns" are not commercially available yet, but the mandate will kick in after the first one is introduced.

The bill, which Gov. James McGreevey has promised to sign, includes an exemption for police weapons. This is odd, since the chief aim of the bill is to prevent adolescent suicides. (It's not expected to have much impact on criminals, and the state has reported no accidental firearm deaths among children in recent years.) "What children have more access to guns than the children of police officers?" asks a lobbyist who fought the bill.

Then, too, a police officer who loses his gun in a struggle would surely be thankful if it could not be used against him. Perhaps the authors of the bill worried that smart guns would cost police departments too much and might not work properly in an emergency, putting officers' lives at risk by preventing them from firing. Better to use ordinary citizens as guinea pigs before investing in an uncertain technology.

Comments

[buzz harsher]

Eh.

So New Jersey-ites will need to go to Virginia to buy reliable and affordable handguns.

Just more politicians believing that they can outlaw reality.

[Madog]

You're right, it is kinda silly to pass a law like that in a state as small as New Jersey. All it will do is hurt the honest, legitimate gun dealers will helping those right across the border, and those who like doing things under the table.

Watch in another 20 years, when the government mandates "disabler chips" that prevent a smart gun from working if it recieves a certain command from the police.