More About Legislating GPS On Guns

The following email is reposted with the author's permission:

Hi, Dave.....

>Friday, January 13, 2006

>From the CLUELESS IDIOT Department

>This guy isn't just an antigunner, he is technologically clueless:
>
>Saying gun manufacturers should take steps to track guns, a Boston city
>councilor is proposing that global positioning technology be installed in
>firearms.
>
>Councilor Rob Consalvo wants to put a tracking device into newly
>manufactured guns and have legal gun owners retrofit their firearms so
>owners and police can locate and retrieve stolen guns the same way police
>use a computer chip to locate stolen cars.
>
>
>Just where does Consalvo think you'd be able to fit a GPS unit onto a gun?
>These things aren't the size of postage stamps, you know. Moreover, such
>devices require electricity. I suppose criminals are going to make sure
>that a stolen gun's GPS unit is fully powered.
>How much do you want to bet that if GPS trackers were added to guns, that
>the bad guys won't figure out a way to disable them in less than two minutes?

Assuming he's not a totally clueless idiot (which he may well be), this
would most likely fall under the "if you can't make them outright illegal,
make them so difficult and expensive as to be effectively illegal" train of
thought. 

Similar to what the insurance industry tried to do (somewhat successfully,
even) with "named" sportbikes 15/20 years ago.  The insurance rates on
easily identifiable sportbikes like the Honda Hurricane got so high as to
make the short answer "you can't get insurance for that bike".  If you
can't get insurance, you can't ride, and so....  Et Voila!  The insurance
industry has banned certain motorcycles.  Fortunately, that got fixed
later......

>[....]
>
>At 10:54 AM, Anonymous said…
>
>The technology is already available. It is a small chip that will soon be
>on everything from potato chips to cars. It should be on guns. Not optional
>and retrofitting required.

And this guy is totally overlooking the entire (*impossible*) logistical
problem of getting these thing put on *all* (including criminally-owned)
guns.  If you could find the criminals to put these things on their guns,
don't you think it would be simpler to just arrest the criminals right
there? 

(Reverse the logic -- Look at how Mark Twain used the soot-covered pig in
"The Prince and the Pauper" as a way to mark things....  It's not bad if it
*has* the mark, it's bad if it *doesn't* have the mark.)

And even if you could put these things on all guns, the bad guys would just
disable them immediately anyway.

Here's the best answer to people who want to put any kind of "technology"
on serious firearms:

 http://www.angelfire.com/comics/pinton/gun.html

Ok, I feel better now.   :-) 

Enjoy!

Mitch
--
Mitch Kutzko
Project: http://dast.nlanr.net  |  Personal: http://hobbes.ncsa.uiuc.edu