'Future weapons' no solution for 'friendly fire'

June 6, 10:33 AMGun Rights ExaminerDavid Codrea

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(AP Photos/Bebeto Matthews)

As seems so often the case when a shooting occurs, some police officials make headlines blaming the gun.

The New York Police Department is looking into adapting futuristic technology that would allow officers' guns to recognize one another in an effort to avoid the type of friendly fire that left a cop dead last week.

How would that work?

One idea involves the use of radio frequency tags that would allow officers to pinpoint where other cops are in the city, Browne said. Another involves tags that would work gun-to-gun and use an infrared sensor: When a weapon is pulled from an officer's holster it would trigger a signal that would be sent to the gun of a nearby officer. The signal may be seen or heard.

I can see where this could be useful--to criminals.

Take out a cop and you can now "pinpoint" where the others are. Want to find out who the undercover guy is (remember, all officers involved in this latest shooting were in plain clothes)? Easy, he's the one with the tricked out future weapon. And it's not like uniformed officers ever have need for stealth--why not force them to use guns that emit audible and visible signals?

This is the same non-solution offered by so-called "smart guns," themselves initially experimented with (and then rejected) as a means of protecting officers who were having their guns taken away from them. So look for a parallel evolution and development.

In other words, there is no way the cops or their unions are going to let this nonsense be imposed on themselves. That said, look for the same bright minds proposing this to turn their eyes on making such technology mandatory for the rest of us.

Yeah, they know the criminals will still have fully-functional "dumb guns," but that won't stop the antis from presenting it as "common sense" and "a good first step."

"For the children."

Hey, why not? It makes the officials look like they're doing something, plus the media eats it up.

Related Reading:

• "Smart Guns, Dumb Lawsuits"
• "All in favor of German 'gun control,' raise your right hand"
• "Did German 'smart gun' fail on video?"
• "The idiocy of smart guns"
• "For the children (part two)