On April 30, the tech blog “TechCrunch” examined the Democrat-led push for “smart guns” and concluded the NRA is “right” — that a successful push for smart guns will be followed by a mandate for smart gun purchases, i.e. a form of gun control.
Smart guns have been part of a consistent gun control push that emerged under the presidency of Bill Clinton in the 1990s. And although they are plagued by the same problems now as they were then — fears over biometric reader failure, the ability to jam the signal between a radio-transmitting watch and the gun it activates, and fact that stealing the watch and the gun defeats the whole “smart” premise — they are being feverishly promoted by gun control proponents in elected office.
Breitbart News previously reported that President Barack Obama is using taxpayer funds to further smart gun research and is compiling purchase guidelines for smart gun purchases by federal agencies and law enforcement.
How can Obama push the purchase of battery operated guns which have yet to prove as reliable as traditional firearms? The examination of this and similar questions led TechCrunch to conclude that the push must be made because it is the prerequisite for a mandate, which is certain to follow.
TechCrunch points to a pattern of gun control tactics that demonstrates how proponents of more and more control will go about the process of mandating smart guns.
First, think of “assault weapons” as a specific “category” of guns under Bill Clinton. The characteristics that placed them in the category had absolute nothing to do with bullet velocity, weapon accuracy, or rate of fire. Rather, the characteristics were all cosmetic — a thumb hole stock, a vertical foregrip, a heat shroud on the barrel, etc.
Through a process of demagoguery that took advantage of an ignorance about guns that kept too many Americans from knowing any better, firearms that had certain cosmetic features were banned from 1994-2004. It was that easy.
Or look at the current microstamping law in California, whereby new guns are required to have a firing pin that leaves a special mark on a shell-casing when a bullet is fired. Techcruch points out that the existence of such a law highlights not only a continued popular ignorance about guns but also betrays the ignorance of the very persons passing laws against guns.
Think about it: A. Microstamping does not work; B. Microstamping is not even part of firearm production; C. If microstamping did work, and if it were part of firearm production, it would be easily defeated by simply changing out the firing pin in a given gun.
Yet a microstamping requirement is the law of the land in California.
So when TechCruch looks at smart guns — another technology that does not work, is not in mass production, and would be easy to defeat if it were — it also sees another form of gun control, another vehicle by which pro-gun control lawmakers can issue mandates under the guise of safety, whether safety actually results or not.
For this reason, TechCrunch says the NRA is “right,” from its perspective, for opposing the current smart gun push. Defeating the smart gun push now could be the only thing that prevents a mandate later.
AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.
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