California state senator Jerry Hill (D-Dist. 13) has introduced a bill to “mandate” smart guns as the only kind of guns law-abiding Californians can “sell, lend, or give” to another law-abiding Californian.
The bill, SB 678, defines a smart gun as “a firearm that will only fire when activated by an authorized user.”
Breitbart News has previously reported that smart guns are far more expensive than traditional firearms, so much so that a smart gun requirement would immediately make gun ownership a “rich man’s game.” For example, the Armatix iP1 — a smart gun with which the left is infatuated — costs $1800 per pistol, whereas traditional Glock handguns can purchased brand new for around $500.
Moreover, the Armatix iP1 is only chambered in .22 caliber, a poor self-defense round by any measure and an especially poor round when the home intruder who kicks in your door is armed with a traditional .38, 9mm, 45 auto, or 10 mm. He wins, you lose.
In addition to this, smart guns that use bracelets or watches that activate the gun via “radio frequency,” as SB 678 describes can be jammed in a manner similar to cell phone service. Smart gun proponents have already talked about so-called safety that could be afforded school children by creating buffer zones in which the radio signals could be jammed around schools.
But The Washington Post has already raised questions to whether a technology that can be jammed is really a technology to which we want to trust our lives? What happens when a hacker is jamming smart guns so police can’t shoot criminals or when they are jamming signals so homeowners can’t fight back against invaders?
On top of all these concerns, smart guns have yet to prove reliable. In other words, even when biometric readers or access codes are used instead of radio frequency activation, law enforcement says the guns are still too dumb to be smart.
Biometric palm or fingerprint readers have had difficultly reading through caked blood, and a homeowners’ hands may be caked with blood if he or she is in a hand-to-hand struggle for their life before being able to retrieve their gun. And access codes — or “memory codes” — could prove difficult to remember when you are being chased through your home an armed thug or held at gunpoint at a local business by a non-law-abiding citizen who kept his .357 magnum instead of opting for your .22.
Yet this is bright future for law-abiding California gun owners if Senator Hill gets his way.
Follow AWR Hawkins on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.