Smart guns vs smart cars.

[flamin lib]

Cars have been getting safer and safer as technology improves their performance and reliability. Everything from seat belts and airbags to anti-lock brakes and computer assisted handling. The fully autonomous self driving cars from google have had a few accidents though; every one of them the result of a conventional car with a driver running into them!

But guns? Nooooooooo. Still using technology devised in the 19th century. Hell, gun makers have even gone backward by making semi auto and revolver pistols with no mechanical safety. The fact is that adding a safety device would cost a few cents and cut into the profit margin. Besides because guns can't be recalled for safety and federal law makes it difficult to sue manufacturers, distributors and retailers why bother? Like the Remington 700 rifle that would discharge when taking the gun off safety or just spontaneously, it stayed on the market for a decade when a fix would cost seventeen cents. It only killed a dozen or so people so WTF?

Note that since the huge decrease in car fatalities from '06 to '08 that gun deaths are rising at the same rate that car deaths are falling.

[Fred Sanders]

1. The childishly simple firearm explosive go boom in tube full of metal, is much admired by children and those that think like children.