“The Justice Department has requested $382.1 million in increased spending for its fiscal year 2014 budget for ‘gun safety,'” freebeacon.com reports. “Included in the proposal is $2 million for ‘Gun Safety Technology’ grants, which would award prizes for technologies that are ‘proven to be reliable and effective.’ President Barack Obama’s budget proposal also calls for $1.1 billion to ‘protect Americans from gun violence—including $182 million to support the president’s ‘Now is the Time’ gun safety initiative.'” Smart guns? Stupid idea. And God knows what evil lurks inside the Now Is The Time misegos. Here’s an alternative . . .
Imagine what $1.1b could do for crime prevention if we gave law-abiding low-income Americans a voucher for a gun and firearms training. What’d that run? Let’s say it would cost $500 for decent revolver, a cable lock and a couple of hours of training. That would be enough cash to tool-up 2.2m Americans. Think of the lives saved! The jobs created!
On the other hand, why are we spending money we don’t have? How about we “save” our hard-earned tax money, remove those laws that infringe on Americans’ natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms and call it good. If you like your gun, you can keep you gun. And buy another! One for a friend? Why not? Now that’s change I can believe in!
Because that’s much too simple and productive.
Because it’s Other People’s Money
Dear Fed Gov: Just stop, please. You’re doing it wrong, again.
So much for the concept of limited government.
There hasn’t been a “limited government” since oh the founding fathers last stood as president. And what 1 billion in well over, what is it 3-4 trillion now? This whole thing makes me sick.
Agreed. I have just been hoping there would be a limit to how unlimited the government is going to get.
Part of me wants to see the situation get the worst it’s ever been until the whole planet goes broke and we go to post-acopalyptic vampire zombie mode. Who knows? Maybe we’ll enjoy the ride. Nothing has to literally happen all over all at once. Maybe there will be some nullification states and some client states. But the thing is, collectivism has to get gone entirely because it is a guaranteed path to maximum poverty for all but the ruling elite.
It’s looking more and more like what I thought is true is true: Anarchy is the next stage of human evolution. Now that we’ve got the “safety in numbers” number down to one, there is no need to hire anybody to guard anybody’s borders. Absolute Anarchy will work in a fully armed and enlightened society.
Of course, I’m planning on being one of the enlightened ones who survive the carnage. 😉
Metaphysical note:
We’re not supposed to evolve fatter and fatter brains – the brain is a connector, to tap into the Aether and use our own inherent spiritual healing power to animate our bodies, transforming ourselves from self-replicating beings to self-sustaining ones..
Obama, wat are u doing? Obama, stahp!
“Safety”, n. A weasel word for victim disarmament.
a.k.a. pre – victimization
Well, the good news this is likely to get zero votes as all his budgets have in the past.
let me see, we have rogue government bureaucracies that spy on us relentlessly in ways that would make George Orwell go slack-jawed and Josef Stalin get rock hard, and they want us to buy into ‘smart-gun’ technology that would almost certainly have all sorts of backdoors built in.
Only if every active and LEO and Federal Agent is required to swap their current arms for “smart” arms.
Didn’t think so.
Thank goodness it’s only a little over ONE BILLION DOLLARS. What a waste.
“Reliable and effective” firmware-based smart gun technology? Maybe Obama can contract that out to the same folks that designed the Obamacare and BATFE e-forms websites. “System error – you have attempted to batch process several shots within a prohibited time interval. Please space your shots at 10 second intervals and try again….” while you’re being pounded by a bunch of gang-bangers.
Just like a liberal. Spend more money on stupid shit and raise our taxes. Great.
Because Republicans don’t also spend money on stupid things and raise taxes. You are absurd.
The idiocy and statism (but I repeat myself) of democrats is tenfold that of republicans. I’d take a republican budget over a democratic one any day – or a republican like Scott Walker balancing the budget over a lying, overspending statist like Obama.
They don’t nearly as much.
Have you seen a Democrat budget lately. Last time I looked it was the Republicans restraining the Democrats on spending. We got a couple who cave to the spending flurry but the Dems are definitely leading the charge.
I don’t trust him for one minute, he is up to no good. Since when does he care about what we want or what we think. Look at B.O. Care and I could go on and on, but I won’t. Be safe out there, keep your back covered!
Too much fail in this to even comment without going into a Tourette-like exclamation of how conniving our Statist Dear Leader and his Lackeys are. I am going to self-censor because if I don’t, Robert will.
$1.1 Bn? That must be kinda like when you sell a pair of skis on Craigslist, you ask five times what they’re worth so you can come down to twice what they’re worth and make the buyer feel like they got a good deal. $1.1 billion dollars is far too damned much money for a doomed-to-fail prohibitionist agenda.
More opportunities for crony capitalism by the most corrupt administration in my lifetime.
And to think our forefathers actually started a revolution over a tax of 3 pennies on a pound of tea.
We really are a nation of wimps.
Now is the time? WTF ” I know what you think it means sonny. To me its just a made up word so a young fella like yourself can wear a tie and have a job.”
It should read “Odumba borrows 1.1b from the chinese to spend on gun safety”
Yup.
Nope.
Should read “Federal Reserve creates 1b$ out of thin air and gives it to Obama in exchange for 1b$ of government debt”.
Oh man great timing, I was just thinking about getting none of these at all.
Hey Holder, you want to know what my idea of gun safety is?
Stop arming the Cartels
If $1B of that money goes into registration and transfer application processing at the NFA branch, I’m all for it.
Unfortunately, that is probably 3 orders of magnitude off.
The money should go to training for civilians, both those who want to arm and those who want to be conscientious objectors. Also use it to replace the free gun locks that FFLs and the police hand out for free that most pople throw away with quick access safes. No one buys a handgun for home or self defense and then bolts it shut so it’s useless in a break in or potential DGU.
Somewhere in Lott’s studies I saw that arming an additional 1% of the population saves $3-billion in victim costs. I figured it would cost roughly $1.5-billion to arm and train 1% of the population for a savings of $1.5-billion. Won’t happen because anti’s don’t care about real results and real suffering.
The ‘God knows what’ part will probably be the guns they run to the Sinaloan drug cartel.
We (the tax payers) can just save all that money, if the government goes ahead and confiscates all those nasty old evil guns. We don’t need them anyway, do we??………………………………………………..We Do?
“Now is the Time” link is the same propaganda anti gunners like to spew. It made my head hurt to read the page. Gov’t sponsored misinformation. Sigh.
I’ve got a pair of bracelets he should try on.
How much of this money will be skimmed off by the Union’s and likes of Rev Al the Mob Rat ,,,,
And of that, how much goes right into DNC coffers? Yep. Follow the money.
Here’s why they don’t spend the money on actually solving the problem.
1) Gun violence happens.
2) Increase restrictions on legal gun owners.
3) MORE gun violence happens.
4) Demand more money to FIX the broken system, and attack legal gun owners.
5) More gun violence happens
go back to 2
This increases spending and can be used to buy votes. All the while nothing is done about violence. The more violence, the better for the pols. It means you spend more on violence preventing programs(that actually increase violence), so you spend more, and they get their graft.
Sounds like some Democratic and liberal special interest groups need a new infusion of cash! Just like the $6 Billion mismanaged and lost by the most accomplished and prepared administrator the State Department has ever had, or the $1 Trillion dollar stimulus that would have gotten the unemployment rate down to 4.5%. I know the 2014 midterms are looking bad, but man are they trying to shovel the cash to their buddies to send back as campaign contributions.
Hey…. Anyone know what happened to that spy drone of ours that the Iranians captured and Barry asked them to please-please-whiny-please give back?….
“Republicans (those cruel heartless evil BASTARDS!) don’t want to spend any money to promote gun safety!”
I like my guns dumb, one of us being smart and doing the thinking is plenty, a smart gun might disagree with my intentions.
would be much easier to accept that bad things happen on occasion. it’s inevitable. people are going to die no matter what the means (gun, knife, poison, vehicle, exposure, drowning).. speaking of drowning, there is quite a big problem with children drowning in pools here in the Phoenix area. no one is banning pools. kids are being taught water safety in school at an early age now. encouraged to take swim lessons. and if all else fails, locked fences are installed. you can’t make a gun any safer than any other weapon or tool that can be used as a weapon. you’d have to be a complete idiot to think otherwise. so why are idiots running my country? oh.. because at least half the population are idiots. don’t do stupid things with stupid people in stupid places. staying alive really isn’t that complicated.
And I wonder every day why Holder hasn’t been arrested for his crimes…
Because only Obama can order it, and Holder does Obama’s bidding. Want Holder, need to get Obama out of there first. And to get rid of Obama, need to get rid of Harry Reid. And to get rid of Reid (and Schumer, Durban, Sanders, etc.) we need millions of jack-ass stupid voters to wise up.
Depressing, isn’t it?
GRAAAARGH! Is no one fed up with this $#!7?! Using our tax dollars to chip away at the Bill of Rights and marginalize gun owners? There is no justification for this — our own government is trying to wipe us from existence, plain and simple. The contempt is intolerable. Now excuse me before I write something that’ll get me droned.
Pretty much echo this, right down to the $#!7?!
We don’t need that program, and whatever nefarious deeds he will do with that. What we need is protection from Government Violence and Government Fascism.
Well, that’s one way to actually make money on smartguns.
Is it possible that some of the money went here:
http://www.smarttechfoundation.org/
Another interesting link was of a person that was very unhappy with “Smart Tech” for not delivering.
The Smart Tech Foundation: Failing to deliver on its Sandy Hook Promise?
“I know…it’s not my money. But when people announce their philanthropy using the Sandy Hook Promise while standing in the company of parents whose children died there, it carries a certain sincerity that should not be violated. ”
http://www.apexmindworks.com/blog.html
Of course they later go on to peddle their own companies product, which detracted from their outrage a bit.
“We at ApexMindworks care and we are not going to wait while the talk drones on.
We will continue to develop our student/school safety program because it is the right thing for us to do.”
That is a lot of money to not account for.
Would it be insane of me to suggest a proven program, like NRA’s Eddie Eagle, to educate about gun safety, could use some money training volunteers to speak at schools?
How about, sending newb gun-user responsible citizens to the range, to get handgun safety training, and a couple of test shoots, using what works best for them. Like the senior citizen who might need an equalizer.
How about helping local school districts by spending that money for local LEOs to provide basic gun training to vetted volunteers at schools- parents who volunteer for lunch monitor, playground, teachers who want to carry, but could use the help paying for ammo, getting periodic updates on training.
Thats a LOT cheaper than hiring another schools resource officer.
Lets dont forget how much of the $7B of the ARRA money went to subsidize teachers, thanks to unions lining up for the money, when the ‘shovel ready’ projects that weren’t couldn’t spend it all fast enough.
So, watch this space…lets see where the money REALLLY goes- you know community outreach for gun-safety ….MDA, MAIG, Evolve and all the variants that will undoubtedly be popping up looking for a handout, in exchange for being on narrative…
hey, if ACORN/SEIU and Doctors for ACA could do it for Obamacare, why not?
Maybe Shannon Watts or Commander Kelly will get appointed as a czar or something.
No way can guns become non-scary or normalized for children, teens, or even adults in their worldview.
The sooner they get the next generation disliking guns and supporting pro-disarmament hysterics, the better.
At least he’s not suggesting that the RFID technology used to enable guns could be used to track you or to find all the guns and gun owners. He’s also not suggesting that the technology could be used to universally disable guns remotely like by satellite or from government helicopters.
So, at least there’s no talk of anything like that. He’s just talking common sense.
Smart guns and stupid politicians is a bad mix.
I am at the point where I feel like if my tax dollar were not waisted on this then they would be waisted on that. If not on gun control, then on vacations to Hawaii or if not that then sending an illegal alien to college, the list goes on.
The jobs created!
Where does this ignorant notion of government spending creating jobs come from?
Government spending sends a false signal to the market, making it appear that there’s an increased demand for a product or service, and the economy transitions to fulfill this demand. Then when the stimulus goes away, all the resources dedicated to that production go dormant, because the demand was artificial.
And where does government get that money from? It has to take it from the people, who are unable to use it to buy the things they actually want, or invest in the production of goods and services that other people actually want.
No, they borrow that money. So, it’s like free. 😀
Psalm 37:13
And Psalm 37:21.
Being in construction I would much rather smart hammers. The same problems would come up. When the smart thingy failed it would get thrown into the trash. Tools must be reliable as they are necessary to complete a task. My rusty trusty simple tool would emerge from the tool box and be the envy of the jobsite. I’m not real sure how old the wheel is, but I know there is no need to reinvent it.
It’s not about guns or safety, it’s about finding ways to infringe upon the right to keep and bear arms that will manage to sneak through a federal court and get upheld. None of it’s legal regardless what the Down’s Syndrome justices say, but that doesn’t stop them from playing their “Get Around The Constitution” game. The whole point, of course, isn’t to “protect citizens” who they clearly don’t give two nickels about.
It’s to protect government, their ONLY concern.
The government will do the same thing with so-called smart guns that it does with your “smart” computers: assure that they have a back-door into the code of the thing, or can disrupt its signals, so that you’ll have an operable gun exactly and only when the government wants you to have one.
It is obvious, it is unconstitutional, and it is unnecessary. And they know it. Which makes them evil.
Look at the source:tweedle de and tweedle dum and then there’s Biden!
Rand Paul / Ted Cruz / Ben Carson 2016. I hope for Republican / Independent victories in the house and senate in 2014.
It’s either that or we can keep voting for tax and spend Dems who hate the 2A just a little bit more than the 4A.
Don’t bother asking why about anything with this administration. We all know why. They are not stupid. They are not petty. They are not naive. They are agenda driven and evil. Plain and simple.
They’re stupid, petty, naive and evil. And not even capable of having much of an agenda, beyond childish self aggrandizement. All they have going for them, is a pile of wealth and decaying institutions left over from marginally less hopeless eras. Plus the fact that they face no meaningful opposition. More than a century of pervasive, near universal publicly funded indoctrination, have left them with a population so well indoctrinated, dumbed down and uncritical; that they couldn’t even speak to them unless they themselves were stupid petty and naive. Like those they get away with claiming to “serve.”
Faced with meaningful opposition in the “War on Terror”, they will lose. Because those they, to the cheers of the braindead peanut gallery, call “Terrorists” are God fearing people. They take their marching orders from God. Who, perchance, is not stupid, petty, naive and evil.
“…technologies that are ‘proven to be reliable and effective.’…..”
If such proof included general uptake of said technology by Special Forces of the US military; including Obama’s private security detail; at least wouldn’t be quite so crass and obvious in playing to the gallery of fully indoctrinated progtards that passes for “citizens” these days.
“technologies that are ‘proven to be reliable and effective.”
Well, there’s your loophole. There aren’t any. 😉
I’d like some money.
If I could get the government to give me 1B I’d hire a bunch of TTAG readers and we could make a smart gun. It could be used as a gun for defense with a screen to select the target and automatic target tacking/aiming, a camera to record the event, a phone to call your lawyer and you could download apps for things like notifying like minded individuals so they could come and help since the boys in blue are not obligated to put themselves at risk.
Actually that sounds pretty cool but I don’t think that’s exactly what their talkin’ about.
“Smart Guns” is about as realistic as a call for more unicorn breeding farms. My revolvers are already dumber than my pistols. And I like it that way! The only way to make any gun “smart” is to some sort of sensor in the grip. or grip frame. How easy would that be to override? About as easy as jail breaking an Apple IPhone. Over ride instructions coming to You Tube before “smart guns” even before they hit the market. Make children and adults who act like children smarter about guns, problem with ND less.
Can’t fix stupid and can’t fix crazy, no matter how much money you throw at it.
How many of those millions is dedicated to the ongoing investigation of Zimmerman?
Plan on these electronic bracelets requiring renewable electronic permits to enable the gun to fire. Didn’t reapply for your permit this year/month/week? Weren’t granted your permit? You now own a paper weight. The scary question is on grandfathering in other firearms.
When the luddite left finally learns that 75% of “smart tech” on guns coming down the pike are actually massive increases in effectiveness and lethality they are going to sht a collective brick. That will be priceless
I thought the NRA had a gun safety program already. Here again the government is duplicating the private sector.
This goes to show that Obama and his stooges only “talent” is in coming up with screwy new ways to spend more $$. OUR tax dollars or borrowed from the Communist Chinese. The National debt is $17.5 Trillion + this morning. It was $10.6 trillion in Jan 2009 when he was sworn in.
Although I think your idea of the $500.00 “gun and firearms training” voucher makes far more sense than letting Eric Holder dispense a few million to his cronies for “gun technology research” that will end-up as well spent as Solyndra’s millions. However, the next thing the Democrats will want to do is enact a law creating an “AMMOEBT” for all those who got a gun and training through that Voucher Program…you see, rational action just cannot win with the Obamanation, and anything done MUST lead to more Government Spending.
Anyway the fact that a known pro-gun person suggested something rational guarantees the Obama-stooges will reject it, but you’re on the right track.
Those bracelets they envision would make concealed carry people stand out, at least in the summer. I’m guessing the AG would see that as a feature, not a bug.
I bet they already are thinking of a way to track those bracelets electronically too.
So smart guns, lets see who is first to hack it; or what about an EMP, or the government building in a kill switch.
I say we give the technology to the secret service to test out for a few years. Let’s start with Holder’s team. Think he’ll go for it?
1.1 billion. I just… can’t. Believe. This. Is. Happening.
100 million on that last budget to research ways to get people to buy more maple syrup.
How much on advertising for Phail-care?
This is really happening.
Because O’blabber’s pet projects have worked so well in the past:
Evergreen Solar ($25 million)*
SpectraWatt ($500,000)*
Solyndra ($535 million)*
Beacon Power ($43 million)*
Nevada Geothermal ($98.5 million)
SunPower ($1.2 billion)
First Solar ($1.46 billion)
Babcock and Brown ($178 million)
EnerDel’s subsidiary Ener1 ($118.5 million)*
Amonix ($5.9 million)
Fisker Automotive ($529 million)
Abound Solar ($400 million)*
A123 Systems ($279 million)*
Willard and Kelsey Solar Group ($700,981)*
Johnson Controls ($299 million)
Brightsource ($1.6 billion)
ECOtality ($126.2 million)
Raser Technologies ($33 million)*
Energy Conversion Devices ($13.3 million)*
Mountain Plaza, Inc. ($2 million)*
Olsen’s Crop Service and Olsen’s Mills Acquisition Company ($10 million)*
Range Fuels ($80 million)*
Thompson River Power ($6.5 million)*
Stirling Energy Systems ($7 million)*
Azure Dynamics ($5.4 million)*
GreenVolts ($500,000)
Vestas ($50 million)
LG Chem’s subsidiary Compact Power ($151 million)
Nordic Windpower ($16 million)*
Navistar ($39 million)
Satcon ($3 million)*
Konarka Technologies Inc. ($20 million)*
Mascoma Corp. ($100 million)
Thanks Barack!
I would think that after its performance in investigating Fast & Furious, and the IRS, DoJ will be lucky to get the same level of funding in the coming years as they enjoy in the current one.
But then, rewarding stupid is an old DC tradition.
BTW, Eric, about those bracelets you want:
How about you show how effective they are by having your personal security squad use them at all times, including at least a half-dozen passes each through the personal combat training range at Quantico.
Then, require them for all executive security teams including the Secret Service’s Presidential Detail.
A man with no conscience or thinking apparatus. Holder doesn’t even know how stupid he is. His face should be in the dictionary under “Incompetence”.
This is right up there with Star Wars death ray technology, for fantasy solutions to non existent problems.
Imagine grabbing your “Smart” gun and getting a “bluetooth not connected” warning before a robber with a “dumb” gun blows your head off? I presume Microsoft will be involved in this venture, with all the lack of functionality and reliability that implies.