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What Could Possibly Go Wrong: GPS-Based AR Lockout Device

Robert Farago - comments No comments

(courtesy Vince Luchison)

Click here to see the full video on an electronic GPS device that will “Prevent Mass Shootings with New Innovative Technology!!” The concept is simple enough: “Imagine if Assault Type Weapons were smart. When they were switched to fire position they located themselves in a GPS network and if they were in a public place they locked themselves out.” The pitfalls are many. Meanwhile I hereby christen this device the RTH, for the Road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Technological or otherwise.

 

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Robert Farago

Robert Farago is the former publisher of The Truth About Guns (TTAG). He started the site to explore the ethics, morality, business, politics, culture, technology, practice, strategy, dangers and fun of guns.

0 thoughts on “What Could Possibly Go Wrong: GPS-Based AR Lockout Device”

  1. Gun buy backs are extremely effective…at getting old, crappy, and/or broken guns off the streets. Notice how they make no mention of how many guns turned in are .22lr target pistols or rifles, or single shot shotguns. They also make no mention of the average age of the gun, or how many are functional.

    If this is a “no-questions asked” buyback, can I turn in an air-rifle? Or a zip gun? If zip guns are allowed then one could conceivably manufacture a bunch then sell them back to the state for a profit.

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  2. Adequate ventilation needed for say a indoor shooting range of 100’x50’x15′ high would be about 50,000 cfms with many people firing at once and maybe down to 10,000 cfms with just one or two. With each extreme cfm needed 50,000 or 10,000, or any amount in between or even lower than 10,000 say down to 5- 6,000. The range would need to initially spend about 500-1,000 dollars for every 1,000-1,500 cfm exhausted. This doesn’t even count the electrical costs to run the blowers and fans.
    It’s pretty simple, most indoor ranges cannot afford to ventilate the dangerous smoke and gases that firearms produce.
    Anyone ever been in a professional auto paint shop? Not only are the painters and preppers wearing masks most of the time in the work area but there is usually one or more giant blowers at the corners of the ceilings exhausting constantly. Those are not cheap to buy or run, and if filters are added in those are not cheap either
    I haven’t been in a indoor range since my early 20s when the city I lived in had free local indoor range in the basement of a community center where the nra classes were given. We did shoot at an indoor range in az while on vaca once in the late 90s, cleanest one I’ve ever seen and you could actually feel the exhaust power. But I have yet run across one anywhere up here in the mid-west in the last 20 years. They are unheard of in most cities excluding police only ones. Thankfully I have a few private and public outdoor ranges I can hit but then again with 8 month winters up here one has to find the time and brave the weather to get in enough shooting hours a year.
    If only sh*t didn’t cost so much.

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  3. there’s a lesson to be learned here kiddies. Grab your scary death machines while they’re 6-800 dollars. If you think 40cents a round for 223 is expensive, just remember when it was a dollar. and most importantly, dont underestimate the value of 22 lr.

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  4. But guys, you are forgetting the whole reason for this. As with most gun control, the true intent is that It will make the anti’s FEEL better about their safety.

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  5. What’s stopping a criminal from opening up an AR-15 with this device in it, and removing it from the lower entirely? It doesn’t look too hard, just replace a few parts, or just replace the entire grip.

    Or jamming a tool into the grip and damaging it so much that it no longer functions?

    If these do-gooders want to stop criminals, then they need to stop thinking like good guys with the latest James Bond Techno-crap, and start thinking like bad guys. Bad guys are stopped by guns. Period. A .45 ACP Hollow point between the eyes will make a bad guy leave you alone. Every time.

    I feel like Sylvester Stalone’s character in the movie “Demolition Man”, trying to explain that the bad guy will be going after a gun, and all the feel-good politically correct people around him not understanding him…

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    • “What’s stopping a criminal from opening up an AR-15 with this device in it, and removing it from the lower entirely? It doesn’t look too hard, just replace a few parts, or just replace the entire grip.”

      It would be illegal to remove it. That would stop the wacko right?

      Another stupid concept and law. Nothing but another criminal charge added to the long list of murder charges.

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  6. Our ultimate intent here is to ultimately have this device required across the board through legislation. But first we need to build around 12 test units and get some of them installed in AR and AK rifles, programmed and debugged. Then we will push the firearms market, NRA, and legislation to accept this platform.

    In order to accomplish this we need your support as we need funding to quickly get through build and testing so we can get a reliable product presented.

    sounds like marketecture to me. emphasis is mine.

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  7. No court would issue an injunction on a law that was duly passed by the legislature, regardless of procedure. Talk about legislating from the bench. No one was disenfranchised nor denied representation. We just have bad representation.

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  8. What also is a factor, I believe, is the evidence of the state map – political considerations.
    This ill-structured law has gotten so much blow back that Cuomo and his legislative cohorts might be glad to have it thrown out and have a chance to reform it into something more acceptable by court decree rather than admit a mistake and crawl back to the legislature with egg on their face. Got my fingers crossed.

    PS – Thanks Commando for your positive input – much better!

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  9. Oh goodness I couldn’t stop laughing my ass off…..you see, I have gout. Real bad. It comes back to my right toe or my right ankle like clockwork about every 2 months since last June. My first gout attack was about 6 years previous, at which point I joked that the next time it ever happened I’d take a .22 and blow the toe off. So what happened? It hit my ankle instead! Then the next time a couple months later, the toe. But I didn’t have a .22, only a 12 gauge. Ach, that would have been too messy. So now that I’ve finally got both a .22 and a 12 gauge, I guess I could say I’m ready either way if the doc tells me to FOAD.

    Alas, I’m still working on the marriage part.

    Tom

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  10. having shot the LCP, the lc9, and the S&W bodyguard .380, I picked the Smith and Wesson. just seemed better built…..

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  11. Liberals like anything that make firearms unreliable and drives up the cost but they’d LOVE to mandate a “safety” feature that doesn’t exist and/or can’t possibly work so firearm manufacturing becomes completely illegal.

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  12. Mr. Robert Farago what happened to this site? No more spell check? Constant login to make comments? Can we get the spell check function back or is it just me? And if it is me can you send me the illistrated instructions to correct? PLEASE 🙂

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  13. This is an absurdly useless technology. Aside from the obvious projects still being able to reach a target at distance, GPS is a technology with significant limitations for this application. Satellite availability depending on lat/long, time of day, weather, water, urban canyons or metal roofs (water and metal attenuate GPS signals almost instantly) would all influence the weapon’s availability. How many ruined hunts due to sat availability?

    RFID might work. However, if people can hack a smart phone this would be pie. It’s really pointless given the availability of CNC mills and soon 3D printers.

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  14. They’re calling it the “Firearm Automatic Lockout Internal Safety device.” Just switch one word around… Firearm Automatic Internal Lockout Safety = FAILS.

    There. Fixed it.

    There is no such thing as a foolproof or tamper-proof mechanical device, let alone an electronic one.

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  15. This idea is so incredibly dumb and poorly thought out to boot. . .
    From the video it appears there would be absolutely nothing to stop someone from ripping that little chunk of tech out, I know that’s the first thing I would do. . .

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  16. And…just how long does this GPS take to sync up to enable my firearm in the event that someone is breaking into my house? I don’t want something acting like my gps and taking 20 seconds to sync up if I have an armed man coming into my house and threatening my life. I want to be able to defend myself first, then answer any questions later.

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  17. I heard somebody talking about him on a radio show a while ago. Apparently that mall is in such a dangerous part of town that the local police don’t like going there. They basically let him get away with everything because he’s the only one keeping the place from being total anarchy, because he’s the only one stupid enough to try.

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    • Yeah if this is the place Im thinking of over by Five Points, its not anywhere you wanna be. Trouble will find you if you hang out there long enough. Id bet a dollar he wasnt the only one there packing a gun.

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  18. I wonder if he has trauma plates duct taped to his back so he can lay down supressing fire while his female sniper can shoot the Chechnyan terrorists trying to violate the mayors nephew.

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  19. This is rent-seeking of the worst kind. Make some worthless product that noone wants, and use the government to make it a mandatory addition to all firearms. In otherwords, who needs the free market when we can force people to buy this whether they want to or not.

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  20. Landers is a “Fudd” – one of those disingenuous gun owners who believes that no respectable patriot should ever own one of those new-fangled “black plastic guns”. If the magazine holds more than 5 rounds, it’s semi-auto, and there’s no wood or fancy metal scrollwork on it, they don’t consider it a legitimate firearm. Because of their superiority complex, they will gladly put Glocks and ARs on the legislative chopping block at the drop of a hat. There’s a reason that some “sporting arms” groups support gun control – they don’t want poor people with their sub-$2000 firearms interrupting their dove season wank sessions.

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  21. This isn’t a win. This is just politicians backpedaling in an attempt to save face before this unconstitutional BS gets blocked via injunction or thrown out in court.

    “See, we’re not so bad. This proves we’re reasonable and open to compromise.”

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  22. Winston Churchill is known for having provided clear warnings about the dangers of Nazi Germany many years before WW2 began. Churchill also gave warnings in the late ’40s or early ’50s about the rise of the women’s movement leading to the spreading of other liberal causes and values in society. He referred to the women’s movement as the tip of the spearhead.

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  23. Don’t forget that he himself needs some changes, for the retired police, etc. Unless he has enough votes to give him just the changes he wants, he may be forced to compromise.

    I was under the impression that the idea of the compromise was that a 10-round magazine could after all be sold, but he would insist that the magazines still not be loaded with more than 7 rounds. If that’s not enough of a face-saver for him, well, we’ll have to wait and see how this plays out.

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  24. Hey Nick,
    Nice work with the SCAR 16s; especially on your first match.
    You may want to practice with your charging handle back on the left side of the SCAR. While the handle will gently remind you to keep your thumb out of the way and not back by the mag well (it only takes once); left-side access makes it much easier for charging, clearing and racking while keeping your gun positioned on target. If you watch Hanish or Lund from the team with their racks/clears it’s evident that it’s a tactical advantage for a righty. In fact, many of the SCAR users will even go as far as ejecting the mag/racking slide to clear all rounds before dumping into the barrel. It’s not quite as fast as engaging the safety; but adds the added security that you KNOW it’s safe in the barrel.

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  25. Yes, I think everyday citizens should be able to freely purchase (at reasonable prices), own, and possess fully automatic pistols and rifles.

    The Swiss have lots of fully automatic rifles and ammunition in their homes. Nothing has happened there.

    Let’s face it. If a lunatic wants to harm scores of people, there are countless EASY ways to do it. It would be a simple matter to drive a car through the parking lot of an NFL stadium as the fans pour into the lot and kill more than 100 people. The possibilities are endless.

    On the other hand, a citizen could definitely encounter situations where they would absolutely NEED a full auto firearm to prevail against determined criminals.

    In the end it doesn’t really matter one way or another. It isn’t government’s job to tell us what types of property we can make or purchase. It is government’s job to help us secure our property, liberty, and lives.

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  26. Since 1933, the number of American killed by drunk driver is more than xxx,xxx,xxx. I’d like to see the correct answer to that and then someone rant that we need to hold Ford, Chevy, Dodge, the UAW and anyone else connected to the auto industry responsible for those deaths. This notion that Bushmaster, Colt, Barrett, etc are complicit in murder and should be the subject of civil suits is bullshit. I’d like see M.A.D.D. launch a campaign to shut down Ford Motor Company because some drunk plowed into a bus stop full of kids with his Mustang. Ain’t gonna happen.

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