Original at:

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment041900a.html

> 4/19/00 11:15 a.m.
> Smart Cops Saying ‘No’
> The police will not put up with a gun that is 99% reliable.
>
> By Dave Kopel
> Mr. Kopel is research director of the Independence Institute.
>
> The gun company formerly known as Smith & Wesson (now
> called “Clinton & Wesson” by Second Amendment advocates)
> has agreed that in a few years, it will produce only guns which
> have an internal computer chip, to prevent anyone except the
> owner from using the gun. Such “smart” guns might be fine for
> target shooting, but few people who want a gun for protection
> would want to risk their lives on a bet that the computer chip will
> always work perfectly in an emergency.
>
> The best proof of the dangers of computer guns, in an emergency
> situation, is that police refuse to buy them. Notably, the agreement
> between Smith & Wesson and the Clinton administration gives
> S&W an exemption for sales to police and the military. Likewise,
> mandatory computer gun proposals which were defeated in 1999
> in New Jersey and this March in Maryland, also contained police
> exemptions. That is because the bills? sponsors recognized that if
> the bills forced the police to buy computer guns, the state capitols
> would be deluged with police officers testifying against the
> mandate.
>
> Were computer guns actually reliable, no group could benefit more
> than police officers; one-seventh of all police shooting deaths are
> perpetrated with a gun that was snatched from a police officer.
> And police guns are uniquely vulnerable to being taken away,
> since they are normally worn on an exposed belt holster. (As
> opposed to defensive handguns carried by ordinary citizens, which
> by law are usually required to be carried concealed.)
>
> But when Sandia Labs in New Mexico evaluated every known
> form of personalized gun technology for possible police adoption,
> no technology was graded better than a ?B? ? because of
> reliability problems.
>
> Simply put, the police will not put up with a gun that is 99%
> reliable. And since civilians, like law enforcement officers, have the
> legal right to use deadly force to protect themselves or others from
> serious violent felonies, when no lesser force will suffice, civilians
> are just as entitled to be able to purchase 100% reliable firearms.
>
> Indeed, between police and ordinary citizens, it is the citizens who
> most need an exemption from the mandate. The firearms needs of
> an ordinary citizen who is being attacked by three gangsters are
> just about identical to the needs of a police officer who is being
> attacked by three gangsters. An ordinary citizen, though, may be
> more stressed during a confrontation, and thus more likely to have
> sweaty hands, or to shake while holding the guns, and thereby
> prevent a palm-print reader (one form of personalization
> technology) from working. A citizen away from home is much less
> likely to be carrying a second, back-up gun than is a police officer
> (police commonly carry back-up guns in ankle holsters), and thus
> the civilian is less likely to have an alternative if the first gun?s
> technology fails to operate. While police officers handle their guns
> every day, most domestic users who keep a gun for home
> protection do not; thus, the police officer will be alerted when a
> battery has gone dead, and needs to be replaced. The
> home-owner may not find out about the dead battery until he picks
> up the gun during an emergency; the home-owner?s widow may
> then discover a dead husband along with the dead battery.
>
> If computer handguns really are reliable, then politicians who want
> to mandate them should add something to the mandate law ? a
> provision waiving sovereign immunity, and providing full
> compensation for gun-owners (or their estates) who are injured or
> killed because a mandatory computer gun failed to function. If
> computer guns are reliable, then there should be no objection to
> assuaging the fears of skeptics; and this reassurance will not cost
> the government a penny. On the other hand, if computer guns are
> not reliable enough to put the government treasury at risk, neither
> should the safety of crime victims be put at risk.