Miguel writes about a company in Florida that embed GPSÂ tracking into firearms that allows them to be tracked via an iPhone app. Much like smart guns, I don’t mind this technology per-se, provided it lives or dies by the free market. If people want this kind of tracking in their firearms, more power too them.
But the fear is that such technology, once available, will be mandated. In a lot of ways, this kind of tracking is a hell of a lot more attractive to the state than smart gun technology. Technocrats love this kind of shit, because it offers at least some illusion of control. For all the talk about Trump being an authoritarian from the left, I sure do wish the left would look at the plank in their own eye before pointing out the splinter in someone else’s. In 2016, there’s plenty of authoritarianism going around in both parties.
So, uh, batteries? Not to mention the monthly service contract with a cellular provider.
If someone wants to geotag their guns, more power to them. People geotag their pets, their kids, their cars. But how does this work out on a forced-implementation basis? Especially since “safe storage” will run the batteries down faster, since the electronics won’t be able to communicate with the cellular network and will run the battery down trying.
5 seconds in a microwave oven…
The tip of a screwdriver makes a great pry and scrape tool, too. I will not allow anything in my firearms that I do not approve of and that most certainly includes RFID chips, GPS units, “dumb gun” firing interrupt mechanisms, and so on.
I don’t even want the free market to pursue these because of the real danger of a mandate and so we, as firearms owners, do need to pressure the techno-weenies to not go there. I don’t care that gun control advocates think this is horrible. I just know they will abuse any thing that does get through.
The ultimate seller is rebadging an existing hardware capability – though the pictured tags seem awfully small for a full-up GPS receiver and cellular transceiver. But, they make them small enough to go onto dog collars.
The practical considerations are that geo-tracking tags are low runtime devices; and a gun safe is a terrible environment for them to run long.
How hard would it be to remove the geotracking device, and put it on something innocent? The gun can be “seen” to be permanently at your home, for example…
If I had to have one (a police state where it was being monitored), I would attach it to the coffee maker.
Obama clearly indicated he wants GPS tracking in his “executive orders” in January. His one on “smart guns” talks about using them for tracking. Of course this shit will be mandated once it becomes real. Then they can see who has the firearms and remotely disable them.