Articles by Herschel Smith

I have my disagreements with Larry Keane, but this piece at NSSF conveys buried but recently released views by the administration on so-called “smart guns.”

He’s right on one count. As vice president, he did deal with tech leaders to attempt combining authorized-user, or so-called “smart gun” technology into firearms. It didn’t work. It didn’t get to the point where it could even be properly tested.

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Early on in the presidential campaign, President Biden claimed, “… we have the capacity now in a James Bond-style to make sure no one can pull a trigger unless their DNA and fingerprint is on it.” That’s some serious science-fiction fantasy technology. It makes for a good movie. In real life, it’s clumsy and failure prone at best and impossible at worst.

The president’s campaign trail claim of DNA-enabled smart guns is completely false. No one has introduced technology that would match a DNA sample to activate a firearm. However, attempts have been made at fingerprint-style authorized user-technology. Think of the way a fingerprint is used to open a smartphone. Now, think of all the times a smartphone won’t open when a fingerprint is applied. A little wet, not the right angle, dirty, God-forbid bloody… all these can cause a failure of the fingerprint lock to not activate the technology.

In a life-or-death situation when an individual is under duress and trying to activate the tool that would save their lives, swiping a fingerprint screen is the last concern. If your iPhone doesn’t open, you’re inconvenienced. If your firearm doesn’t work at the moment you need it you could be dead. That’s why study and survey work on this topic show that reliability is of paramount concern. Because the technology is not yet sufficiently reliable, there is very limited consumer interest in purchasing authorized-user equipped firearms.

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Let me be explicitly clear, contrary to the false claims of gun control groups the firearm industry does not oppose the research and potential development of this technology being applied to firearms. Consumers are best left to decide what they want and the free market does a good job of weeding out bad ideas so good ones flourish. What NSSF strongly opposes, however, is the mandate of such technology, like what has recently been proposed by U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.). She introduced H.R. 1008, legislation that would mandate that every gun sold within five years be equipped with the unworkable technology. It goes further. It also would require all legacy firearms be retrofitted within 10 years. That’s sure to go over well with collectors.

Here Larry simply isn’t precise enough.  I would love nothing more than for investors to throw their money away on this only to find out that no one wanted it.

What we must oppose, however, is government (think here taxpayer) sponsored research.  But one of the real reasons for such stuff wasn’t discussed.

A trio of computer scientists from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York recently published research detailing a potential AI intervention for murder: an ethical lockout.

The big idea here is to stop mass shootings and other ethically incorrect uses for firearms through the development of an AI that can recognize intent, judge whether it’s ethical use, and ultimately render a firearm inert if a user tries to ready it for improper fire.

That sounds like a lofty goal, in fact the researchers themselves refer to it as a “blue sky” idea, but the technology to make it possible is already here.

According to the team’s research:

Predictably, some will object as follows: “The concept you introduce is attractive. But unfortunately it’s nothing more than a dream; actually, nothing more than a pipe dream. Is this AI really feasible, science- and engineering-wise?” We answer in the affirmative, confidently.

The research goes on to explain how recent breakthroughs involving long-term studies have lead to th

e development of various AI-powered reasoning systems that could serve to trivialize and implement a fairly simple ethical judgment system for firearms.

This paper doesn’t describe the creation of a smart gun itself, but the potential efficacy of an AI system that can make the same kinds of decisions for firearms users as, for example, cars that can lock out drivers if they can’t pass a breathalyzer.

This just gets better and better.  As I’ve said before, “Perform a fault tree analysis of smart guns.  Use highly respected guidance like the NRC fault tree handbook.

Assess the reliability of one of my semi-automatic handguns as the first state point, and then add smart gun technology to it, and assess it again.  Compare the state points.  Then do that again with a revolver.  Be honest.  Assign a failure probability of greater than zero (0) to the smart technology, because you know that each additional electronic and mechanical component has a failure probability of greater than zero.

Get a PE to seal the work to demonstrate thorough and independent review.  If you can prove that so-called “smart guns” are as reliable as my guns, I’ll pour ketchup on my hard hat, eat it, and post video for everyone to see.  If you lose, you buy me the gun of my choice.  No one will take the challenge because you will lose that challenge.  I’ll win.  Case closed.  End of discussion.”

Now, consider the superimposition of an AI ethical lockout on top of all of the other failure modes introduced by this “technology” (I use the word loosely, because improved technology is something that should make the machine simpler and less prone to failure modes, not more complex and more prone to failure).

Also as I’ve observed, the desire to control others is the signal pathology of the wicked.  In the instance of smart guns, the control is just remote rather than just at the point of purchase.

News from New Jersey.

New Jersey is asking a judge to force Smith & Wesson Brands Inc. to hand over internal documents, the latest twist in an ongoing legal fight over how the gun manufacturer advertises to residents.

The state first demanded marketing information in October. The Massachusetts-based company sued soon after, arguing that it wasn’t obligated to provide anything.

The gun manufacturer “claims that it is above the law — that it can deceive consumers and potential consumers of its products without consequence,” the state attorney general’s office wrote in court documents filed Friday.

The state’s subpoena was lawful and a court should enforce it, a deputy attorney general wrote.

A spokesman for New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal declined comment. Smith & Wesson representatives did not respond to a request for comment, nor did they comment on their lawsuit earlier.

The subpoena came after Grewal’s office asked outside lawyers to help investigate how gun companies promote their products.

Smith & Wesson said in its lawsuit that this all amounted to an “unconstitutional fishing expedition” designed to weaken the Second Amendment.

Grewal’s office pushed back, saying last week that state law allowed them to dig into anyone advertising within New Jersey.

The review was not about “the product Smith & Wesson sells, but the representations and omissions in its marketing and advertising,” state officials argued in court documents, and the investigation has shown that some ads “may misrepresent the impact owning a firearm has on personal safety.”

Some Smith & Wesson ads also promoted carrying concealed firearms without mentioning that New Jerseyans needed a permit to conceal carry, state officials wrote.

So get this.  The state of New Jersey wants S&W to inform potential buyers that N.J. required a permit to carry a concealed handgun.  Yes, you read that right.

Two things.  First, to S&W, ignore them.

Second, to S&W, get out of the North.  Leave there forever.  Come South.  You won’t be treated like that here.  You should have learned that by now.  There is no reason for you to stay where you are in a unionized state.

And if that court presses the issue, then inform all law enforcement agencies in N.J. that you will no longer be selling any of your products to them.

Say it ain’t so.

“Last week, the Biden administration promised gun control groups that it will soon roll out a massive push for limits on firearm purchases and other measures. President Biden reiterated that promise on Sunday. And the television networks aren’t waiting to lay the groundwork for this effort. CBS is in a full-court press for gun control on its evening entertainment television shows. The bad guys are always white supremacists who use machine guns — supposedly AR-15s — to commit mass public shootings. Criminals in Mexico supposedly get machine guns from the United States. A father’s desire to protect his family only leads to tragedy when his daughter gets into the gun safe and uses the weapon in a mass public shooting. And guns in the home pose a danger for children. Gun registration is necessary for solving crime. NBC isn’t to be left out, showing a woman who tried but failed to use a gun to protect herself. Instead, her gun was taken from her and used to kill a police officer. The lesson is that owning a gun will only bring you grief. And that’s just in the first six weeks of the year. Every show gives an inaccurate impression about firearms, thereby helping in this push for gun restrictions. It’s as though these shows were written by Michael Bloomberg’s gun control organizations. Indeed, the networks are working with these groups.”

Oh I don’t think it’s that hard to get machine guns or any other kind of weapon from the U.S. to Mexico.  Just ask the U.S. DoJ and the ATF.  They’re experts at it.  And then just to clean up the mess they’ll prosecute and imprison the very FFL they forced to do the transfers.  Wipe, wipe, scrub, scrub, clean as a whistle.  No muss, no fuss.

As for TV, does anyone really watch that any more?  I don’t watch television.  Oh, I have to admit that I might turn on “For a Few Dollars More” just to watch the masterful job Lee Van Cleef does with the character Colonel Douglas Mortimer.  It’s just awesome viewing late at night on a Friday after a week of work.

Somehow, I don’t think Hollywood is happy with me feasting my eyes on righteous gun play for two hours and then ignoring all of their other crap.

And somehow I sense that they are desperate.  They want to be relevant in a market that is making them increasingly irrelevant.  They feel left out.  Pity.

In the land to the North (via WiscoDave).

A pastor in Edmonton, Canada was just tried, sentenced, and jailed for refusing to follow government pandemic mandates.

Pastor James Coates of GraceLife Church was charged and arrested after last Sunday’s service with repeatedly failing to follow mask and 15% capacity mandates.

His crime? Hosting 300 maskless people who voluntarily gathered inside to worship God, taking a willing 99% chance of surviving a virus to obey their Savior’s command to gather and build the church.

Since being put in prison, he has been sitting “in isolation in a cell block.” Just a few days later, the government has already tried him and handed down a sentence to prison for his high crimes and treason against sCiEnCe.

His wife Erin said the government “went for the jugular” and “tried him in secret.” She also said he must promise to “not pastor anymore” in order to be released, but that he is unwilling to do so.

The survival rate is much higher than that.  As for their little “secret” trial, how utterly absurd.

“Shall not God search this out? for he knoweth the secrets of the heart.”  Psalm 44:21

Someone is piling agony on top of agony for themselves in judgment one day soon.  God will not be mocked.  Nothing is secret – He knows everything and judges with a righteous judgment.  There won’t even be a response from the accused on that awful day of judgment.  The tyrant’s lips will be sealed, and they will be prostrate before the ruler of the universe, the real judge, not a pretend judge.

Of course, this may happen in time too.  As always, ignore commands from the state when they conflict with the commands of God.  Maybe a righteous prison break would be in order.  Followed by an armed defense of the pastor’s home and family.

This is horrific.

Brooklyn: Flatbush Avenue & Parkside Avenue, person #CaughtOnCamera beating up a biker with a bat until he falls to the ground unconscious. pic.twitter.com/3PXr06gCNc

— NYC Scoop (@NY_Scoop) February 18, 2021

The victim is still not conscious and is in critical condition.  But the problem is easy to solve.  Shoot him.

Put a slug into the thug’s belly to stop him, and then put another into his head to make sure he doesn’t get back up and start again.  The upshot is that he would never be able to harm someone like this again.

Move from New York where you cannot defend yourself.  Get out of there.  It is the land of communists.

And remember Herschel’s Dictum.  Always.

I have a family member who lives in Austin, Texas.  This is a video he sent me (he didn’t take it, but is near where this video was taken).  This video is a couple of days old.  This line was about a mile long as guessed by the videographer.  There are no more lines like that because the grocery stores are out of food.

The trucks haven’t been able to run, so the shelves are bare.  Worse, the water system is torn apart by freezing temperatures, and water is off to most of the city.  There is no potable water, there is no more food.  There is now a run on gasoline, and the stations are quickly running out their tanks.

Power is off throughout vast portions of Austin and in fact throughout much of Texas.  It would be easy to write an essay about the power situation, but denials that the rush to natural gas and windmills is at least partially responsible are wrong.

The windmills are frozen, and the CTs (Combustion Turbines) sit above ground.  They are frozen solid and cannot operate.  Solar panels are covered with snow and ice, and besides, wouldn’t be capable of supplying the industrial base with enough power even if they could operate.

While there is a lot of research in next generation nuclear (like Molten Salt reactors) occurring at ORNL and ANL, and that’s nice, it wouldn’t have been necessary to wait on that.  PWR (Pressurized Water Reactor) and BWR (Boiling Water Reactor) technology is mature and safe.

The problem is that no CEO wants to invest money in nuclear power because the tax incentives are so significant for solar panels.  But the only source of cheap, clean, mature energy that can supply an industrial base with power is nuclear.  Unless, of course, they intend to move the industrial base to China (which is in fact investing huge sums of money in nuclear) and then beg for scraps that fall from the master’s table.

My family member is safe and sound with copious supplies for everything, and I told him that the only people who would have been prepared for something like this is preppers.  He responded that people do in fact listen to the government and that had a warning come out in time to concern yourself with potable water, run water into bathtubs, get freeze dried foods, visit the grocery stores, get batteries, get medical kits, stock up on ammunition, get charcoal and be prepared to grill, have enough water to flush toilets, and so on and so forth, the people would have responded.

I told him that he had misunderstood what I said.  I meant that the only people who worry about preparations like this without being told to by the government is preppers, and that he was prepared because we talked about this sort of thing before.

He agreed.  Most of America is 24-48 hours from starvation and dehydration.  If the water system and/or electric grid goes down, people must be prepared for that.  Preparation isn’t just for the Northwestern redoubt, with all due respect to the folks at the Survival Blog.  In fact, it may be more difficult in an urban area like Austin than it would be in Idaho, weather notwithstanding.

News from New Hampshire.

The New Hampshire House is considering recommending a constitutional amendment that would prevent future state laws from restricting firearm ownership, one of a series of gun rights bills proposed this year.

The proposal, officially called Constitutional Amendment Concurrent Resolution 8 would prevent the Legislature from passing any law “restricting the right to own, carry, or use firearms or firearm accessories.”

But some gun rights groups say that the amendment needs to be workshopped, and could have unintended consequences for firearms use in the state.

New Hampshire’s constitution already contains a version of the Second Amendment in the U.S. Constitution, which states: “All persons have the right to keep and bear arms in defense of themselves, their families, their property and the State.”

This legislation would add two following sentences. “The Legislature shall enact no law that limits the right of a person to own, carry, or use firearms or firearm accessories in any manner that would create a greater burden than that in federal law,” the amendment states. “Any federal law that infringes upon rights guaranteed in this New Hampshire Constitution shall be unenforceable by New Hampshire law enforcement.”

Rep. Terry Roy, the bill’s sponsor, said the amendment was intended to protect firearm rights, and stop the see-sawing of gun legislation between Republican and Democratic legislatures.

“The reason I’m introducing this bill is because I’ve heard from many constituents that they are frankly a little tired of every two years, or four years, or whatever it may be, that power shifts in the State House, and they are concerned about having their rights infringed upon based on whatever political winds are blowing in Concord,” said Roy, a Deerfield Republican.

The constitutional amendment would recognize the federal government’s ability to pass its own firearms restrictions, Roy said, but it would prevent local and state law enforcement from enforcing it. Those new restrictions could only be enforced by federal agents, Roy added.

Roy said he would prefer the amendment to prevent any federal firearms laws from taking jurisdiction, but thought that it wouldn’t be constitutional.

This would be a step in the right direction for New Hampshire, but it doesn’t go far enough.  As for Mr. Roy, he’s kicking the can down the road.  This is all going to come to a head sooner or later, and when it does, the question of constitutionality won’t come up except in law offices here and there.

On the street, the people will demand what they are demanding in other states like Missouri, namely, that state and county LEOs arrest and charge federal agents for enforcing federal gun control laws.

You can run, but you cannot hide.  This is coming, and it’s better to get state legislators on board now with what must be done.

Reddit/firearms.

My family and I had a pretty wild encounter with a deputy sheriff last year. The legal case has ended and I guess I can share the story with people now.

Every year my father in law sets up a legal dove hunt on opening weekend. This is private land in an extremely rural county. While the field last year was setup only about 1/2 mile from a road, the land is part of a fairly large cattle farm and we were over a mile away from the nearest neighbor.

We didn’t have that many birds coming in, but we were having a good time when at about 7:30AM a deputy sheriff pulled into the field with his lights on. He rolled down his window and said the hunt was over and we needed to pack up and leave.

My father in law said that we wouldn’t be doing that and asked if he was lost. The deputy went on to be a smart ass and then said that he would take everyone to jail if we didn’t leave. A few more words were exchanged and by this time myself and my husband had walked up to his window. The deputy proceeded to get out of his car and ordered my father in law to put his gun on the ground (it was a o/u with the beach open). When my father in law refused the deputy reached for his pistol. The sound of the safety clicking off on my husband’s Citori stopped the deputies hand immediately and my stomach knotted up.

My father in law knew his son would pull the trigger if the deputy threatened his life. I knew he would, and I’m pretty sure the deputy figured that out as well. To de-escalate a extremely tense situation my father in law wisely said we would leave.

Later, a game warden became involved.  Visit the reddit/firearms link to see what happened.  Also check out the comments.

One thing is for sure.  At number one on my list of people I don’t want as enemies is game wardens.