Re: GUNS: Re: Self Defense

From: S.J. Van Sickle (sjvan@csd.uwm.edu)
Date: Sat Jan 20 2001 - 11:07:47 MST


On Sat, 20 Jan 2001 GBurch1@aol.com wrote:

> Regarding the idea of a "self-reporting" gun, I think such a thing has a lot
> of promise. I understand the point of those who are suspicious of the
> reporting being done to a government agency, since such weapons might not
> always be used justifiably in a high-trust society in which the government's
> police force is subject to strict legal controls and open public oversight.
> Perhaps the weapon could report to an independent repository that would only
> release the data after a lawful subpoena, adding a level of due process to
> the process. This wouldn't effectuate the "automatic" nature of the weapon
> summoning the police and disabling itself but, as has been pointed out, such
> a function could be subject to hacking that could defeat the weapon's
> usefulness as a tool for self-defense and could even be turned against its
> use.

This reminds me of th facet of medeival Icelandic law (according to David
Friedman, anyway) where a killing was only considered "murder" if it was
hidden and no formal attempt to notify the neighbors made.

steve



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