The hunting gun: a thought experiment

Spun off from another thread:

Suppose a gun could be designed that, by whatever mechanism, would not shoot at a human, only at animals. For realism's sake, it's probably possible to render the mechanism nonfunctional, but it's difficult to do so without destroying the gun. For most users, this would be a gun purely for hunting and for target shooting—no self-defense applications unless you club someone over the head with it, but little risk of accidental injury to yourself or others.

What should be done with such a design? Should it be optional or mandated on new guns? If mandated, who gets an exemption? What would we do with all the old guns that don't have the mechanism? What would we do about arms smuggling from other countries that would continue to use the old design?

That's Feo . . . He's a disgusting, mysoginistic, paedophilic asshat who moonlights as a shitty writer—Something Awful

There is no mechanical way you can make a gun discriminate between targets. Electronic yes, but that will be unfeasible in full-scale.

edited 19th Jul '11 6:08:19 PM by MajorTom

"Allah may guide their bullets, but Jesus helps those who aim down the sights."

@Tom: That's why this is a thought experiment and not a real one.

edited 19th Jul '11 6:08:48 PM by Sivartis

♭What.

My point still remains. It will be unfeasible to create such a weapon. It can be done, but it will neither be popular nor economical. (Meaning hunters won't buy it to begin with no matter if it was mandated by law or not.)

"Allah may guide their bullets, but Jesus helps those who aim down the sights."

FWIW, gun laws already exempt older guns from the regulations, on the principle that collector's items are less likely to be used in crimes.

But work on such designs is proceeding, from RFID to code-locks.

edited 19th Jul '11 6:10:42 PM by blueharp

If you had each hunter wearing a widget so that it woudl show up in an electronic scope, you could ensure that hunters woudl be less likely to shoot each other. Maybe. But only if everyone wore the tags and everyone had the special scopes.

Happiness is zero-gee with a sinus cold.

No worse a problem than everybody supposed to see the orange vests.

@Tom... you are Completely Missing The Point.

The point is, how would this affect gun legislation. It is not "How would one work," its how it would affect legislation.

I think that all guns save for a single-shot self-defense gun should have this installed. Pistols are completely disallowed from not having it.

Very big Daydream Believer. "That's not knowledge, that's a crapshoot!" -Al Murray "Welcome to QI" -Stephen Fry

^ It would be rather useless from a legislation standpoint. (And don't turn this into a gun control law thread, we already have one and you already know my stance on the issue.) People will merely disable it and there's nothing you can do to curb it short of go totalitarian on folks.

"Allah may guide their bullets, but Jesus helps those who aim down the sights."

This would be a fantastic invention if it were done. In such a case, it would be optional, but you would have to specify what you are using the gun for. A gun meant for range shooting would shoot at inanimate objects, a gun for hunting would shoot animals, and a gun meant for home defense would be built to certain specification and would not have the device.

Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! ~ GOD

Tom, this is not about an actual device, its a "what if." What if it was real? Debate that instead of telling us there's no point in it.

Very big Daydream Believer. "That's not knowledge, that's a crapshoot!" -Al Murray "Welcome to QI" -Stephen Fry

If it was real it would be optional. Few folks are going to subject their firearms to Crippling Overspecialization.

"Allah may guide their bullets, but Jesus helps those who aim down the sights."

8

I don't think it'd matter at all, gun laws already cover pre-existing firearms, and they cover imports, and they cover disabling safety mechanisms like this would be.

They'd just follow their existing practices.

I'm not well read on gun laws, I was jsut thinking about what a possible piece of legislation would look like.

Thank you.

And I disagree, in that I think that there would be a not insignificant movement to make the devices mandatory on most guns.

edited 19th Jul '11 6:22:58 PM by Enkufka

Very big Daydream Believer. "That's not knowledge, that's a crapshoot!" -Al Murray "Welcome to QI" -Stephen Fry

Well, whether or not you could make it mandatory would depend on the technical details. If you want to hand-wave that it's easy to put on an existing firearm, then I'd say with exceptions for historical examples, it would be conceivable to make it mandatory to retrofit.

An ugly mess as everybody and their brother tried to make it suit their needs.

edited 19th Jul '11 6:25:57 PM by blueharp

For this to work, though, it... well, you'd need an electronic triggering mechanism, so that the gun would safe itself if aimed at a prohibited target, plus a way for the weapon to recognize if it was aimed at a prohibited target in the first place.

Basically, a smartgun.

It would reduce friendly fire instances, though.

Happiness is zero-gee with a sinus cold.

If such a device could be made, there would certainly be a strong push to make it mandatory. If it was made mandatory, there would spring up an very strong underground industry in disabling it. The idea that a gun should be a single-target weapon is anathema to many gun-owners.

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

Nothing. The only safety I trust is the one built between my ears. The others are just extra precautions.

Optional. One of the many reasons why I own firearms is on the off chance I may have to defend myself or others against another human being, therefore such a safety is nothing but a hindrance to myself.

They should be left alone, and as above, new guns shouldn't be forced to have the new safety, either.

@Enkufka, If you want to have just a taste of some of the gun laws in the United States, read a couple of my posts from The Right To Keep and Bear Arms thread.

@Madrugada, I'll be the first to admit that I have instructions on how to convert some of my semi-automatic firearms to a full-auto configuration. If people want something badly enough, they'll get a hold of it.

edited 19th Jul '11 7:14:13 PM by Driscoll

WHAT A HORRIBLE NIGHT TO HAVE A DIALOG BOX INTERRUPT GAMEPLAY.

@OP, what you're talking about is basically SOP. It has many advantages to it and is mandated and prolific to the point where practically all weapons have it installed. SOP ensures that guns only work for personnel with a positive ID in their nanites and helps regulate friendly fire and civilian casualties. In that game there is a market for non-ID "laundered" guns that have an exemption to this system. old guns made before SOP was implemented don't have this lock.

edited 19th Jul '11 7:16:42 PM by Gault

yey

First of all, I would never let anyone put such a device on any of my guns, and I'm completely against the idea.

But, for the sake of the OP, if one was available that was cheap to make and install then I could see it being put on all newer guns, so it had to be built into all new weapons that were made, while all the old weapons were exempt. Weapons from before this device was made would be worth primo cash eventually. I'd start buying guns like a mofo and selling them several years later.

This would suck ass for gun companies though, as it would add to the expense of making a gun in the first place, which means the prices of these shitty one dimensional weapons would go way up and nobody would buy them, it would still be cheaper to buy a pre-ban gun for quite a few decades. It's the exact same concept as a California Legal AR-15.. They have a mechanism in them that makes them harder to reload that is mandated by the state of California. However, they are also god awful expensive compared to a regular AR-15 that hasn't been neutered. The only reason that anybody buys a cali-legal AR is because they can't buy the cheap ones that actually work properly legally, thus causing torrents of anger amongst Cali gun owners.

edited 19th Jul '11 7:24:35 PM by Barkey

Well then what happens when the battlefield has a revolution in personal weapons technology? If old guns are the only ones people like you are able to use, then you're restricted to only be able to use outdated weapons. You will die if you try to go up against modern forces armed with System weapons.

edited 19th Jul '11 7:31:36 PM by Gault

yey

^ In Afghanistan, some of the best weapons there date from the First World War. Old bolt action rifles like the Mosin-Nagant and Lee-Enfield excel in open terrain fighting there compared to assault rifles.

It's just a good thing the hadjis are unable to use that advantage and are such poor shots otherwise we'd be outgunned.

"Allah may guide their bullets, but Jesus helps those who aim down the sights."

I hate to say it here, but Tom is right. There isn't really any small arms weapon revolution that I can see that could make any of those weapons obsolete. A bolt action rifle from a century old design can still be a damn good rifle today. The only sort of revolution that we could possibly have to make what you're saying viable is a type of armor that renders gunpowder weapons useless, and then weapons that can kill people wearing that armor. Otherwise, there's nothing you can really do to gunpowder weapons to make them obsolete. Even then, regular citizens don't walk around with cutting edge body armor.

And why are we talking about a war and the sort of damage these weapons do and how they compare to military grade weapons? I thought we were talking about the legal, economical, and political ramifications of a device for a weapon that is incapable of harming humans.

Needless to say, there isn't much of a point for me to use a weapon like that. I target shoot not just because I enjoy it, but because I want to be accurate in the event that I need to shoot a human. It'd really defeat the purpose if I bought a weapon that outright couldn't shoot humans, short of maybe practicing fundamentals so I could use a pre-ban gun to shoot humans. I'm so far along on accuracy at this stage in the game that I don't need to practice to hit a deer, I just practice being able to shoot shit with a really good grouping and consistent accuracy faster and further than I could before.

edited 19th Jul '11 8:00:05 PM by Barkey

You're right. Better get this thread back on-topic. Glad this didn't turn into a massive diversion.

yey

Thread Hop: My preference would be to have an optional toggle on it.

Fight smart, not fair.