Track Guns with GPS?

[JohnRich 4]

In the news:

Firearms tracking device urged

Saying gun manufacturers should take steps to track guns, a Boston city councilor is proposing that global positioning technology be installed in firearms.

Councilor Rob Consalvo wants to put a tracking device into newly manufactured guns and have legal gun owners retrofit their firearms so owners and police can locate and retrieve stolen guns the same way police use a computer chip to locate stolen cars.

Consalvo acknowledged that the cost of manufacturing guns with such a device could be high, but that it would be worth it.

Source: Boston.com

[Channman 2]

All my guns were stolen as mentioned in a previous thread. I'm dependent on you and the government for my protection.

Its a great plan, if your intent is to gather them all up when you finally have their locations and owners located.

[shropshire 0]

What a waste of time...... and so easily defeated... so only the good guys would have it enabled and anyone wanting to be naughty (or police/miltary - cus it would be really sensible to give their positions away) would defeat it.....

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

[markd_nscr986 0]

Dumb and Dumber

Marc SCR 6046 SCS 3004

[quade 4]

It's simply not practical with current technology.

GPS reception is -very- weak indoors and batteries to power the GPS and radio transmitter (think cell phone) would need constant recharging, but how would you enforce that?

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[kelpdiver 2]

hey, an idea even more stupid than 'personalized' weapons!

A large portion of gun owners keep their weapons locked up in a gun safe. No one would argue this is a bad thing. No practical transmitter will work well inside one.

[JohnRich 4]

Quote

batteries to power the GPS and radio transmitter (think cell phone) would need constant recharging, but how would you enforce that?

Well by gosh, we'll need to have home gun inspections, to ensure that the GPS batteries are active. Anyone found owning a gun with dead batteries, will have the offending property confiscated!

Likewise for anyone found with a gun that has the GPS chip removed.

The cost of retrofitting all currently owned guns, is to be borne by the gun owner. Failure to comply: confiscation.

And similar to red-light traffic cameras, if you are carrying your concealed handgun and violate some "no guns" zone, like within 1,000 feet of a school - you're automatically busted!

And just think how easy it will make police work. Any time a shooting gets reported, they can just pull up the GPS map on their cruiser's computer, and head for the closest dot on their screen - there's the guilty shooter!

My house would light-up like a christmas tree with all the tracking dots it would show on the GPS map...

Ve haf ways of making you comply!

Couldn't a criminal just wrap his gun in aluminum foil until the moment he walks in to the 7-11 to rob it?

[JohnRich 4]

Quote

A large portion of gun owners keep their weapons locked up in a gun safe. No one would argue this is a bad thing. No practical transmitter will work well inside one.

Yeah, but as soon as the owner removes one, the police can follow the sneaky bugger and make sure he's not up to no-good. You can't be too careful with those gun owners.

For those of you who answered "great idea" in the poll, please tell us why you think that way.

[peacefuljeffrey 0]

Um, and a clever criminal who stole a gun would not be able to maybe DROP it a few times and destroy the sensitive electronics in the GPS device implanted in it?

A city councilor who suggests such an idiotic science fiction non-solution, unable to see the obvious flaws in the plan's workability, does not deserve to be a "leader."


-

-Jeffrey
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

[peacefuljeffrey 0]

Where are these tiny, microchip-sized GPS devices that can so easily be "retrofitted" into existing guns?! Is this guy a MORON or what?!

What would indefinitely power a GPS device that is small enough to be put into a typical handgun? How would it be madeso that it could not be disabled by a determined criminal?

Does this jerkoff understand that the GPS satellite system does not know that your GPS handheld receiver (read that again: RECEIVER) is receiving its locator signal?

In other words, consumer GPS devices do not talk to the satellites. They receive the signals from the satellites which tell the device where it is located on the earth. The power to send a continuous (or even just continual) signal to the satellites to talk back and forth would be far too great a requirement for the standard handheld GPS to manage. And would you want this thing right near you blasting out enough radio waves to reach space? People bitch about the alleged cancer-causing radiation from cellular phones that have only to broadcast to a cell tower 1/2 mile away...


-

-Jeffrey
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

[shropshire 0]

It wouldn't need to transmit to space... just receive and the Tx to a ground based telecom system (like a mobile phone).


But it's still a crappy idea.

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

[peacefuljeffrey 0]

Quote

It wouldn't need to transmit to space... just receive and the Tx to a ground based telecom system (like a mobile phone).


But it's still a crappy idea.

It is indeed a crappy idea, particularly because it pretends like we have 50+ year, indestructible power cells, and that they're small enough to be placed along with their associated electronic devices, somewhere inside existing gun designs.

Really. Really. Really, people -- what the fuck is a guy SO STUPID doing in anelected position of leadership?!

Shropshire, if it worked as you said, it would not be "GPS," per se...


-

-Jeffrey
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

[billvon 2,991]

> it pretends like we have 50+ year, indestructible power cells, and
>that they're small enough to be placed along with their associated
>electronic devices, somewhere inside existing gun designs.

We do; they are just too expensive to use for such purposes.

[peacefuljeffrey 0]

Quote

> it pretends like we have 50+ year, indestructible power cells, and
>that they're small enough to be placed along with their associated
>electronic devices, somewhere inside existing gun designs.

We do; they are just too expensive to use for such purposes.

Okay, then: It pretends like there aren't 1001 reasons for this idea to be utterly implausible, not least of which are the expense, the potential for criminals to come up with creative ways to disable the device, and the fact that the signal would likely be blocked by any number of environmental factors.

-

-Jeffrey
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

[justinb138 0]

Quote

Um, and a clever criminal who stole a gun would not be able to maybe DROP it a few times and destroy the sensitive electronics in the GPS device implanted in it?
-

After firing it a few hundred times at the range, I doubt the electronics would still work. No need to drop it.

[billvon 2,991]

>It pretends like there aren't 1001 reasons for this idea to be utterly implausible . . .

Yes, but that's beside the point. If the device were 99.9999999% foolproof, lasted 100 years, weighed under a gram and was smaller than a BB, the pro-gun people here would be just as against it. It's primarily a gun-registration issue, not a technical one.

[peacefuljeffrey 0]

Quote

>It pretends like there aren't 1001 reasons for this idea to be utterly implausible . . .

Yes, but that's beside the point. If the device were 99.9999999% foolproof, lasted 100 years, weighed under a gram and was smaller than a BB, the pro-gun people here would be just as against it. It's primarily a gun-registration issue, not a technical one.

Well, I see it as both, to be sure.

Even if technically feasible, it would do nothing to prevent crime.

-

-Jeffrey
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

[shropshire 0]

<>

It would.... the GPS receiver identifies location... the transmitter sends this location to a ground station.. That's exactly how GPS tracking works now.

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

[quade 4]

Quote

Even if technically feasible, it would do nothing to prevent crime.

Oh! I see. You want us to suggest something that actually -would- work?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RFID

How about an RFID chip and readers in all government offices businesses? Gun enters a room where it doesn't belong (like a bank, court house, 7/11) and alarms go off. Certainly that -would- prevent quite a few crimes!

The RFID chip has no battery to wear out, is about the size of grain of rice and would simply ID the presence of the gun and it's serial number (not registration) number.

Sure any smart criminal could defeat that as well, but absence of the RFID chip could be (for the sake of this argument) another felony charge.

You'd still have the "right to bear arms" and there would be no gun registration per se. This wouldn't effect -anyone's- ability to hunt, use for target practice, collect or use guns for self defense at their homes and again, there would be no "registration".

How would you feel about that proposal (which as far as I can tell is totally feasable).

I'm guessing certain gun advocates would have a conniption fit over that idea so don't pretend like the only reasons you folks are pissed is just because the original GPS idea was impractical.

BTW, I'm NOT saying this is something that even I would advocate, only that some folks don't seem to have a handle on what is and isn't practical or what actually -could- work in certain circumstances.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[crozby 0]

Quote

Sure any smart criminal could defeat that as well, but absence of the RFID chip could be (for the sake of this argument) another felony charge.

with all the non chipped guns around it wouldn't prevent much crime IMHO.

[peacefuljeffrey 0]

Quote

How about an RFID chip and readers in all government offices businesses? Gun enters a room where it doesn't belong (like a bank, court house, 7/11) and alarms go off. Certainly that -would- prevent quite a few crimes!

Not even necessary.

I went down to where I used to pay to register my car, and they've changed the office; there's a big sign warning about what is not allowed in, and I could see that inside the glass doors was a metal-detector station like at an airport.

So I didn't go in. I'll mail the fucker to them. Even absent a gun, I have too much other knife-y material on me to get through, too. But they're making everybody saaaaaaferrrrrrr, so it must be okay.

-

-Jeffrey
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

[kelpdiver 2]

RFID transmissions can be shielded easily enough. The new passports supposedly will only be readable when open.

So again, you have a useless concept that only identifies the weapons you're not worried about.

[quade 4]

Quote

RFID transmissions can be shielded easily enough.

And yet they catch numerous shoplifters every day, so, uh, don't tell me they don't work!

Quote

The new passports supposedly will only be readable when open.

Because they're being -designed- that way.

Totally passive RFID has a range of a few millimeters (probably the case with the passports) to several 10s of meters (as is the case with the one in my car for the FastTrack toll roads).

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[mnealtx 0]

Quote

Quote

How about an RFID chip and readers in all government offices businesses? Gun enters a room where it doesn't belong (like a bank, court house, 7/11) and alarms go off. Certainly that -would- prevent quite a few crimes!

Not even necessary.

I went down to where I used to pay to register my car, and they've changed the office; there's a big sign warning about what is not allowed in, and I could see that inside the glass doors was a metal-detector station like at an airport.

So I didn't go in. I'll mail the fucker to them. Even absent a gun, I have too much other knife-y material on me to get through, too. But they're making everybody saaaaaaferrrrrrr, so it must be okay.

-

Yup...gotta love those "unarmed victim" - errr, um... I mean, "weapon free" zones!!

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[Scoop 0]

I think its a nice idea. I could see how it could be used, for example all modern mobile phones are required by law to have some chip in it which can therefore be located so in the event of an emergancy we can find them if needed.

Not quite sure how this would relate to gun use or control. Even if a criminal was stupid enough to use the weapon without disabling the GPS it wouldnt prove who had used it. Could be useful if someones house was searched and a weapon was found and they could retrospectively see which weapon was used in a crime.

Those tracker systems they have to locate stolen cars are also a waste of time. Noone ever gets results out of them, I fear it would be a similar story unless there was dedicated police patrols who specifically investogate these GPS gun anomalies on the screen.

Im sitting on the fence. It could be good idea, dont see how it would be practcle though.