Can IBM car technology pose threat to gun rights? Food for Thought

May 24, 10:20 AMGun Rights ExaminerDavid Codrea

What 'smart gun' technology is really all about
Did German 'smart gun' fail on video?
Smart Guns–Dumb LawsuitsIBM has hacked into a car. Now the multinational technology giant has applied for a patent to "manag[e] engines in response to a traffic signal."

From news.com.au:

If you're crawling through traffic in 2025 and approach a traffic light, IBM hopes it will be able to take control of your car.

And according to the patent, you won't be able to go again until it lets you.

...With a laptop and customised software called CarShark, the researchers disabled the brakes of a regular family car and switched its engine off - while it was moving.

Naturally, there's "good" reason given for doing this. In a word: "safety."

It seems to be the standard excuse for giving up all kinds of freedom to government control these days.

Government control?

The question most will ask is "Can it be be enshrined in legislation?". In a word, yes.

In 2008, it became mandatory for all American cars to be fitted with CAN (Controller Area Network), a standard protocol for enabling all the car's electronics to talk to each other, so there's one part of the puzzle in place.

OK, so what does this have to do with guns?

Some of us have been raising this warning flag for as long as we've been warning people about so-called "smart guns," except this would probably be a easier to accomplish.

What would? From "Things to Come," a Guns and Ammo article I wrote in 2002:

But perhaps the most immediate and insidious threat we face from technology comes under the guise of "safety— for the children," so-called "smart guns" under development and soon to be required in a state near you. Because...they're also lobbying for another technology they developed to be required on cars— a "shutoff switch" that police can activate by remote control, making the rest of us pay for the infinitesimal fraction of drivers who lead them on car chases.

As writer Vin Suprynowicz warns (and I and some others independently predicted), this technology could be used by the police as "an `electronic master key' to `disable' any `smart guns' in the house," and be used as a pretext to "ban the manufacture of any gun that ISN'T a `smart gun'."

So police can turn guns fitted with one "off" and incapable of firing—and that could be mandated. Anybody doubt it will be if remote shutoff technology becomes widespread?

Anybody doubt anti-gun activists, opportunistic politicians, ambitious police chiefs, LEO unions, and the like won't demand it in the name of "public and officer safety"? Anybody doubt they won't challenge the motives of anyone who would resist such a "reasonable restriction," painting them as "anti government extremists"? Especially when this technology would enable them to do more than post a sign in "gun free zones"?

And yes, of course criminals would ignore such a law. Yes, of course they would not retrofit their older guns, or would remove disablers from newer models, in violation, no doubt, of edicts threatening federal felony sentences and fines. Yes, of course, the smarter ones would learn how to hack into the system—and turn off cars, guns, and whatever else is so fitted and suits their purposes. And yes, of course police would be exempted (like with "smart guns," initially developed in response to police gun takeaway" incidents, they're not about to trust their lives to this nonsense)...

And the "only ones" who will be affected? Good ol' "law-abiding" gun owners. Of course.

Sound nuts? Hey, I'm not the one applying for a patent to take over control of your car. But, yeah, the overarching compulsion to control every aspect of another human being's life is, no doubt, indicative of a deeply disturbed mind.

The line associated with Mr. Franklin about giving up Essential Liberty to purchase Temporary Safety comes to mind.