Wrap that tinfoil tight and follow me, troops.

The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) has released preliminary guidelines “to define the minimum technical requirements that law enforcement agencies expect from smart guns.” Without having downloaded and studied the recommendations in the document – because really, who gives a damn? – I must say the ones mentioned in the article I linked seem perfectly reasonable…

More than one person can be programmed (sic) to operate the gun, and the security device must not alter the normal operation of grasping and firing the pistol, nor increase the time needed to grab, draw from a holster and fire the weapon.

If electromagnetic interference may affect the security device, countermeasure detection tech must also be installed to allow the user to fire the gun “when an attempt to block the authorization process is detected.”

The security device must covertly inform the operator when the gun is ready to fire, and if it uses batteries, the batteries may be rechargeable, but must be replaceable. And if power is running low, the security device must warn the user with sufficient time to safely take action. Finally, if the security device malfunctions, it must default to a state to allow the pistol to fire, and should be designed to be easy to reset or disengage in such cases.

No argument here. If I were designing a smart gun I’d probably include every one of those specifications. Which makes me wonder…

When some government agency issues specifications for some product and the specs make perfect sense because yeah, that’s the way you’d want the product to work, you have to wonder why the hell that agency is bothering to write the document. Wouldn’t the product come out looking like that anyway? And in any case, why is the National Institute of Justice issuing specs for a theoretical consumer product?

The answer to that last question is where this goes from pointless to apparently brainless, because the document under development isn’t about a consumer product.

After publication, the specs are meant to provide guidance to the private industry for manufacturers to develop weapons that meet law enforcers’ needs.

That part of the weapons industry catering to law enforcement spasmodically becomes greatly concerned about the possibility of cops getting shot with their own guns, and in the course of these spasms there is great traffic in new and different – but seldom better – retention devices. What you don’t hear about is great interest in “smart” guns, because every law enforcement agency that ever publicly issued an opinion on the subject has let it be known that hell will freeze over before they will ever issue any weapon with any electronic gadget whose purpose is to cause the weapon to fail to fire.

And the feds won’t force them to do so, and this document seems to recognize that it really couldn’t anyway…

The document is not a mandate that individuals or law enforcement agencies must use the new technology when it’s developed.

So what’s the point? Please allow Uncle Joel to get out the tinfoil here…

The gun controllers love the whole idea of smart guns, of course. Smart guns are intrinsically restricted, and gun restrictions are good when you’re a gun grabber. They love the idea so much that some of them in legislatures, particular in New Jersey, jumped the gun (heh) by quite a lot.

The amended bill specifies that three years after it is determined that personalized handguns are available for retail purposes, it will be illegal for any registered or licensed firearms manufacturer or dealer to transport, sell, expose for sale, possess for sale, assign or transfer any handgun unless that handgun is a personalized handgun.

As soon as “smart” guns are available for sale, only “smart” guns will be permitted to be sold. Gee – what could possible go wrong with that? For some completely unfathomable reason, actual gun owners looked at that law and said, “Not only no but hell no.” Interest in “smart” guns dried up instantly, and the whole idea got wrapped in a controversy that wouldn’t have existed had the gun grabbers only kept their censorious mouths shut. As a result, there isn’t any development money available for a product that under specific circumstances would actually make a lot of sense.

Gun grabbers are reduced to screeching about evil gun owners who refuse to consider “smart” guns, carefully ignoring that it’s the grabbers’ mandates we object to. And so even if “smart” gun technology is possible in serious centerfire calibers, it remains undeveloped.

(Here comes Joel’s conspiracy theory) Enter the National Institute of Justice, writing specifications for a wholly fictitious LEO-Only smart gun. Following the finalization of these specs, will development funds suddenly become available from the federal government? Which will result in sort-of-market-ready “smart” guns which will be instantly rejected by the LEO market but mandated on the “civilian” market?

Except of course that the “civilian” version – the only version – won’t be constrained by that pesky “no electromagnetic interference” requirement. All proper guns will become as illegal for ownership as the feds can possibly make them, and we’ll all be reduced to carrying “smart” guns that cops can disable at will.

I’ll never make a good Alex Jones, but this is a conspiracy I can imagine some federal SJWs getting excited about.

[I]t’s nice to see the authorities make strides towards President Obama’s goal of developing advanced gun safety technology.

Safety. Yeah. That’s what this is about.