Most Recent Smart Gun Fail Illustrates Continuing ‘Journalism’ Fail

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U.S.A. – -(Ammoland.com)- “During a demonstration to share holders last week, the operator clicks the key pad on the side of the 9mm smart gun,” self-described “AP & Emmy Award winning journalist” Christie Ileto of Philadelphia’s ABC 6 Action News tweeted. “Once unlocked, the smart gun is operable.”

To prove her point, she embeds a video from Lodestar Firearms demonstrating its gun being test-fired. Thing is, to paraphrase Bill Clinton, it depends upon what the meaning of the word “operable” is.

The operator clearly confirms he intends to fire “two rounds.” He fires one shot. Enlarging the video to full screen appears to show him squeezing the trigger a second time with no results.

Ileto introducing that by saying “the smart gun is operable” is one of those moments in journalism equivalent to NBC “reporter” Kelli Stavast telling viewers that a NASCAR crowd yelling something completely different was chanting “Let’s go Brandon!” It’s reminiscent of CNN national correspondent Omar Jimenez assuring his audience that he was reporting on “fiery but mostly peaceful protests” as flames arose behind him.

Who are you going to believe? The DSM or your own lying eyes and ears?

“Our team believes in the Second Amendment and an individual’s right to choose any legal firearm,” Lodestar claimed in 2018. “We are making personalized guns a safe, viable option for U.S. gun owners.”

The assertion would carry more credibility if they weren’t being cheered on by Washington Ceasefire, as committed a group of gun-grabbers as you’ll ever come across, spouting out such inanities as “2021 Election is a Big Win for Gun Free Zones.” So forgive me if Lodestar’s assurance evokes recollections of familiar Democrat boilerplate responses to gun-owning constituent inquiries that begin “I believe in the Second Amendment” followed immediately by them revealing their big “buts.”

And the “right to choose any legal firearms” leaves a hole big enough to drive CS gas-firing tanks through. Gun prohibitionists making what they had in mind perfectly clear is what caused such an uproar from the gun community over so-called “smart gun” in the first place:

“New Jersey tried to largely ban traditional handguns once smart guns became a reality, and many blame the dearth of smart guns today on that looming prohibition. One national headline called it the ‘New Jersey Law That’s Kept Smart Guns Off Shelves.’ Lawmakers changed course in 2019. Now state statute only requires sellers to stock smart guns once they meet ‘performance standards.’”

It’s not that gun owner advocates oppose “smart guns” because we’re are against the idea of choice— it’s that we’re against having no choice. Especially if you’re a person of limited means and there’s a substantial add-on cost to tack on “stupid electronic doodads” designed to interfere with a gun’s primary function– to fire when needed.

Does anyone doubt California will start culling its “Handguns Certified for Sale” roster whenever it thinks it can get away with it? And that any challenges will be decided by activist judges who then rule selective gun bans don’t violate the Second Amendment?

And, of course, once legislation mandating electronic gun technology is coercively “normalized,” it doesn’t take too much imagination to see what the next “commonsense gun safety” demand will be: Consider this recent headline:

“BIDEN INFRASTRUCTURE BILL: MANDATED KILL SWITCHES COMING TO CARS IN 2026”

Some of us have been warning for many years  against mandatory “shutoffs” for guns that “authorities” would then use to effectively disarm the “law-abiding.” No one thinks criminals would be fools enough to so arm themselves, do they?

The technology already exists:

“Tech Company Demonstrates Remote Disabling of a ‘Smart Gun’”

There’s something else we’ve been warning against, a concept that evidently eludes either LodeStar founder Gareth Glaser or at least the “reporter” who gave him free startup publicity a few years back:

“‘It’s really important that Americans trust the reliability of this gun and we believe if a major city police department or law enforcement organization adopts these guns it will go a long way toward acceptance,’ said Glaser. They’ve already met with New York City Police Department officials, departments of correction in New York and the Seattle Police Department.”

That’s great, Gareth. You got some noncommittal nods from politically dependent administration lackeys. Now tell us what the rank-and-file and their unions will say when you tell them they’re going to be required to deploy with guns that go dead after one shot under perfectly set up investor demonstration conditions.

He also made a big deal about suicides, as if thinking that smart guns would stop owners from committing them is anything but dumb. Thinking that it would make a statistically significant impact on those who take other peoples’ guns to kill themselves is even dumber.

But back to “Let’s go Christie!” she put out another tweet elaborating on how LodeStar works:

“EXCLUSIVE look at @Lodestarguns ’ smart gun that has technology like a smart phone. Biometric finger print and an internal blue chip for authentication via a phone app, are some of the ways to verify the users identity.”

As for biometrics, “smartphones” have been around a lot longer than “smart guns,” and a simple search shows hinky fingerprint readers are not problems you want to have to troubleshoot in a gunfight. Do you really want to risk your life — and the lives of those depending on you — on that? And as for phone apps, who doesn’t have personal experience where a wifi or Bluetooth connection experienced a signal loss or took a while and multiple attempts to establish?

Who among us hasn’t pointed and clicked a “mostly” reliable TV remote control or garage door opener and had nothing happen?


About David Codrea:

David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.

David Codrea

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Larry

“Does anyone doubt California will start culling its “Handguns Certified for Sale” roster whenever it thinks it can get away with it?”

Fortunately, I don’t live in California, so I don’t need to track this insanity… but I read recently that state law requires three guns to be culled from the list for every new gun added to it. I was raised when math wasn’t racist, so I know how this ends.

Nurph

Three guns culled when two are added? What?!

Boris Badenov

No the ratio is 3:1, NOT. 3:2. FGN

MP71

In 2014, Kommiefornia passed the micro stamping law. All handguns are required to imprint the gun’s serial number or some unique ID on two spots on spent cases so the state can easily determine who a crime was stolen from. Most of the pistols that were on the market at the time were grandfathered onto the “safe handgun roster”. Most Kommiefornia subjects can only buy guns that are essentially 10-15 year old designs. If the manufacturer changes the tiniest part, or even the color, it’s a brand new model and therefore “unsafe”. This is why there are ZERO new Ruger… Read more »

Elisa Delaurenti

No worries. Only a brain dead recent college grad marxist would buy into this scheme.
The smart ones will be buying the good ones off the old ones like me.

Knute Knute

Not off of me they won’t. My guns aren’t for sale. Not from my personal choices anyway. As a gunsmith I’ll still build whatever firearm a client wants me to… for so long as parts stay available.

Boxer dog

Is this going to need to be charged, or just change out the batteries??? The thought of plugging your gun into a wall is a bit comical… so now you need a plug in your mandated gun “safe place”… there’s extra added costs everywhere with this thing…

Wild Bill

I’m thinking that all of my “pre-electronic” firearms are going up in value! I can feel it. Oh, and welcome to the site.

Wass

Not to mention all those other $&@n devices you need to plug into the wall.

Dutch

Being an IT guy..this has hackable written all over it.as well as nothing but a way of blocking 2A right. The criminals will NEVER use a gun like this as well as you have to wait when seconds count??? Seriously!?!?!??!?!

Wild Bill

Seriously unsat, maybe! And welcome to the site.

Bobtail

I’ve already seen a video of an IT guy using a magnet…..

DIYinSTL

The lodestarworks.com website does not provide a user manual nor does it say what the default condition is (will/won’t fire) when the battery is drained. Taking a hint from the video, it looks like no charge, no fire. With coal fired power plants being decommissioned and some nuke plants too, the capacity of the electrical grid will be diminished at the same time that consumers and manufacturers are choosing electric vehicles by the hundred thousands. You can bet that brownouts and blackouts are in our not too distant future, to be accompanied by dead batteries and civil unrest. Let the… Read more »

swmft

fianly got the name load star as in load of crap

Carbuilder

When you get all ALL local, State and Federal LE required to use smart guns, then I’ll think about it.

Mike11C

Nope, not even then.

swmft

who has had a wifi gate controller loose its internet because of a brownout and it taken 4 hours to get everything in a 50,000$ gate system to synchronize and go on line so it would open and close, one component not hooked to a ups my gate is old hat 220 system only problem I ever had was a direct strike by lightning welded the chain solid. my guns are old school worked in two wars or more. let the police and army go hi tech iserial has a device that looks like a walkie talkie that is a… Read more »

Don

I hope these never see the market place. It is one of the dumbest ideas ever.

Knute Knute

That’s why all the press. The dumber an idea is, the better the powers-that-be like it! 🙂

swmft

they dont need to defund the police, just make this the only issue sidearm, they would all quit, back to rule of the jungle……I spent so much time in them would feal like home. but it would get noisy before it got quiet

Arny

Since the election who’s calling for defunding ? Actually they’re singing different tunes now. Knowing they need enforcers. At least till next election they may lose.

FredP

I posted a comment, and then started scrolling through the rest of the comments. I am amazed that the poster didn’t take it down… dozens of negative comments about the malfunction.

Could it be that the intention was to show that it doesn’t work?

Cymond

One funny thing this article overlooked: the demo gun was obviously 3D printed. It’s a “ghost gun”!

DDS

Kinda depends on the “definition du jour” of ghost gun. They do look like the frames are polymer. I can’t tell whether they’re 3D printed or injection molded from the picture. But, you’ll have to trust me when I say that it is really difficult to tell at that distance unless the print quality was really off. But it is possible to include a unique serial number into a 3D printed frame or receiver while it is being printed, or to engrave one into the part after printing is complete. So if 3D printed == ghost gun, then yes But… Read more »

Cbeachfan

I’m in my early seventies and have been a life long student of history and political trends in America. I must say I’ve never seen a time like this with current political trends. I think we need a national divorce. Not a civil war, but a regional division, sort of like the EU, where different regions have their own constitutions and laws. The basic differences between urban, rural, and suburban populations is probably greater in the US than when Czechoslovakia had a peaceful split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993. Already a number of rural Oregon counties have… Read more »

john

Guns do not need to be smart people do I have never heard of a gun leaving the safe and going on a rampage. I also never heard of a knife that refuses to let another person use it to cut vegetables or stab someone. The Idea of a smart gun makes be chuckle as it shows that some firearms manufacturers are willing to bend to political pressure from the socialist democratic party and the far left. When a person is out to harm people little will stop them, we would be a lot safer if those same politicians would… Read more »

DDS

Your post brought a chuckle. It reminded me of the Viet Nam days when “smart bombs” became a thing. After a while the military dropped the phrase in favor of “precision guided munitions” because “smart bomb” implied that the regular bombs were stupid.

Knute Knute

The same as was done to remove Michael Hastings back in 2013. And perhaps also John Noveske, in a similar way a few short months earlier. It is time to be aware that murder is a popular way to move up in U.S.’ hierarchy. OFC, that also means that those who move up via murder, are themselves aware that their own improved position is always open to their murder by others desiring to move up. That’s the weakness of moving up by killings. It means that you, the one moving up, will also be killed whenever it becomes convenient for… Read more »

DDS

“Without impeachment, Franklin argued, citizens’ only recourse was assassination, which would leave the political official ‘not only deprived of his life but of the opportunity of vindicating his character.’ ”

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/american-presidents-can-be-impeached-because-benjamin-franklin-thought-it-was-better-assassination-180961500/

Last edited 2 years ago by DDS
Wild Bill

OV, did you find the used book stores?

swmft

Putin is where he is by assassination, to stay there he has to keep killing anyone that is climbing fast, like Stalin to stay alive he will have to start wars and do anything to keep his potential adversaries busy

Knute Knute

That statement is not factual, except for the single reference to Stalin. Putin has done absolutely nothing in his entire career with the Russian Federation like what Stalin did in the old Soviet Union.
CNN and the NYT are the source for all those rumors you heard to the contrary, but you ought to know better than to trust the dinosaur media by now.

Orion

lol…. Putin didn’t rise thru the ranks of their KGB by being a Nice Guy.
Ruthless is his middle name, didn’t you know?

Wild Bill

I think that you, both, are right. I still would not trust Putin as far as I could throw him. He’d take over New England if given the chance.

Knute Knute

Notice that I never said he was a nice guy, or honest, or really anything about him at all.. I said that he acts in a much different manner than Stalin did, and that remains true. Regardless of any attempts at distraction.