OPINION:
Joe Biden has a dream.
“If I get elected president of the United States of America with your help,” he recently told donors in New York City, as the Washington Examiner noted, “if that happens, guns, we have the capacity now in a James Bond-style to make sure no one can pull a trigger unless their DNA and fingerprint is on it.”
Well, that’s just great.
The Democrats’ best hope for the presidency — according to polls, anyway — wants to use fictional characters exalted on Hollywood’s big screens to hone our nation’s Second Amendment. To hone our God-given rights to protect self and family.
He’s talking about smart guns, of course, the same type some Democrats in Congress have already pressed, via rhetoric and legislation, as the be-all and end-all of firearms’ safety and security provisions. Why? With smart gun technology, gun thieves can’t fire their stolen guns.
Except: Technology is never fail-proof. Just as door locks on cars don’t keep away all the car thieves — just as technologically advanced home security systems don’t keep away all the home burglars — smart technology on firearms won’t stop thieves from cracking that code and figuring ways to fire.
What smart technology on guns will do, however, is create a burden, and quite possibly, danger, for lawful gun owners.
The German manufacturer Armatrix built a Smart System iP1 handgun, recently offered for sale in the United States. It comes equipped with wireless technology that ensures only authorized users can fire it. But it’s a .22, it costs around $1,400, it requires the user to wear a wristwatch — which costs another $400 or so — and it requires the user to type in a code on the wristwatch to activate the firing mode.
In other words, you better hope that home invader is the patient and polite type.
Or, that the batteries in the watch aren’t dead.
“Imagine all the people who would be alive today if the only person who could buy a gun is qualified because of background checks and they’re the only ones that can pull the trigger?” Biden said.
Or: Imagine all the people who could die in the future while struggling to punch in the wristwatch code to fire at an advancing attacker.
Potatoes, potahtoes?
Thanks, Biden. But let’s leave the .007 references where they belong — in Hollywood. James Bond should not be the platform by which Second Amendment tinkering is done.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley.
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