New Jersey's state-mandated defenselessness, illustrated

Finding myself completely without inspiration for a topic today, I have decided to shamelessly plagiarize Sebastian, at Snowflakes in Hell, who makes an excellent point about the idiocy of "smart guns."

The illustration of his point starts with a link to this story of a woman who may very well have saved her life with her husband's handgun, when a home intruder pursued her into the bathroom.

The woman ran to her bedroom, locked the door and grabbed her husband’s handgun and ammunition, Traina said.

The gun is legally registered to the woman’s husband, he said.

She then ran into the bathroom, locked that door and loaded the weapon while sitting on the floor.

Note the "legally registered to the woman's husband" part (and ignore, for the moment, the hideous requirement to "register" one's Constitutional rights).

Now, consider the fact that New Jersey has adopted a law mandating that when the technology becomes available, all guns sold in the state (except those sold to law enforcement--more on that later) will be required to possess technology that will only allow the gun to be fired by the authorized user (presumably, the registered owner).

In short, if "smart gun" technology had been ready for prime time, thus allowing the New Jersey legislature to render a woman's husband's gun useless to her, the law could very well have been an accessory to her rape/torture/murder. I wonder what Ceasefire New Jersey and the Million ("million"--hah!) Marching Mommies would say about that:

Over the next several years, gun control groups, including Ceasefire New Jersey and the Million Mom March, made it their top legislative priority.

Now, about the law's exception for law enforcement--why would police want to be the "Only Ones" exempt from this law? Could it be that they don't want their loved ones to be unable to use lifesaving firepower registered to the officer? Could it be that they don't want to be helpless if an injury to their dominant hand forces them to use their off hand? Could it be that they don't want to be forced to rely on the vagaries of electronics and batteries in a mortal confrontation? Would not every one of those objections (and others) apply to even us lowly citizens?

On a side note, this part of the article about "smart gun" technology further perturbs me:

Gun manufacturer Smith & Wesson was awarded a $1.7 million federal grant last year to work on developing the technology and has spent $5 million on development since 1993.

I had been willing to let bygones be bygones with regard to S&W's deal with the devil in 2000, because S&W is under new ownership--ownership that has renounced the HUD agreement. Now, I find that they're profiting from the very same kind of Bill of Rights erosion that sparked such (justifiable) outrage before. I realize that the "smart gun" article is almost five years old--I'll have to see if I can find anything more recent about S&W and "smart guns."

If they are still involved with this back door assault on the Second Amendment, perhaps a new boycott is in order.