"Guns don't kill people." Possibly the most stupid meme ever to be floated by the NRA.

[farminator3000]

89. yep, that article is kind of an eye-opener

surprisingly well written for a 'non' reporter...

i won't get started on the prison-industrial complex, but-

The declining prison population is a sign of a dramatic decrease in Florida’s overall crime rate, which peaked in 1991, but has declined by more than half since then, according to analysis by Florida State University’s College of Criminology and Criminal Justice.

“The primary driver of the drop in crime in Florida over the last 20 years seemed to be the increasing incarceration rate,” said Bill Bales, head of FSU’s Center for Criminology and Public Policy Research. “It doesn’t seem to be economics. It’s not the level of police presence. It’s not demographics.
http://fcir.org/2012/08/03/floridas-prison-population-declines-for-the-first-time-in-28-years/

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the CDC has it's flaws, of course, but i think the NRA has ulterior motives in blocking (and creating) gun laws-
http://www.salon.com/2013/01/15/nras_threats_over_gun_buyback_tied_to_alec_legislation/

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The Tiahrt Amendments, named for their original sponsor, U.S. Representative Todd Tiahrt (R-KS), are provisions attached to federal spending bills that make it harder for law enforcement officers to aggressively pursue criminals who buy and sell illegal guns. Since it was formed in 2006, Mayors Against Illegal Guns has been fighting to reform the Tiahrt Amendments.

In 2007, hundreds of mayors joined with 30 national and state law enforcement organizations to wage a campaign against the Tiahrt restrictions. The campaign's efforts helped to defeat proposals that would have made the restrictions even worse, and also secured certain improvements to the Tiahrt amendments in the FY 2008 appropriations bill. In 2009, mayors and police chiefs successfully pushed revisions to the Tiahrt language in the FY 2010 appropriations bill, which restored full access to crime gun trace data for state and local law enforcement.

Read the May 7, 2009 Statement of the Mayors Against Illegal Guns Co-Chairs on the Tiahrt reforms in the FY 2010 appropriations bill

While the changes made in 2007 and 2009 are a step in the right direction, many of the anti-police provisions in the Amendments remain in place. For example, the Tiahrt provisions still block ATF from requiring gun dealers to conduct inventory checks to detect loss and theft, which law enforcement says is a dangerous back channel source for criminals who are in the market for illegal guns.
http://www.mayorsagainstillegalguns.org/html/federal/tiahrt.shtml

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it is really the gun MAKERS fault more than anything about new safety technology:
But gun-industry and gun-owner groups, including the NRA, are not fond of the idea. The New York Times' Nick Bilton explained why:

“These safety options exist today. This is not Buck Rogers type of stuff," said Robert J. Spitzer, a professor of political science at SUNY Cortland and the author of four books on gun policy.

But gun advocates are staunchly against these technologies, partly because so many guns are bought not in gun shops, but in private sales. “Many guns are bought and sold on the secondary market without background checks, and that kind of sale would be inhibited with fingerprinting-safety technologies in guns,” he said.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/biden-smart-gun-control-technology-violence-task-force-obama-2013-1

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i doubt you could be fired for having a gun in your car, or be required to admit it.
especially if you had a federal permit.

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i think suing gun makers would have discouraged them from making millions of bushmasters in the last 10 years.

this is interesting-
Make guns smart
By Jeremy Shane, Special to CNN
Editor's note: Jeremy Shane, who served in the Justice Department during the George H.W. Bush administration, has led ventures in online media, energy and education.
How might this work? Start with locational "self-awareness." Guns should know where they are and if another gun is nearby. Global positioning systems can meet most of the need, refining a gun's location to the building level, even within buildings. Control of the gun would remain in the hand of the person carrying it, but the ability to fire multiple shots in crowded areas or when no other guns are present would be limited by software that understands where the gun is being used.

Guns should also be designed to sense where they are being aimed. Artificial vision and optical sensing technology can be adapted from military and medical communities. Sensory data can be used by built-in software to disable firing if the gun is pointed at a child or someone holding a child.

Building software into guns need not affect gun owners' desire to protect their homes. Trigger control software could be relaxed when the gun is at home or in a car, while other safety features stay on to prevent accidental discharges. Guns used by the police would be exempt from such controls.

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nothing is perfect, but this is a good idea, too-

This laser engraving is etched on both the projectile and the inside of the cartridge casing. Each code will be common to a single box of cartridges and unique from all other ammunition sold. The unique ACS codes will be tracked and records maintained to identify individual ammunition purchases. The ACS technology will provide a method for law enforcement personnel to trace ammunition purchases and link bullets and cartridge cases found at crime scenes to the initial retail ammunition purchaser. This system will not necessarily prove who pulled the trigger, but it will provide law enforcement with a valuable lead and a starting point to quickly begin their investigations. The design of the ACS laser engraving system will allow law enforcement personnel to identify the bullet code in cases where as little as 20% of the bullet base remains intact after recovery. Since bullets are designed to keep the base solid and in its original configuration, the likelihood of ACS codes remaining legible after recovery is very high. Law enforcement testing has already shown a 99% success rate in identifying the ACS code after bullet recovery.
http://www.ammocoding.com/