Maryland Dealer Drops the “Smart” Gun

Selling a “smart” gun in a gun store is like selling BBQ in a vegan store:

A Rockville gun store owner who said he would sell the nation’s first smart gun — even after a California gun store removed the weapon from its shelves to placate angry gun-rights activists — backed down late Thursday night after enduring a day of protests and death threats.

Andy Raymond, the co-owner of Engage Armament, a store known for its custom assault rifles, had said earlier this week that offering the Armatix iP1 handgun was a “really tough decision” after what happened to the Oak Tree Gun Club near Los Angeles. Oak Tree was lambasted by gun owners and National Rifle Association members who fear the new technology will be mandated and will encroach on Second Amendment rights.

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/maryland-dealer-will-defy-gun-rights-advocates-by-selling-nations-first-smart-gun/2014/05/01/564efa48-d14d-11e3-937f-d3026234b51c_story.html

Now I don’t know if he really got death threats, I know people can be nasty on Facebook but that doesn’t mean they’re issuing death threats.

“To me that is so fricking hypocritical,” Raymond had said. “That’s the antithesis of everything that we pro-gun, pro-Second Amendment people should be. You are not supposed to say a gun should be prohibited. Then you are being no different than the anti-gun people who say an AR-15 should be prohibited.”

Sorry Mr. Raymond, but you don’t seem to understand how the free market works. You own your gun store, it’s yours, you can do whatever you want, and people can complain about it, boycott you, even say nasty things about you. Then you either ignore your customers and go bankrupt or you cater to them and stay in business. Besides, who said that a gun should be prohibited? We’re just telling you not to sell the. We’re trying to pass laws to ban smart guns, you know.

The ideal customer [for smart guns]…is probably a lawyer in Georgetown with a high income and young children who has been on the fence about getting a gun because of safety fears.

That’s also the kind of customer that the Violence Policy Center, which favors stronger gun regulations, worries will make his or her first gun purchase, thereby increasing the number of guns in society.

Increasing gun ownership is what Raymond said he was after in planning to sell the iP1.

“If this gets more people, especially those on the fence, to go out and enjoy their Second Amendment freedoms, to go sport shooting and realize how much fun it is, then I am all for it,” Raymond said before changing his mind. “This is really not a bad thing.”

The problems with Armatix are the following.

1. They demonize regular guns

2. They don’t support gun rights

3. They are supported by government (never trust anything supported by government)

4. They are elitist

5. They are overpriced and deliver low-quality guns

I’m a great believe in let the market decide, and the market has decided.