Assault Weapons Tracking
Full disclosure: I'm a hardware hacker and I own many firearms, including so-called "assault weapons".
A couple of thoughts here:
1. Keep your firearms in a @$(@$ safe unless you can put your hand on them within a second or two at any given time. If you can't physically control it at all times, it needs to be locked away.
2. Don't give the safe combo to your children or anyone else. Don't let them watch while you open it.
3. Don't buy a crappy safe. Hotel-style 4-digit lock codes won't cut it.
4. Once a weapon is out of the safe and you're not there to witness it, it might as well be stolen. In other words, what you want to watch is the status of the safe's door and not the location of the individual guns. See #1 and #2.
5. There are already many wireless solutions to track door status. That NinjaBlocks appliance on HN the other day comes to mind. I don't want to invest in an entirely separate system. I want something that integrates w/ my existing home security.
6. You're not going to get much milage with the firearms community by calling them "assault weapons". That's a loaded term and I don't like it. Your potential customers are guys like me: considerate, caring people who happen to enjoy shooting guns and who own a few, but want to keep their collections safe. I'm not assaulting anyone and your use of that term is enough to keep me from buying your product.
7. You're wrong about mass shootings. Most, including the most deadly (VA Tech), were committed with handguns, not long rifles.
So you want gun owners to voluntarily add a GPS tracking device that is accessible by third parties to all of their guns?
I don't like to outright dismiss projects, but I'm sorry you are never going to get enough people to do this for it to be worth anyone's time.
And how is an alarm system going to help if the guy starts firing as soon as he walks in?
The vast majority of gun homicides are committed by felons with handguns not unauthorized "assault weapons". GPS trackers are going to be easy for criminals to remove anyway.
Let's assume you get past the obvious problems like politics, privacy concerns, massive improvements in battery technology to implement GPS tracking of guns, etc.
With the estimated 200 Million privately owned firearms in the United States alone, you seem to have a 20 Trillion dollar ($100 a firearm) problem to solve.
That's greater than the US debt (at the moment) and the entire US GDP for the most recent year.
Emotional impact aside, there are a lot more serious problems that could be solved with that kind of money that impact more people with greater efficacy
First of all, that sketch does not define assault weapons, making me wonder if you've paid any attention to the counterarguments to the "ban assault weapons" hysteria. See: http://larrycorreia.wordpress.com/2012/12/20/an-opinion-on-g...
Second, short and vague hand-wavy descriptions are not going to cut it. There's no description of where these trackers would go. There isn't a lot of empty space inside a gun; places where this might go are inside pistol grips or at the bottom of magazine wells, but those are both easily accessible. Furthermore, anywhere these trackers go would have to be accessible. Otherwise, how do you replace the batteries?
It would be challenging to design circuitry relying on solder that would stand up to the shock of being attached to a gun that's fired dozens or hundreds of times at a range, or thousands or tens of thousands of times over a typical gun's lifetime.
What does your tracking system accomplish? Guns that are stolen are going to be checked for GPS and NFC trackers, which will be removed or disabled. Guns that are bought legally (Cho) for use illegally (VA Tech) are going to have the GPS and NFC trackers removed or disabled, too.
You're wasting your time. 3D printers are going to make gun rights as inevitable as your right to download Cat Steven's greatest hits--and approximately as deadly. Just give it up.
Also, if it makes you feel better, try to keep in mind that a Ford Escort is more dangerous than a boxful of 357 magnum revolvers, statistically speaking.
You're going to need a lot of perseverance to get a project like this done, so if nothing else this project will teach you a lot of patience with people who don't believe in your idea.
You can get a prototype really easy: get an Arduino platform and some sensors and then work on your back-end. With about $100 in parts you can prove out a lot of your overall idea. Visit https://www.adafruit.com/ - you don't need to have any hardware experience to get something functional in just a few hours or days; this stuff is easy to learn.
If you have the ability to objectively analyze results, you'll quickly realize your project is a) recreating wheels that already exist, b) utterly pointless.
Anyone intent on doing evil will be able to destroy or suppress any sensor added or built-into a gun. Mass-murders are not done on a whim - they plan and have plenty of time to figure out ways around obstacles.
Yes, some obstacles will undoubtedly deter some people, but with everything there is a cost / benefit analysis that must be done. You will find in this debate that people, on both sides of the issue, will use every statistically correlation as a causation to support their point. Factual, proven data is very hard to come by without a bias: I'm pretty sure I could statistically prove that mass murders are directly related to the availability of avocados.
Weapon-smithing and ammunition production is easy with modern tools and is just getting easier. Even casings for ammunition is easy with simple machine tools. As others have mentioned, with 3D printing technology advancing printing guns from scratch is effectively here today and will only get better.
Ever hear of a booster bag? [1] Faraday cages aren't hard to make. It wouldn't shock me if a gun locker blocked signals too.
So your idea solves the problem of someone "cracking" or knowing the combination to my gun safe and removing the gun without my knowledge?
Please explain how many of mass shootings over the last 15 years or so this would have prevented?
That's just a bad idea all around.
How about a simple RFID sensor solution that can be used detect arms being carried into public places like malls, Schools, religious places, conventions etc. were we have most of the public mass killing being reported/targeted. This would be just like RFID sensors used on merchandise's from being shoplifted. only that conceptually the sensor has to work in reverse from preventing objected materials being carried into the premises.
It's a great concept and extremely viable. All you need to do is ask 20 gun owners and you'll get some positives. Don't listen to the naysayers.
What if this was an open source project with do it yourself hardware + software that alerts you on your phone when guns are taken out of a certain range.
Does this excite anyone?
A much, much more palatable version of this would be a simple local RFID tag that communicates with a fob in the safe, and which signals when a firearm is removed from said safe--that is, after all, the MVP for the problem you claim to want to solve.
Adding GPS is overkill, plays right into wingnut fantasies of the evil gubbernment man tracking their guns, and most of all is useless once I peel the damn thing off the weapon.
Start simple, use an RFID tag.
Oh, and check the copy on your site.
I think it would possible if it becomes a law.
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I hope you get eaten by a bear.