We Can And Must Make Guns Safer Try Technology We Made Cars Safer, Why Not Firearms?

Have we been looking for safety in the all the wrong places? Pro-gun forces certainly have.

They’ve looked to Hollywood, but gentler folk in Canada, Japan and Europe get the same movies. They’ve bashed gun control laws without taking responsibility for their own efforts to weaken them. And they’ve touted responsible ownership and training, without pushing for safer weapons in the first place.

Now, they need to be pinned down. You want safety? Go ahead, make our day: advocate safer guns.

Guns don’t kill; people kill - sometimes accidentally. Even the most responsible owner can drop a gun. In 1996, the latest year figures are available, 1,134 Americans died in gun accidents; 135 were children. If any other product delivered such sorry statistics, we would force its manufacturer back to the drawing board.

Thirty years ago, smokestack bosses and automakers said it was impossible to make safer, cleaner products without going belly up. Government, at the behest of citizens sick of pollution and highway carnage, said, “Just do it.”

As a matter of survival, they did. Now, we have safety belts, air bags and emissions controls. Detroit was forced to reinvent the wheel … and the engine, and the carburetor. Yes, it created hassles and paper work, but who wants to go back to the Pinto?

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, guns haven’t become any safer but they have become sleeker, sexier and more fun. The bikini-clad babes who pushed Trans-Ams in Motor Trend have sashayed over to Guns and Ammo. Smith & Wesson markets a Ladysmith model that comes in neons and pastels. What next, a Lady Remington for the woman who enjoys a close shave with death?

This is why the pro-gun argument for responsibility rings hollow. The same re-engineering and high-tech savvy that keeps guns popular could also make them safer.

This isn’t a Second Amendment issue. You can still have a gun and join a militia. It will just be, well, regulated.

Let’s mandate trigger locks and internal safeties; make it easier to tell whether a bullet is chambered and make it impossible to adapt weapons for automatic clips. In short, let’s reinvent the gun.

This century has brought endless technological innovations that have made our lives safer but guns have slipped under the radar.

In the next century, we can’t let them out of our sights.