Reuters reports that South Africa’s high crime rate has prompted the inventive class to produce some very interesting security-related technology. Some of these are impractical (like the flame thrower-equipped car) or just variations on an extant theme (computers that notify the owner and “squawk’ with a car-alarm like alert when stolen), but at least one could be very useful in the US:
With a computer circuit board concealed in the butt and a revolutionary laser firing mechanism instead of the traditional hammer, the “South African Intelligent Firearm” would not look out of place on the set of a science fiction movie.
The really clever bit is in the handle, which reads the user’s thumb print so only the rightful owner can fire it. And when it shoots, a camera takes a digital photo of the target, noting the time and the date — just in case the user ends up in court having to justify opening fire.
While thumb print IDs have been supported by the left in the US, it’s interesting that the opposite seems to be happening in SA. Perhaps gun robberies are frequent enough that such measures are necessary? In any case, it seems that desperation is the mother of invention.
GC comments:
More from the article:
In Johannesburg’s wealthy northern suburbs scarcely a house is without radio-controlled gates, infra-red anti-burglar beams and electric fences that bring armed security guards bursting through the door at the drop of an intruder’s hat.
“Joburgers” have become a byword for obsession with security, with an advert for cheap flights to the Indian Ocean resort of Durban showing a young boy on the beach building a sandcastle complete with an elaborate system of razor-wire.
While [some people] assure us that crime is plummeting in SA, the South African reality is quite different…
Update:
In the previous post, I said that Abiola Lapite was a modern day Walter Duranty for denying the horrifying death toll (more than a quarter million to date) in South Africa by implying that the whites deserved it for apartheid. This is a false statement, for Abiola Lapite is in fact not a modern day Walter Duranty. Unlike the Ukraine, there is no famine in South Africa, only the highest rape and murder rates in the industrialized world. Furthermore, South Africa is warm while the Ukraine is cold. And the countries are totally different: “Ukraine” has many fewer letters than “the Republic of South Africa”. It is clear the metaphor must be junked.
So in response to his threat of libel action, I have decided to come clean. What IS true is that Abiola Lapite is a modern day Stalin, Mao, and Hitler. And, oh yes, a Dahmer.
Yes, you heard me: he is personally responsible for the deaths of millions. And he molests young Laotian boys before eating them.
And he enjoys sex with goats.
That is all 🙂
Posted by scottm at 05:49 PM