Is Being a Poor Marksman Destroying Your Career as a Sniper?
If your lack of marksmanship skills is holding you back from the ever-expanding field of sniper attacking, a Texas company has a solution for you!
TrackingPoint, a startup based in Austin, Texas, just began selling some of the most high-tech long-range shooting rifles available in the world — they use 3D graphics, laser technology, and Wi-Fi, and allow users to live stream their exploits and post photos to social media and on personal devices.
“TrackingPoint introduces the world’s first precision guided firearm — the revolutionary new long-range shooting system that puts jet-fighter lock and launch technology in a rifle enabling anyone to hit moving targets at extended ranges,” Tracking Point’s overview video says.
The key to TrackingPoint’s firearms is that anyone — even someone who’s never picked up a rifle — could hit a moving target at distances of at least 500 yards (i.e., five football fields).
Well, I know I’ll certainly sleep better at night.
Okay, so here’s my question for Wayne LaPierre: how’s the good guy with a gun gonna find the bad guy with a gun from 500 yards away with directionality confused until an autopsy? Yes, it’s a physics question, Wayne.
Thanks to David and Allan for the heads up.
Sick.
1I was mildly worried about this until I clicked thru the site and found the cheapest one is $22K.
2If you need something like this to hunt Bambi, perhaps you should find something else to do.
3The Viagra of the gun world, for when you can’t get it up on your own.
4A computerized high powered rifle. Gee, what could possibly go wrong with this new technology? At best, it’s Windows based & the program will crash before firing. At worst, it uses Apple maps & kills the wrong target.
I bet Old Wayne shut off his GPS after reading about this.
Good Grief.
5I like the part about live streaming their exploits…doesn’t that suggest that we’re going to have your own record of what you did?
6$22K each, huh? Sounds like a good way for certain people to launder their drug money.
7These are obviously not targeted at hunters of animals. It sounds like military grade and just the ticket for your paranoid survivalist and/or criminal population. What the h*** are the police, FBI, or National Guard supposed to deal with this? The drug cartels are jumping for joy.
8A high tech toy for the gun cult! Just like that submarine joke about nothing can go wrong, go wrong, go wrong . . .
9Wow, I’d be able to kill people and post it immediately on YouTube!
10Un – friggen – believeable!! When I first saw on TV that these new 3-D printers could create a useable gun, I thought … oh man, here we go!! And, sure enough … here we go!!
11So here’s what I see. You have this rifle that can acquire and destroy a target from 500ish meters. But so far you need a human being to differentiate the target and confirm with the weapon the person or thing on the screen is what you want destroyed.
12So if you can give the computer the ability it differentiate people and things, you could give it a list of people and things that you want destroyed that might come into its field of vision. Then you give it permission (“rules of engagement”) to fire as soon as it has made a 99.999% probability of matching a picture on its kill list.
Just saying.
Oh and one more thing, Wayne… Just how good is your security at say 500 feet?
13Start worrying they are going to sell the tech to a company that wants to make a $5k knock off version. http://www.cracked.com/quick-fixes/3-reasons-to-fear-new-gun-that-can-post-to-facebook/
14Micr…yes, the computerization of rules of engagement has been a topic of discussion in certain places I hang out for some time. Likewise the self-targeting weapons. The 3-D printer weapons as well, though those aren’t (so far) in the same quality range as anything I’d care to use.
World’s gonna get real messy. Messier, that is. There are a lot of people and organizations that can afford $22K firearms (consider how many multi-million dollar “weapons platforms” are running around in the world. $22K isn’t much for someone who buys a high-end car, and the most crazy of the gun-crazies are always willing to escalate the arms race.
15Well, this would be a time for BIG GOVERNMENT to step in, yank this off the market and MAKE THEM ILLEGAL, before it is too late…..
16@Lorraine- If you search some you find their software is Linux based. I understand the reservations about it being Microstuffed Windows based, Even worse to me than the crashing possibility is the chance someone will crack and hack the technology. I’m not quite sure who this is aimed( so to speak) at. The very best hunter I know uses nothing but Ruger number one falling block action single shot rifles with iron sights and prides himself on being able to get so close he can see their nostrils work when they breathe.He would have many words,few of them kind, for anyone who adopted this technology to hunt deer or elk.
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