Smart guns, electromagnetic pulse, and planning for unknown-probability dangers

Smart guns, electromagnetic pulse, and planning for unknown-probability dangers

....But the concern about electromagnetic pulses puts a different cast on things. Naturally, I don’t expect an e-bomb being set off in L.A. any time soon; but I also don’t expect a fatal gun accident in my house any time soon, since those are rare events, too.

But I do know that there’s a nontrivial chance that in my lifetime, there will be some terrorist or military attack on the place that I live. When that happens, there might well be serious social disruption caused by the attack, and extra need for me to be able to protect myself and my family. It would be just the wrong time to be armed with something that used to be a gun but that’s now just an expensive lump of metal.

We’ve generally lived our lives in environments of peace and civil order, but there’s no guarantee that this will continue; in fact, judging by recent human history, there’s reason to think that there’s a significant (10 percent? 20 percent? who knows?) probability that at least some time in our lives, our homeland will be attacked, possibly with sophisticated anti-electronic weapons, and civil order will break down. And when that happens, we’ll both be in special need of personal defense weapons, and in special need of personal defense weapons that haven’t had their innards fried to a crisp. And our police departments, to the extent that they’re still on the job after such an attack, will also be in need of such weapons.