Many of us are less than thrilled with the idea of smart guns. There are myriad reasons why, but that doesn’t stop it from being pushed by those who don’t understand guns in the first place.

An example of that surfaced recently. It seems a group of engineering students has decided to take on smart gun technology to curb mass shootings. In addition to the previous problems, they’ve managed to add yet another.

It seems no one involved understands the first thing about personal defense.

After the Las Vegas concert massacre, the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, and numerous guns brought on local campuses, the group of students said enough’s enough and developed what they hope will be a solution.

“It’s fear stimulating and in my group we were like, we can’t deal with this, we have to do something about it,” said Salwa Shahid, a junior at Plano West High School.

…

A camera on the front uses artificial intelligence to detect if a gun is pointed at a person, crowd, animal or target.

If aimed at a person or crowd, the gun limits the amount of times you can pull the trigger.

“You still are allowed to do one bullet every 20 seconds so you still are allowed to use self-defense so it’s still going to work,” said Shahid.

GPS on the gun would create geo-fences, stopping it from firing in certain locations like schools and churches.

So, it’ll only let me shoot once every 20 seconds, right?

What if I miss?

Gunfights are dynamic. People don’t stay in one place and let you take careful aim at them. They’re moving. Couple that with the adrenaline coursing through your veins and it’s a recipe for missed shots. There’s a reason why police tend to fire so many shots and register a relatively small number of hits.

Misses are a part of life, and this technology would prevent me from following up quickly. While it may also stop a mass shooter from doing the same, a mass shooter has the opportunity to plan his attack. He’d take two guns and double his rate of fire, or he’ll hack the software and disable that feature.

Hard pass.

Then let’s talk about the geo-fencing idea. It sounds great, but let’s look at last year’s Sutherland Springs shooting, where a good guy with a gun responded.

Now, let’s say he had to step across a property line to respond to a mass shooting in progress. This system would disable the weapon, thus preventing the needed response just because they moved a few feet too far to try and save human lives.

Granted, these are kids trying to learn engineering and nothing is likely to come of it. Thankfully.

Unfortunately, this is still an example of people who don’t understand the problem trying to come up with a solution. They think they understand the nuances of the issue, but they don’t. At all. Their firearm education comes from the movies where the good guys are supernaturally good shots, and the bad guys can’t hit the broad side of a barn while standing inside the barn.

They know nothing about the realities of an armed encounter, yet they’re trying to solve the problem.

Kind of like how politicians who know nothing about guns try to solve the problems of mass shootings.