Posted: 5/6/2008 2:45:50 PM EDT
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One of the local news channels ran a story that a Bill was introduced in DC to mount cameras on service weapons for the "protection of both the officers and the citizens ..." Looked about the size of a large surefire. Struck me as a solution in search of a problem. --Olivers_AR |
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That product is something that I (and my company) looked into making several years ago (I have a small industrial video and machine vision engineering company). You guys are correct - the video, unless everything, moon and stars included, falls into place correctly, will offer no useful information. Even if the field of view is adequate to be able to identify the "perp", any information as to why the incident is occurring will not be on the video because the gun is being pointed AFTER the reason for pointing the gun occurs! Then there's lighting, image stabilization issues, etc. (too many to list). Really bad idea, IMHO. |
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Well, there's some company that makes decent ones for guns and helmets, but it takes a lot of rail space on a M4 IIRC. Some of the combat footage from Iraq and Afghanistan is shot on it. It's pretty neat to watch but the FOV seems small. I dunno about battery and storage. I could see it being as useful as dash cams, but not when mounted on weapons. With soldiers there's so many places you could hang something like that, less so with cops. I like the idea of cops having a video tape record of everything ever since I saw that Florida video where the cop giving a ticket later gets accused of rape. |
I suspect the type of people who want this sort of thing are the same people who take to the streets based on exactly this sort of incomplete evidence. *cough* Al Sharpton |
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I only wish that Col. Cooper was still around. He always had a good comment or two about the latest electronic gadget that some idiot wanted to attach to a firearm that was intended for fighting. "Ooops, hold on there Mr. ArmedRobber-Rapist-MassMurderer, I need to put fresh batteries and another memory stick in my pistol........" |