My post for the site, seeing as how I can't register/sign in to post:
Miss Lewis,
I'm afraid that I have a number of problems with your proposal. Tracking devices in guns have been proposed before, as have biometric authentication before firing.
First, you seem to be confusing tracking devices with GPS devices. By default, a GPS device tells it's user or the equipment it's attached to where it is. Very useful for a navigation system. There are versions that can 'call home', but they're larger and take more energy. Remember, a gun, by default, needs no power source. You could fit a RFID, which doesn't need any power, but they do tend to be fragile and the range is extremely limited - usually under 10 meters.
People who own a firearm for self defense want the firearm to be as reliable as possible. We're talking, in many cases, a reliability rate that one failure in ten thousand is too much. To achieve this, we want the gun to be as simple as possible - to the point that revolvers still enjoy a substantial popularity even today. Still, your idea at least doesn't require mucking around with the trigger assembly.
Second, cost. How much do you figure this system will cost? Oh yeah, and we're using federal funds to pay for them? Let's say that the device and installation costs average $100 - not bad when you figure that you're going to need a professional to retrofit. I can see most handguns costing hundreds put a pencil eraser sized device into a device that wasn't designed to take it. The only empty space in most guns is for something to move through when it cycles. Anyways - $100 average. Times 'over 200 million' guns(estimate) - I can think of many things that would save many more lives for $20 Billion. For that price we could give away pool monitoring systems that would, statistically, save more lives.
Third - lives saved. You listed an accident, a negligent discharge, as one of your examples. Tell me, how do you believe that your 'GPS device' would have prevented this? Do you also figure that GPS devices in cars would reduce the accident rate? It'd be cheaper and more reliable to chip cars than guns. Most of the deaths from guns today are suicides. Looking at suicide, the substitution rate(where a person, denied one method of committing suicide instead uses a different method rather than not doing it) is nearly 100%.
Fourth - 'where gun-related incidents are on the rise.': Completely false. Accidental shootings have been on the decline for at least the last decade. So hasn't murder, assault, robbery, and all that. For that matter, cities with the toughest gun control tend to be the most violent. Go figure.
Fifth - The criminal element. There have been multiple proposals, including the one for requiring a gun to imprint a code on each casing fired through the gun. The problem? It takes 30 seconds and a emory board to wipe out the code. $10-50 per gun cost, 30 seconds with a 50 cent tool to eliminate. That's discounting the canny who grab casings from the local police range to confuse the forensics people.
Sixth- 'not a single one would be opposed to a simple proposal using GPS tracking chips, which are incredibly small and have become rather inexpensive to manufacture.' - Have you asked? I'm willing to bet that you'd be surprised when they all object.
Seventh - Here's a proposal: Propose the police do this to their guns. They have a larger tendency to misplace their weapons than the overall civilian populace, after all. See how they respond.
