A company in the forefront of precision-guided firearms is putting the upload in loading up.
The so-called Shared Dominance feature of TrackingPoint’s NightEagle semi-automatic rifle, which fires the 5.56 NATO round, enables the shooter to record voice and video as he targets and fires.
As the company put it in a press release, “As the shooter engages a target he can voice annotate the recorded video in real-time, creating a rich media experience of his engagement to be shared with friends and family.”
For your average sports shooter or hunter, that’s probably the ultimate social-media posting. But for other shooters -- soldiers, for example -- use of the technology would be questionable, to say the least. The Army has been testing TrackingPoint and other precision-guided weapons and almost certainly wouldn't want first-person video of firefights posted on social media.
There's also the possibility of a crazed shooter uploading first-person video of mayhem to YouTube.
“If the military decided to purchase from us, we would work with them to customize the systems to their needs and specifications, and are definitely willing to address concerns and present possible solutions,” company spokeswoman Kimberly Chung told Military.com in an email.
As for Shared Dominance being used by a gunman to broadcast his violence over the internet, there is always a risk that someone could use the weapon “in an unwise and unsafe manner,” as with any gun, she said.
Chung also said any such postings would be self-incriminating and used in court to prove their guilt, send them to jail and possibly net them a death sentence, depending on the state.
“We also do background checks and require that [buyers] either come in person to pick up the system or we ship it to a licensed Federal Firearms dealer in their area who will then run a background check on the purchaser before releasing the system to their possession,” she said. “So as a company, we do everything we can to ensure this doesn't fall into the wrong hands.”
But the price of TrackingPoint guns, she added, “tends to attract serious buyers who either want the system for hunting or simply enjoy owning things that are on the cutting edge of technology.”
The NightEagle semi-automatic rifle, which comes with the company’s Night Vision Kit, is currently selling for $10,490. That’s the manufacturer’s suggested retail price, though TrackingPoint is offering an exclusive price of $7,995 for the first 100 purchases, it says.
Other features and capabilities include the company’s RapidLok Target Acquisition and Control System with computerized guided trigger, hitting targets out to 400 yards, tracking targets moving up to 10 miles per hour, nigh vision and image stabilization enabling off-hand on-the-move stalking.
