Gun Geo Marker is a new Android app being advertised as a way to “mark” areas in your town or city “associated with potentially unsafe guns and gun owners.”
Its designers say the goal is to give parents a way to let kids know “locations” they should stay away from–“These locations are typically the homes or businesses of suspected unsafe gun owners, but might be public lands or other areas where guns are not handled safely.”
With the app, users are able to electronically mark these areas. After they do this, a yellow marker comes up over said area to alert other app users.
The information page for the app carries the acknowledgement that the app can be misused–“any tool be it a gun or a database can be misused”–but the type of mischief that a criminal could conduct with an app like this is far beyond simple “misuse.” It not only tells people where guns are, but also where they are not. As gun scholar John Lott told Fox News, “This makes those who don’t have guns easier targets for criminals. It’s a safety issue.”
Brett Stalbaum is the app’s developer. He claims to be a gun owner who wants to see gun rights preserved, but claims “thwarting the will of 90% of the American people on common sense… measures to improve gun safety is mathematically unwise.”
Follow AWR Hawkins on Twitter @AWRHawkins.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.