It’s coming. Deal with it.
If something is absolutely inevitable, you have two choices: 1) Deal with it like an adult, or 2) Whine, cry, obfuscate and stamp your feet. SawStop opponents have opted for…
If something is absolutely inevitable, you have two choices: 1) Deal with it like an adult, or 2) Whine, cry, obfuscate and stamp your feet. SawStop opponents have opted for No. 2.
A bill to mandate that new saws include “active injury mitigation technology” will be voted on next month in California (where else?). If it passes, Senate bill AB 2218 would require all new table saws sold in California to have the technology. Sure, there’s still opposition but it will eventually pass in California, and eventually everywhere else. Do not doubt this. It will happen.
I can hear whining already. You’re probably ready to start shouting the same old tired arguments that have been said thousands of times before, so let me save you some trouble.
Waaaah! SawStop won’t prevent kickback! Irrelevant. It’s no more designed to prevent kickback than seatbelts are designed to prevent acne. Two different things.
Waaaah! Steve Gass is a busybody/evil/greedy/an alien/etc.! Irrelevant. If it wasn’t Steve Gass who came up with this, it would have been someone else. In fact, once the law is passed, you’ll find that all the companies who’ve whined and dragged their feet on this will suddenly come up with similar technologies on their own because they’ve already been working on them behind the scenes.
Waaaah! It’s wrong to mandate a specific device! Irrelevant, because no law can or will do that. Plus, see above – when a law is passed, dozens of non-SawStop devices will appear almost overnight.
Waaaah! Government bad! Me no like more government! Irrelevant. Government interferes in our lives in thousands upon thousands of ways, 99.9 percent of which you’re probably perfectly fine with. Government interference stops me from strangling my neighbor, for example. Frustrating, but probably a good thing.
The bottom line is it’s inevitable that new table saws will be required to have a device of this type someday, probably sooner rather than later. I’ll leave you all to whine, cry and spout tired, irrelevant arguments in peace; I have too much work to do on my old table saw.
And when the day comes that I absolutely must buy a new saw, you know what I’ll do? I’ll buy a new saw and get back to work.
A.J.
A.J. Hamler is the former editor of Woodshop News and Woodcraft Magazine. He's currently a freelance woodworking writer/editor, which is another way of stating self-employed. When he's not writing or in the shop, he enjoys science fiction, gourmet cooking and Civil War reenacting, but not at the same time.