“A smart gun is a firearm that can detect its authorized user(s) or something that is normally only possessed by its authorized user(s).
“Smart guns have one or more systems that allow them to fire only when activated by an authorized user. Those systems typically employ RFID chips or other proximity tokens, fingerprint recognition, magnetic rings, or mechanical locks. They can thereby prevent accidental shootings, gun thefts, and criminal usage by persons not authorized to use the guns.”
(“No Chip in Arm, No Shot From Gun.” Wired. April 14, 2004.)
Smart guns, whose embedded technology ensures only authorized users can fire them, have been around for nearly two decades, and a 2016 survey found that nearly 60% of Americans, if they were buying a new handgun, would be interested in a smart firearm.
(“Survey: Most Americans Support Smart Guns.” American Journal of Public Health. Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. January 21, 2016.)
The technology is available. In fact, Jonathan Mossberg, father of the nation’s oldest family-owned gunmaker, O.F. Mossberg & Sons, patented a shotgun in 2000 that successfully blocked firing by anyone not wearing the shooter’s radio-frequency identity ring.
(Editorial Board. “Why Not Smart Guns in This High-Tech Era?” The New York Times. November 26, 2016.)
But due largely to political pressure from gun rights proponents and a lack of investment in their development, some of the most promising smart gun technology isn't even for sale in the United States, or is still only in prototype form.
No smart gun has ever been sold on the commercial market in the United States.
The Armatix iP1, a .22 caliber handgun with an active RFID watch used to unlock it, is the most mature smart gun developed. The gun’s debut drew plaudits from gun violence prevention advocates, who had long seen such gadgetry as a bulwark against accidental shootings and other gun-related deaths.
It was briefly planned to be offered at a few retailers before being quickly withdrawn due to pressure from gun-rights advocates concerned that it would trigger the New Jersey Childproof Handgun Law.
(Michael S. Rosenwald. "Maryland dealer, under pressure from gun-rights activists, drops plan to sell smart gun.” The Washington Post. May 01 2014.)
One of the hurdles for smart guns is the lack of support from major gun manufacturers. As of 2019, a number of startups and companies including Armatix, Biofire, LodeStar Firearms, and Swiss company SAAR are purportedly developing various smart handguns and rifles, but none have brought the technology to market.
(Brian Freskos. “A New Generation of Entrepreneurs Thinks It Can Revive the Smart Gun.” The Trace. January 21, 2019.)
Smart-gun start-ups are also grappling with critics who see computer chips and tracking devices as edging precariously close to Big Brother, and who may be unlikely to accept assurances that the technology is not a government conspiracy aimed at taking remote control of their guns.
The NRA and its membership boycotted Smith & Wesson after it was revealed in 1999 that the company was developing a smart gun for the U.S. Government. On March 6, 2018, Smith & Wesson told shareholders it hasn’t invested in smart gun technology and has no plans to.
The NRA, while insisting it is open to the development of smart guns, has nevertheless sown seeds of doubt. In 2000, the NRA’s lobbying arm denounced smart guns as a thinly veiled attempt by gun control advocates to “force the price of guns beyond the budgets of many Americans.” Taking its criticism one step further, the group said the technology could give rise to government mandates requiring all “dumb guns” be disabled or destroyed.
Tech Crunch reports that most who follow this issue know that the NRA hates smart guns because they’re afraid that once a seemingly viable smart gun technology exists, anti-gun legislators at the state and federal levels will attempt to mandate it in all future guns by comparing it to seat belts, air bags, and other product safety features. And, the NRA may actually be right. If smart guns get any traction, then non-smart-guns will come under legislative assault.
(Jon Stokes. “Why the NRA hates smart guns.” techcrunch.com. April 30, 2016.)
Every Town For Gun Safety concludes that “the smart gun employs authorized-use technology – like the thumb scan or passcode available on many smartphones – to turn stolen guns and guns accessed by children into harmless pieces of steel. If widely implemented, it would be a game-changer for keeping guns out of the hands of children and criminals.”
Every Town says that suthorized-use technology, as well as basic safety features like loaded chamber indicators, magazine safety disconnects, and other features designed to prevent a child from operating the gun, should be incorporated into new models of semiautomatic handguns to help prevent firearms from being unintentionally fired
(“Smart Guns and Gun Safety Features.” Every Town For Gun Safety. 2021.)
Since smart guns incorporate technology to ensure a gun can only be fired by a person who is authorized to use it, the hundreds of thousands of guns that are stolen every year – taken from houses, vehicles, and stores – could help eliminate the major public safety threat of stolen guns. These guns are often diverted into an underground market where people with dangerous histories are easily able to obtain firearms without restriction.
Snags
A commercially successful smart gun has, in fact, proved difficult to develop. Hurdles include …
* Any time you introduce electronics into the equation, you're vulnerable to hackers,
* Creating fail-safe user-recognition technology – 100% authentication,
* Integrating delicate electronic components that can withstand shock from repeated firings,
* Allaying concerns of manufacturers fearful of liability if a supposedly safe gun was to fail, and
* Increasing research financing hobbled by their progress to the market,
Smart Gun Future
Margot Hirsch, president of the Smart Tech Challenges Foundation, says, “We use microelectronics in airplanes and spaceships. Incorporating electronics into guns is not rocket science. It certainly is doable and it will make our communities safer. If a gun company doesn’t currently have the in-house technical know-how to make this happen, they could hire people or license it from the innovators who do.
(Margot Hirsch. “Smart guns are smart business.” The Hill. March 18, 2019.)
In truth, the gun industry lacks not the high-tech know-how, but the fortitude to advance the safety of its weapons in the face of gun-lobby politics and threats. Therefore, gun owners' fears of government mandates on smart guns must be assuaged for manufacturers to work out smart gun problems. And, gun owners concerned about having a firearm to defend themselves need to be sure the technology would work when they want to use it. Workable problems? I think so.
Perhaps most important, gun manufacturers – especially new ones that don’t have an existing customer base to alienate – face a reality. That reality has to do with the steady march of technology and the almighty dollar.
Eugene Volokh, a professor at the UCLA school of law, posits …
“Gun manufacturers face a rare problem. ... A modern handgun will work well for many decades, and perhaps for centuries. Gun manufacturers will get no extra business from a typical satisfied customer — again, setting aside collectors and other enthusiasts.”
Additionally, according to Volokh, whoever patents this kind of technology “could sell billions of dollars' worth of guns in the span of only a few years, as many millions of gun owners decide to upgrade to the safer versions.”
(Nicole Nguyen. “Here’s What’s Up With 'Smart Guns'– And Why You Can’t Buy One In The US.” Buzz Feed News. March 13, 2018.)
Like so many other things in our modern world, big profit influences corporate decisions.
“In 2018, there were 24,432 registered firearms suicides, 1,296 of which were children and young adults aged between 10 and 19 years old. Researchers found that 48 per cent of US gun-owners own four or more guns so, while this age bracket may still find traditional guns lying around, if these households had just one smart gun, locked securely away, this may cut preventable suicides by half.”
(Ben Heubl. “Will smart guns hit their target this time?” Engineering and Technology. June 05, 2020.)
And guess what? There are early signs of the opposition warming to smart guns. Gareth Glaser, CEO of smart-gun manufacturer LodeStar Firearms, attended the 2020 NRA (National Rifle Association) Shot Show in Las Vegas and noticed a change. NRA members communicated more cordially and asked questions about his product: “My feeling is we are being permitted to test the market.”
There are even compromises, now. Some manufacturers are using add-on technology, which works with traditional firearms, rather than introducing entirely new products. For example, a smart grip with fingerprint recognition that can be mounted onto a traditional pistol. “It’s less threatening that the government confiscates guns without personal authorisation features,” says Dru Stevenson, member of the faculty at South Texas College of Law.
Add-ons are also cheaper. A standard 9mm handgun costs around $500, while the equivalent smart-gun sells at $799. The Armatix IP1 was criticized for being too expensive at $1,399; its watch, authorizing the shooter, sold for a further $399.
It seems inevitable that guns will become smarter. There are even parallels to the seat-belt revolution; it took years, but then it quickly changed. How long will it take technology to blossom? Maybe sooner than we think.
For example, according to a report from Reuters (October 2019), even the U.S. Army has solicited bids for high-tech battlefield solutions that could put a computer system into a soldier’s firearm. Dimensional Weapons Systems is among the companies developing a smart gun, and it is working on a technology that would allow the weapon to only be fired by a designated shooter’s hand.
Conclusions
Will smart guns solve the problem of gun violence. Of course they won't. Will they make a difference. I believe so. Professor Stevenson said,“No emerging technologies can address the underlying moral dubiousness... A moral right to kill does not equal a moral obligation.”
That may be true, professor. Still, part of our “moral obligation” is to allow guns to be in the hands of responsible people and prevent them from being fired by those who use them to inflict senseless injury and death. Even gun manufacturers agree.
Take Kai Kloepfer Biofire, founder of Biofire, a biometric .40 caliber gun that reads the shooter’s middle print in 0.5 seconds. He says …
“You pick it up, and it works,” says Kloepfer. He continued: “We’re all human. This is a tool to help people eliminate mistakes. I’ve never talked to a firearm owner that wanted their child to find their gun.”
And, in the same vein, Dr. Arthur Kellermann, the co-author of the boys-and-guns study (2001, Journal of Pediatrics), who is a dean at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, says …
“We know in the world of injury control that designing safer products is often the most efficient way to reduce tragedies. Why, if we have childproof aspirin bottles, don’t we have childproof guns?”
(Michael Luo and Mike McIntire. “Children and Guns: The Hidden Toll.” The New York Times. September 28, 2013.)
And yet …
Resistance to buying smart guns is still very high among those who favor firearms.
The Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine (June 2019) a survey that found that 79 percent of respondents supported firearm retailers stocking smart guns.
But …
In the survey, more than half of the respondents said they had reservations about the additional cost of smart gun technology. Only 19 percent of gun owners said they would be extremely likely or somewhat likely to pay an additional $300 on top of a standard weapon’s retail price for “smart” features. And 70 percent said they were very or somewhat concerned about the weapons’ reliability.
(Cassandra K. Crifasi, PhD, MPH et al. “Desirability of Personalized Guns Among Current Gun Owners.” American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Volume 57, ISSUE 2, P191-196, August 01, 2019.)
Dru Stevenson published the following. As a gun owner, you may not agree with his conclusions; however, he cites the need for defensive measures other than deadly firearms to combat unnecessary deaths – deaths either by conventional weapons or by smart guns – to alleviate gun violence in America. Stevenson concludes …
“None of the emerging technologies address the underlying moral dubiousness with killing in self-defense or defense of property, the immorality of sports hunting, the immorality of playing a part in a larger breakdown in collective action, or the erosion of a public good, like a nonviolent community.
“Even if the majority of jurists, or the majority of voters, believe that it is morally acceptable to kill another person when confronted with an immediate, unavoidable choice between the two lives (a view I do not share), such discourse merely deflects the harder questions of whether defensive gun use is an excusable, forgivable act or a virtuous, heroic one; or whether killing to save one’s own life, or the life of a loved one, is moral when nonlethal alternatives might also have worked.
“Gun ownership for self-defense not only presents moral hazard and adverse selection problems, but also a crowding-out phenomenon as well as an individual under-investment in nonlethal force (say, a taser or a bat), locks and alarms, cultivating cautious and circumspect habits, and having an escape plan.
“A legal right to use lethal force in self-defense does not equal a moral right to do so, and even a moral right to kill does not equal a moral obligation. Zero guns would be better than smart guns.”
(Dru
Stevenson. “Smart Guns, the Law, and the Second Amendment. Penn
State Law Review Vol. 124:3. 2020.)
It is evident some solutions to the problem of gun violence rest on money and doubt. Such it seems with smart guns. How much money and how much doubt? Good questions. And, how much responsibility will gun owners – and those opposed to guns also – take for the future safety of innocent victims? Try accessing the value of a single human life lost in the epidemic of gun violence in America. In times of trouble, we must seek solutions, many of which prove expensive and, unfortunately, not foolproof.
I'll end this blog entry with the tragic story of Nicholas Naumkin told by Brian Anderson of Motherboard on March 22, 2017, in the article “Who Killed the Smart Gun?” I pray it speaks to both your heart and your conscience. I know it did to mine. Please read Anderson's entire article by clicking here: https://www.vice.com/en/article/z4k5v4/who-killed-the-smart-gun
“It happened in an instant.
“Nicholas Naumkin was at a friend's house the evening of December 22, 2010. Middle school had let out for winter break and the two boys were left home alone, playing video games like Halo and Call of Duty and popping off an otherwise harmless Nerf dart gun. But the playdate would take a violent turn in the kitchen, where Nicholas found himself on the wrong end of an actual gun.
“The scene played out in a way that's become all-too-familiar in American households: The 9mm semi-automatic pistol belonged to the father of Andrew*, Nicholas' playmate. It had been stored in an unsecured dresser drawer and at some point was loaded with an eight-round clip, according to police testimony. Andrew removed the gun from the drawer and came into the kitchen to show Nicholas. There was a round in the chamber when suddenly, the gun fired. The bullet hit Nicholas in the eye.
“Andrew called 911 sometime after his friend collapsed to the floor. First responders found Nicholas in a pool of his own blood, before a team of paramedics rushed him by ambulance to the Albany Medical Center Hospital. In the United States, 98 children aged 17 and younger were accidentally killed by guns in 2010. Nicholas Naumkin was one of them. He was 12.
(Oxsana and Yuri were brought into the ICU to see their son around 2AM the day after the accident. Nicholas' doctors told his parents there was no activity in his brain, so they took him off life support. Now it was time to say goodbye. Oxsana Naumkin, Nicholas' mother, clutched Nicholas, putting an ear to his chest so she could listen to his heart. With each successive beat she wondered which one might be the last. His breathing stopped after 29 agonizing minutes. "It was torture," Oxsana said. The immense and inescapable grief Oxsana carries over losing Nicholas to gun violence is palpable. And, her guilt is overwhelming.)
“Oxsana will never understand why the gun that killed the eldest of her two sons hadn't been securely stored. Oxsana and her husband, Yuri, have never owned firearms but always assumed those who did would keep their guns locked up, especially around kids.
"'To me, it's a no-brainer,' said Oxsana, who choked back tears during an interview at the Naumkin house near Saratoga Springs, New York. 'We never thought to ask.'
“Oxsana is now determined to put a dent in the approximately 33,500 people fatally shot on average in America every year. In 2015, the most recent year for which there is reliable data, the majority of US firearm fatalities were homicides (12,979) and suicides (22,018), according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Accidental or unintentional gun deaths accounted for far fewer (489) of the total gun deaths.
“But if Oxsana can save one kid's life, she will have done her duty in her grief, she said. She's been vocal in her support of stricter gun control laws since the day Nicholas died and also champions a potential technological failsafe against unauthorized firearm use, in the form of a gun that only fires in the hands of an approved user.
“Such user-authenticated, personalized, or 'childproof' firearms, better known as smart guns, have been in development for decades …
“Seven years on, Oxsana has become the driving force behind a bill known as Nicholas' Law, requiring the safe storage of firearms in the state of New York. But smart guns would be a logical choice for anyone with a family who wishes to own a firearm for protection, she said.
"'This wouldn't prevent you from protecting your family but it would prevent accidental deaths of children, who are very curious,' Oxsana said. 'They're going to find this thing no matter what.'
"'This technology exists,' she added. 'It could definitely save someone's life in your house.'
“How could she not think it could've saved her son too?”
(Brian Anderson. “Who Killed the Smart Gun?”Motherboard March 22, 2017.)
How could Oxsana not think it could have saved Nicholas's life? How could you not think that same thing? If you do think that, let me guess why. Cost? Doubt? Or possibly you would just trade the risk for the available trigger.
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