Smart guns are nothing new, they are the concept of using technology to not enhance guns but to make them easier to track and ensure they are used by the correct people for the correct reason. It would seem though that President Barak Obama hopes that smart gun technology can be used to stem gun violence in the U.S.
In a memorandum, the departments of Defence, Justice and Homeland security were told to look into smart gun technology. Obama is rumoured to be using his authority to push forward extra gun control measures in his last year, within the statement he stated that “developing and promoting technology that would help prevent these tragedies is an urgent priority”.
Smart guns would allow guns to be outfitted with radio frequency trackers, or even fingerprint scanners, which would allow lost or stolen weapons to be traced more easily and then require authorisation to use the weapon in the way of a fingerprint scan respectively. Alternatives include having a small watch device on your wrist, with the gun only discharging when the watch and the weapon are within a certain range, thereby limiting the number of people that can pick up and use the weapons with ease.
With 90 days to report their findings on the study, the concept has already come under fire from the national rifle association with a spokeswoman Jennifer Baker saying that “there is nothing in this set of proposals that would improve public safety“.
With these requirements and the idea to licence anyone selling firearms, not just in store but also at events or online, the idea of limiting or tracking firearms more effectively seems to be at the core of the new proposals.
It will be interesting to see the results of the studies and the subsequent comments from the NRA and government authorities regarding Smart weapons as upgrading anything with technology is often seen with sceptical eyes from everyone.
Image courtesy of the Verge.
Maybe, y’know….ban guns and then you will know every gun outside a government body is illegal?
Y’know, the way most countries do it?
And you would actually trust any government to be the only ones to have any guns? How many times has history shown just how foolish such a move is?
The best way to impliment this would be to make a gun require multiple things to be triggered.
Make it require a biometric scanner to scan the prints of the person holding the gun, if they do not match the pre programmed prints of the gun owner, it will not fire, in addition to that, there could also be a method of inputting a code, like a pin code for your bank card, once entered the gun will remain safe until the owner handles it (make sure the gun knows if the person is alive or dead, where linking to a smart device on the body would make sense that reads heart beat and other defining factors of the owner, further ensuring that the gun is not used by someone who is not supposed to be using it.
I know it sounds complicated, but if it were law, and all guns were made to these specifications, and all current guns require a “refitting” service to update them to the modern standard or be destroyed, guns will get a lot safer, easier to track and easier to prosecute irrisponsible owners, you can even go one step further and have all guns require a NFC style wireless area detection, that can track and know if there are any other guns being pointed at the owner, not only can this act as early warning, but also be tracked when the firearm is used.
And alternative would be “smart bullets” by this i mean, all bullets come with a microchip(cheap enough these days) that get programmed to a specific firearm when they are purchased, that will not fire in any other weapon, only the one they are bound too, or until taken to an official place and rebound to anther gun, this combined with biometrics on the gun to ensure only the own uses the gun would greatly reduce gun violence.
Frankly though, the easiest way to deal with this is to BAN GUNS, no guns, no gun crime. In the UK in 2015 1000 cases of “gun crime” which is unspecified in its nature, and 29 deaths from guns. Guns can be legally attained in the UK, but there are very strict guidelines and reasons for owning a gun. Compare that to the US stats 52000 “gun crimes” and 13500 deaths, i think those stats speak for themselves.