Smart Guns
Smart Guns have been a source of debate and political discourse for nearly 25 years. For Gun-Control types is a love hate relationship since most gun-controlists feel Smarts Guns would only make gun ownership acceptable, while the activists love pounding gun owners with the charge they are endangering public safety by not embracing the technology. Of course gun owner groups have universally stood against the technology, most viewing the concept as just an excuse to create a gun prohibition. Caught in the middle of all this is law enforcement and the US Army who have valid problems with the concept; And yet they are either put forward as the chief beneficiaries from the technology or the ones promoting it.
The Beginning
Smart Gun technology was the brain child of an unnamed member of the Clinton Administration. Following the passage of the Brady Bill and the Federal Assault Weapon ban the administration needed something new to keep the public support for the administration's policies. Thus the Department of Justice was required to fund a research effort at the prestigious Los Alamos National Laboratory. Yes, our nation's nuclear weapons laboratory was being used to research the feasibility of a handgun that was specifically tailored to operate by only one person.
The argument for the funding was that one in six police officers killed by a firearm is killed by his/her own weapon which was previously take from them. Before we go any further, one needs to ask how many officers are killed per year and thus what actual number of officers are we talking of saving. The reason, many officers die in the line of duty and they are neither shot or stabbed: They crash in their vehicle heading to a situation. To be specific, in 2015 there were 129 officers who died in the line of duty. But only 41 officers died by gunfire: 39 were shot at and two shot themselves. That being the case and using the one in six ratio, we had a potential seven officers who a Smart Gun might have saved. For the readers knowledge, 18 officers who died in 2015 died of heart attacks.
So the entire effort was begun to save an incredibly few officers. But the effort was funding the retention of scientists at Los Alamos, who otherwise were looking for work in the Post Soviet world of the 1990s. This being said, having the Police funding research at a Nuclear Weapons facility never sounded good so after the initial study was completed the story was changed to that the Army was funding the research through legislation championed by Pat Schroeder of Colorado. The problem was it was all a lie, the Army never had any interest in the concept given the reality of combat. Thus the research didn't go anywhere beyond paper concepts until in 1997 Colt Industries began work on a prototype Smart pistol.
The argument for the funding was that one in six police officers killed by a firearm is killed by his/her own weapon which was previously take from them. Before we go any further, one needs to ask how many officers are killed per year and thus what actual number of officers are we talking of saving. The reason, many officers die in the line of duty and they are neither shot or stabbed: They crash in their vehicle heading to a situation. To be specific, in 2015 there were 129 officers who died in the line of duty. But only 41 officers died by gunfire: 39 were shot at and two shot themselves. That being the case and using the one in six ratio, we had a potential seven officers who a Smart Gun might have saved. For the readers knowledge, 18 officers who died in 2015 died of heart attacks.
So the entire effort was begun to save an incredibly few officers. But the effort was funding the retention of scientists at Los Alamos, who otherwise were looking for work in the Post Soviet world of the 1990s. This being said, having the Police funding research at a Nuclear Weapons facility never sounded good so after the initial study was completed the story was changed to that the Army was funding the research through legislation championed by Pat Schroeder of Colorado. The problem was it was all a lie, the Army never had any interest in the concept given the reality of combat. Thus the research didn't go anywhere beyond paper concepts until in 1997 Colt Industries began work on a prototype Smart pistol.
The Colt Pistol
Colt didn't begin research into a smart gun because they wanted to make a safer gun: Colt wanted to get favors from the Clinton Administration. Back in 1984 the Army changed from the old M1911 Colt pistol to a new pistol made by Beretta. Two years later Colt lost the contract for the M-16 rifle to FN of Belgium. These blows almost brought the company into Bankruptcy. By promoting the Smart Gun and ending the sale of arms to the public the new CEO expected they would suddenly get these government contracts back.
All it did was give gun control activists the ability to attack their political opponents and for the creation of laws, like the New Jersey act, that would require all guns to have Smart Gun lockout tech within 30 months of a single company marketing such a gun. Some would ask what would be the problem with that and the answer is "Federal Patent." When the research was being done at Los Alamos it was know that if the technology was created it would be owned by the Fraternal Order of Police who were pushed to fund the research. It would thus not be made available to civilians, but would be restricted to use by Law Enforcement only. When Colt then took up the cause, and ended civilian sales at the same time, it again seemed the idea was a back door gun prohibition by the simple result that the people wouldn't be allowed to buy anything that didn't have the technology, but the technology was restricted to only the Police.
A more recent example of this is the California action in 2015 to require all ammo used in the State to be "Green" which means not containing lead. Activists state that the Army is already doing this, but the Army round is a tungsten armor piercing round that is prohibited to the general public. Thus what ever will be approved for use by civilians in California will not be compatible with the US Army. As to the effect this will have on hunting and animal control in California, it will take five years to fully document the effects.
Since Clinton didn't change the Army contracts, the Police wouldn't increase their own purchases, and the gun control movement didn't care whether Colt lived or died, the company again went nearly into bankruptcy. In 2002 general William M. Keys took the reigns and restored civilian sales. With other actions he succeeded in bringing Colt back from oblivion and even restored part of its military sales with the contract for the M-4 carbine. The important thing was he ended work on the Colt Smart Gun.
Before we finish with the Colt Smart gun, reportedly called the EP-1, some facts need to be known. It never worked! In many tests the weapon's electronics would fail following the firing of a round, resulting in the weapon locking up even when it was supposed to fire. The sensors in the gun, and the transmitter in the ring, required batteries that had to be regularly replaced. For law enforcement, the added maintenance from officers who sometimes won't even clean their pistols, plus the greater risk of the system still malfunctioning prompted the Police groups to withdraw from the project. Even with gun-controlists revising their proposed laws to exempt Police from having to deploy Smart Gun tech, by 2000 the effort was pretty much dead.
All it did was give gun control activists the ability to attack their political opponents and for the creation of laws, like the New Jersey act, that would require all guns to have Smart Gun lockout tech within 30 months of a single company marketing such a gun. Some would ask what would be the problem with that and the answer is "Federal Patent." When the research was being done at Los Alamos it was know that if the technology was created it would be owned by the Fraternal Order of Police who were pushed to fund the research. It would thus not be made available to civilians, but would be restricted to use by Law Enforcement only. When Colt then took up the cause, and ended civilian sales at the same time, it again seemed the idea was a back door gun prohibition by the simple result that the people wouldn't be allowed to buy anything that didn't have the technology, but the technology was restricted to only the Police.
A more recent example of this is the California action in 2015 to require all ammo used in the State to be "Green" which means not containing lead. Activists state that the Army is already doing this, but the Army round is a tungsten armor piercing round that is prohibited to the general public. Thus what ever will be approved for use by civilians in California will not be compatible with the US Army. As to the effect this will have on hunting and animal control in California, it will take five years to fully document the effects.
Since Clinton didn't change the Army contracts, the Police wouldn't increase their own purchases, and the gun control movement didn't care whether Colt lived or died, the company again went nearly into bankruptcy. In 2002 general William M. Keys took the reigns and restored civilian sales. With other actions he succeeded in bringing Colt back from oblivion and even restored part of its military sales with the contract for the M-4 carbine. The important thing was he ended work on the Colt Smart Gun.
Before we finish with the Colt Smart gun, reportedly called the EP-1, some facts need to be known. It never worked! In many tests the weapon's electronics would fail following the firing of a round, resulting in the weapon locking up even when it was supposed to fire. The sensors in the gun, and the transmitter in the ring, required batteries that had to be regularly replaced. For law enforcement, the added maintenance from officers who sometimes won't even clean their pistols, plus the greater risk of the system still malfunctioning prompted the Police groups to withdraw from the project. Even with gun-controlists revising their proposed laws to exempt Police from having to deploy Smart Gun tech, by 2000 the effort was pretty much dead.
The Smith & Wesson Pistol
With Colt now out of the picture, the Clinton Administration turned their attention to Smith & Wesson. In 2000 various cities and a couple of States were filling lawsuits against Smith & Wesson because their guns had been used in crimes. This was a backdoor gun prohibition the Gun-Control movement was waging to make guns unavailable while not directly attacking the Second Amendment.
Clinton, as usual, made the recent purchasers of Smith & Wesson a sweet heart offer. If they incorporated built in gun locks, funded Smart Gun research, have all its guns ballistically fingerprinted and make various changes in their sales program Smith & Wesson would get most favored title for any future gun purchases by government agencies. Smith & Wesson took the offer only to see Al Gore loose in November of 2000, George Bush not allow the quid-pro-quo purchases, and the new Congress passing a law prohibiting the lawsuits. Smith & Wesson then was slammed by a major public boycott that forced the new owner to sell it at a major loss.
The next owner, who owned Saf-T Hammer- a gun lock maker- incorporated their product into Smith & Wesson guns, but also began working on ways to restore the public sales. The result, they began making a replica of the Colt M4 carbine that was equal to or higher in quality to the Colt gun. Within a decade this gun restored Smith & Wesson's standing with the public and made it a potential contender for future Army contracts.
The only thing the Clinton agreement then did was cause the S&W revolver line to have built in trigger locks. The Ballistic Finger printing demanded by Gun-Controlists has since gone by the way side as effectively unworkable. It took awhile, but the fact barrels wear with firing created a situation where a gun with a pristine barrel would not have the same "finger print" after firing several hundred bullets over a period of say ten years. Furthermore, if the gun barrel was changed (say for repairs) the tracking aspect would be lost. Maryland's system was eventually discarded due to its high cost and the fact it didn't solve one case over a period of 10 years. In California the State found it produced poor results and has since 2010 been replaced in concept by micro-stamping. Starting in 2013 it was to be mandated on all guns for sale but several manufacturers, including Smith & Wesson informed California that they would not submit guns for sale in the state because of the micro-stamping requirement. Gun-Controlists have no problem in this because they wanted to block gun sales, but the legislature still wants to claim they have not created a backdoor gun prohibition.
In many ways the story of Smart Guns is a story of the various schemes Gun-Controlists have implemented in a quarter-century and how few of them have proven viable. This being said, what did happen with the S&W Smart Gun. From all accounts some work on prototypes was done, meeting the requirements of the agreement. But nothing was ever built that would be reliable enough to meet the standards for production. Essentially, it was and still is an R&D project.
Since Then
There have since been other "Smart Guns" developed or shown by various companies and or universities since 2005. New Jersey Institute of technology has been experimenting with a grip sensor that discards the bracelet/watch/ring transmitter. Some attempts have been made on a fingerprint reader, in many ways based on technology now found on Apple Smart phones. The only gun however that even remotely appears as a production weapon however is the Armatix iP1. But this 0.22 caliber pistol underscores the question of whether the electronics can handle the recoil of a caliber more commonly used for personal defense. The Manufacturer is now planning a 9mm pistol that will be directed at Law Enforcement. Of course this will only add fuel to the question of whether the technology will only be made available to law enforcement. Of course the Police will still have to approve of the gun for use: so far the only City showing any interest is San Francisco and that is for a special Smart Shotgun made by Mossberg (read the Primary problems).
Clinton, as usual, made the recent purchasers of Smith & Wesson a sweet heart offer. If they incorporated built in gun locks, funded Smart Gun research, have all its guns ballistically fingerprinted and make various changes in their sales program Smith & Wesson would get most favored title for any future gun purchases by government agencies. Smith & Wesson took the offer only to see Al Gore loose in November of 2000, George Bush not allow the quid-pro-quo purchases, and the new Congress passing a law prohibiting the lawsuits. Smith & Wesson then was slammed by a major public boycott that forced the new owner to sell it at a major loss.
The next owner, who owned Saf-T Hammer- a gun lock maker- incorporated their product into Smith & Wesson guns, but also began working on ways to restore the public sales. The result, they began making a replica of the Colt M4 carbine that was equal to or higher in quality to the Colt gun. Within a decade this gun restored Smith & Wesson's standing with the public and made it a potential contender for future Army contracts.
The only thing the Clinton agreement then did was cause the S&W revolver line to have built in trigger locks. The Ballistic Finger printing demanded by Gun-Controlists has since gone by the way side as effectively unworkable. It took awhile, but the fact barrels wear with firing created a situation where a gun with a pristine barrel would not have the same "finger print" after firing several hundred bullets over a period of say ten years. Furthermore, if the gun barrel was changed (say for repairs) the tracking aspect would be lost. Maryland's system was eventually discarded due to its high cost and the fact it didn't solve one case over a period of 10 years. In California the State found it produced poor results and has since 2010 been replaced in concept by micro-stamping. Starting in 2013 it was to be mandated on all guns for sale but several manufacturers, including Smith & Wesson informed California that they would not submit guns for sale in the state because of the micro-stamping requirement. Gun-Controlists have no problem in this because they wanted to block gun sales, but the legislature still wants to claim they have not created a backdoor gun prohibition.
In many ways the story of Smart Guns is a story of the various schemes Gun-Controlists have implemented in a quarter-century and how few of them have proven viable. This being said, what did happen with the S&W Smart Gun. From all accounts some work on prototypes was done, meeting the requirements of the agreement. But nothing was ever built that would be reliable enough to meet the standards for production. Essentially, it was and still is an R&D project.
Since Then
There have since been other "Smart Guns" developed or shown by various companies and or universities since 2005. New Jersey Institute of technology has been experimenting with a grip sensor that discards the bracelet/watch/ring transmitter. Some attempts have been made on a fingerprint reader, in many ways based on technology now found on Apple Smart phones. The only gun however that even remotely appears as a production weapon however is the Armatix iP1. But this 0.22 caliber pistol underscores the question of whether the electronics can handle the recoil of a caliber more commonly used for personal defense. The Manufacturer is now planning a 9mm pistol that will be directed at Law Enforcement. Of course this will only add fuel to the question of whether the technology will only be made available to law enforcement. Of course the Police will still have to approve of the gun for use: so far the only City showing any interest is San Francisco and that is for a special Smart Shotgun made by Mossberg (read the Primary problems).
The Primary Problems
The Army
Your now asking what could be wrong with the idea of creating a gun that only one soldier or Police Officer can use. For the soldier the problem is obvious and can be explained by simply looking at the problems the American Revolutionary Army had.
During the revolution men would gather into militia groups to then stand against British units. The British used a specific gun- the Brown Bess- which fired a specific size bullet and used a particular size flint. Thus, if the flint cracked during combat the British soldier could borrow a flint from another soldier and quickly return to the fight. If the fight was prolonged, the surviving British troops could also strip their wounded or dead for ammunition cartridges or even for functional guns.
The same was not true on the American side. Troops in the same militia could be armed with Spanish guns seized prior to the revolution; French guns that either came from the earlier French and Indian War, or were sent by France to help the rebellion; or British Brown Bess guns which the men acquired from defeated British troops or before the revolution when they were loyal members of the crown. And this was just for the smoothbore muskets: Many men also carrier rifles which were made to only a general style meaning multiple calibers and flint types. In short a single revolutionary war unit could have from three to fire calibers of bullets and as many different types of flints. Men couldn't strip the wounded or the dead for ammunition, it didn't work that way. Picking up a downed man's gun would only work if the downed man's ammo pouch was also taken. Only by reorganizing the units into groupings based on gun type was it possible for the American Army to begin standing against the British in a true sense.
Fast forward to the second World War: Omaha Beach France, D Day. The Americans are stuck and need to push forward to clear the beach. But many of the men have either lost their weapon or had it malfunction. Thus they began striping the dead and the wounded of their functional arms to continue the fight. Luckily, this modern military force had standardized arms allowing the troops to pickup the arm and be able to feed ammunition into it from the ammo pouches they already carried. Forward in history still to the Afghanistan and middle east wars. Numerous events were a small group of men were trapped in a location by enemy soldiers. As they fought the enemy off, guns would malfunction and troops would fall. In one noted event a soldier fired his gun and a fellow soldiers gun until both weapons failed. He was using a third gun when help arrived to extract the trapped men.
Any modern military cannot have weapons that are specific to only one man, its would be suicidal. The attrition problem would only accelerate forcing a unit to withdraw, not because it had lost too many men, but because of the combined loss of both men and arms. Add to this the new policy for having the arms kept in an armory when the troops are in barracks and we have the potential for the entire unit being unable to operate in an emergency if the special bracelet or rings keyed to the specific gun is mis-placed or at minimum kept separate from the gun. An example of the problem again comes from early American History.
Just before the British marched into Washington and burned the US capital in August 1814, a group of Virginia Volunteers arrived to assist in the defense of the City. They were unarmed however so they were sent to the City Armory to be issued weapons. Outside of the fact the man in charge of the Armory had left the City, when the Armory finally got the order to arm the men the Clerk there first issued the men their musket and pouch of ammunition. But he would not issue the men their flint until he had both finished issuing the muskets and then counted the flints for an accurate report. The time lost arming these men prevented them from joining the Army until the Army was in retreat from Bladensberg. All these men could do after waiting two days in Washington was cover the retreat of the Army from Washington.
The Police
The problem Police have with Smart Gun tech is equally vexing as the Army's, but distinctly firearm based- as in Pistol Based. Soldiers tend to fire rifles which usually are fired from the right shoulder. Not to attack men who are left handed, but soldiers that are left handed would not also suddenly change shoulders during a fight. Police however, because they are using a pistol, train to fire two handed, one handed (strong hand) and then weak handed. So if you have a sensor that either reads your thumb print or detects a ring or bracelet on your strong hand, changing hands because of an injury or the tactical situation and the gun would lock-up.
The next problem the police have is the issue of the weapon being taken from the officer. As previously noted the number of cases where an officer has their weapon taken from them and then used to kill them is extremely low. Now, if an officer gets into a struggle with a criminal over their gun; how far must they now get away from the criminal to have the sensor system lock the gun. Quite a number of officers (the heart attack number) are not as fit as people would like to believe and certainly couldn't outrun a criminal who now has their gun. Of course the officer might try and throw the bracelet or ring as far away from them as possible and then continue the struggle with the criminal, but that would be even crazier.
Not wanting to bring up a recent event that is still very political, the shooting in Ferguson Missouri of Michael Brown. Brown lunged through the window of the Police vehicle and struggled with the officer over his gun. If Brown had succeeded in taking the gun how would the officer get far enough away for the sensor to kick-in with Brown blocking the door. Would the officer have to hit the accelerator and drive off, dragging Brown with him. Again the premise is the sensor would prevent the officer being shot in a struggle over his gun. But the problem of how to actually get the needed distance after such a struggle makes it more important for the officers to be trained to prevent the gun from being taken in the first place.
I will finish this with a personal note. A few years ago I was making a western pistol holster for a replica Old west revolver. At the class where I was working on the holster were two other people working on homemade concealed holsters. Before you ask why I didn't call the police, they were Police. They were part of a group of undercover officers who needed holsters that couldn't be traced to a Police gun store. Even their gun had to be of a type not common to Police otherwise it would at minimum make them suspect to the people they were investigating. So, in a future where every legal owner would have a chip in a ring or bracelet for their Smart gun, the criminals would in fact be looking for such things to identify people as either concealed carry or undercover officer.
Even the idea of a chip embedded in your hand would only mean that criminals having a meeting would simply have a scanner from a local vet to simply detect the chip in the hand. And the embedded Chip idea, started in 2004, wouldn't be nice to officers who, after the chip is installed leave law enforcement. Put simply, the Smart Gun, since 2004 has been pushing technology that starts to mimic the kind of human monitoring that is used to scare people in Sci-Fi movies.
For Civilians
The primary target of the new legislation, it is a constant statement of the advocates that this would save lives: The problem is, How? As previously noted, for concealed carry people, the ring or the bracelet would be a visual cue that the person is carrying an arm. The very argument people give for not open carrying firearms would become the issue with Smart Guns.
Another question is what would this prevent. A number of people suggest this technology would have prevented the shooting at the pre-school in Connecticut. The problem is the logic that the shooter, after killing his mother, wouldn't have taken the ring or bracelet transmitter when he also took her guns. As for so many of the other cases put forward, the guns were neither stolen or being used by anyone other then the owner.
On the issue of accidental deaths being prevented, this is a very poor argument. Given that in 2015 two officers were accidentally killed by their own gun, accidental death by a gun can occur when even the owners don't follow proper procedures. Universally though the Gun-Control movement use a child death to emphasize that they will be saving children, not adults. But what is the general numbers: in 2011 130,500 people died in the United States by accident- 30,200 died in accidental falls; 33,800 were killed in traffic accidents; and 38,800 killed from accidental poisoning. Only 505 people were killed in firearm accidents and of these only 70 were children 15 and under. By further comparison, 620 children 15 and under accidentally drowned.
With the new Obama Gun effort however comes the suggestion that these Smart Guns would prevent suicides. The problem with this is the know fact that every country that has implemented strict gun control laws- and brag about how low their gun suicides are- still have total suicide rates equal to the total suicide rate of the United States. Prohibiting guns doesn't prohibit the suicide, it simply changes the method. And with 38,800 Americans dying from accidental poisoning, the need is to get the person help, not to rely on a safety device. Besides I will always remember when an LAPD officer was found in his car in the department parking lot. He had committed suicide with his service weapon.
Your now asking what could be wrong with the idea of creating a gun that only one soldier or Police Officer can use. For the soldier the problem is obvious and can be explained by simply looking at the problems the American Revolutionary Army had.
During the revolution men would gather into militia groups to then stand against British units. The British used a specific gun- the Brown Bess- which fired a specific size bullet and used a particular size flint. Thus, if the flint cracked during combat the British soldier could borrow a flint from another soldier and quickly return to the fight. If the fight was prolonged, the surviving British troops could also strip their wounded or dead for ammunition cartridges or even for functional guns.
The same was not true on the American side. Troops in the same militia could be armed with Spanish guns seized prior to the revolution; French guns that either came from the earlier French and Indian War, or were sent by France to help the rebellion; or British Brown Bess guns which the men acquired from defeated British troops or before the revolution when they were loyal members of the crown. And this was just for the smoothbore muskets: Many men also carrier rifles which were made to only a general style meaning multiple calibers and flint types. In short a single revolutionary war unit could have from three to fire calibers of bullets and as many different types of flints. Men couldn't strip the wounded or the dead for ammunition, it didn't work that way. Picking up a downed man's gun would only work if the downed man's ammo pouch was also taken. Only by reorganizing the units into groupings based on gun type was it possible for the American Army to begin standing against the British in a true sense.
Fast forward to the second World War: Omaha Beach France, D Day. The Americans are stuck and need to push forward to clear the beach. But many of the men have either lost their weapon or had it malfunction. Thus they began striping the dead and the wounded of their functional arms to continue the fight. Luckily, this modern military force had standardized arms allowing the troops to pickup the arm and be able to feed ammunition into it from the ammo pouches they already carried. Forward in history still to the Afghanistan and middle east wars. Numerous events were a small group of men were trapped in a location by enemy soldiers. As they fought the enemy off, guns would malfunction and troops would fall. In one noted event a soldier fired his gun and a fellow soldiers gun until both weapons failed. He was using a third gun when help arrived to extract the trapped men.
Any modern military cannot have weapons that are specific to only one man, its would be suicidal. The attrition problem would only accelerate forcing a unit to withdraw, not because it had lost too many men, but because of the combined loss of both men and arms. Add to this the new policy for having the arms kept in an armory when the troops are in barracks and we have the potential for the entire unit being unable to operate in an emergency if the special bracelet or rings keyed to the specific gun is mis-placed or at minimum kept separate from the gun. An example of the problem again comes from early American History.
Just before the British marched into Washington and burned the US capital in August 1814, a group of Virginia Volunteers arrived to assist in the defense of the City. They were unarmed however so they were sent to the City Armory to be issued weapons. Outside of the fact the man in charge of the Armory had left the City, when the Armory finally got the order to arm the men the Clerk there first issued the men their musket and pouch of ammunition. But he would not issue the men their flint until he had both finished issuing the muskets and then counted the flints for an accurate report. The time lost arming these men prevented them from joining the Army until the Army was in retreat from Bladensberg. All these men could do after waiting two days in Washington was cover the retreat of the Army from Washington.
The Police
The problem Police have with Smart Gun tech is equally vexing as the Army's, but distinctly firearm based- as in Pistol Based. Soldiers tend to fire rifles which usually are fired from the right shoulder. Not to attack men who are left handed, but soldiers that are left handed would not also suddenly change shoulders during a fight. Police however, because they are using a pistol, train to fire two handed, one handed (strong hand) and then weak handed. So if you have a sensor that either reads your thumb print or detects a ring or bracelet on your strong hand, changing hands because of an injury or the tactical situation and the gun would lock-up.
The next problem the police have is the issue of the weapon being taken from the officer. As previously noted the number of cases where an officer has their weapon taken from them and then used to kill them is extremely low. Now, if an officer gets into a struggle with a criminal over their gun; how far must they now get away from the criminal to have the sensor system lock the gun. Quite a number of officers (the heart attack number) are not as fit as people would like to believe and certainly couldn't outrun a criminal who now has their gun. Of course the officer might try and throw the bracelet or ring as far away from them as possible and then continue the struggle with the criminal, but that would be even crazier.
Not wanting to bring up a recent event that is still very political, the shooting in Ferguson Missouri of Michael Brown. Brown lunged through the window of the Police vehicle and struggled with the officer over his gun. If Brown had succeeded in taking the gun how would the officer get far enough away for the sensor to kick-in with Brown blocking the door. Would the officer have to hit the accelerator and drive off, dragging Brown with him. Again the premise is the sensor would prevent the officer being shot in a struggle over his gun. But the problem of how to actually get the needed distance after such a struggle makes it more important for the officers to be trained to prevent the gun from being taken in the first place.
I will finish this with a personal note. A few years ago I was making a western pistol holster for a replica Old west revolver. At the class where I was working on the holster were two other people working on homemade concealed holsters. Before you ask why I didn't call the police, they were Police. They were part of a group of undercover officers who needed holsters that couldn't be traced to a Police gun store. Even their gun had to be of a type not common to Police otherwise it would at minimum make them suspect to the people they were investigating. So, in a future where every legal owner would have a chip in a ring or bracelet for their Smart gun, the criminals would in fact be looking for such things to identify people as either concealed carry or undercover officer.
Even the idea of a chip embedded in your hand would only mean that criminals having a meeting would simply have a scanner from a local vet to simply detect the chip in the hand. And the embedded Chip idea, started in 2004, wouldn't be nice to officers who, after the chip is installed leave law enforcement. Put simply, the Smart Gun, since 2004 has been pushing technology that starts to mimic the kind of human monitoring that is used to scare people in Sci-Fi movies.
For Civilians
The primary target of the new legislation, it is a constant statement of the advocates that this would save lives: The problem is, How? As previously noted, for concealed carry people, the ring or the bracelet would be a visual cue that the person is carrying an arm. The very argument people give for not open carrying firearms would become the issue with Smart Guns.
Another question is what would this prevent. A number of people suggest this technology would have prevented the shooting at the pre-school in Connecticut. The problem is the logic that the shooter, after killing his mother, wouldn't have taken the ring or bracelet transmitter when he also took her guns. As for so many of the other cases put forward, the guns were neither stolen or being used by anyone other then the owner.
On the issue of accidental deaths being prevented, this is a very poor argument. Given that in 2015 two officers were accidentally killed by their own gun, accidental death by a gun can occur when even the owners don't follow proper procedures. Universally though the Gun-Control movement use a child death to emphasize that they will be saving children, not adults. But what is the general numbers: in 2011 130,500 people died in the United States by accident- 30,200 died in accidental falls; 33,800 were killed in traffic accidents; and 38,800 killed from accidental poisoning. Only 505 people were killed in firearm accidents and of these only 70 were children 15 and under. By further comparison, 620 children 15 and under accidentally drowned.
With the new Obama Gun effort however comes the suggestion that these Smart Guns would prevent suicides. The problem with this is the know fact that every country that has implemented strict gun control laws- and brag about how low their gun suicides are- still have total suicide rates equal to the total suicide rate of the United States. Prohibiting guns doesn't prohibit the suicide, it simply changes the method. And with 38,800 Americans dying from accidental poisoning, the need is to get the person help, not to rely on a safety device. Besides I will always remember when an LAPD officer was found in his car in the department parking lot. He had committed suicide with his service weapon.
The Result
For the military it is worse then worthless in that there will always be a need for troops to use the arms of a fallen comrade. Furthermore, in a modern warfare situation, the guns cannot be controlled by a radio signal which could possibly be jammed. As for both Police and civilians the technology would only work if it was a fingerprint based system. The transmitter system would be of no value to officers in a struggle with an assailant, and would give away that an undercover officer or civilian was carrying a concealed gun. And even if the finger print system could be created, the Police would still have the problem of switching hands in a crisis. Finally for civilians the biggest problem is what guns would be equipped. Many civilians do antique gun events: civil War and revolution for both patriotic and historic recreation. Equipping such arms with this kind of device would be impossible. The bigger issue would be the replacement of all the arms that actually are of a semi-auto design that would lend itself to the technology. It would take over a century to even replace the majority of the semi-auto pistols and rifles that could be equipped with such a device.
But for president Obama its a great PR piece. As in the years before the Smart Gun has been a wonderful source of money for various researchers and for Gun-Controlists looking for an issue to help them raise money and public attention. His requirement that the Army and the Police review the technology tries to give it some new legitimacy. The problem is the issues previously mentioned still exist. He can order an army unit to be armed with Smart rifles but since the unit probably will be in barracks- and the guns in the armory- there will not be much testing of the guns and or what can go wrong with a larger deployment. In the end he is making an issue to use against the NRA. But when the next president comes into office the idea will again go into the waste basket.
But for president Obama its a great PR piece. As in the years before the Smart Gun has been a wonderful source of money for various researchers and for Gun-Controlists looking for an issue to help them raise money and public attention. His requirement that the Army and the Police review the technology tries to give it some new legitimacy. The problem is the issues previously mentioned still exist. He can order an army unit to be armed with Smart rifles but since the unit probably will be in barracks- and the guns in the armory- there will not be much testing of the guns and or what can go wrong with a larger deployment. In the end he is making an issue to use against the NRA. But when the next president comes into office the idea will again go into the waste basket.