4 Ways Tech Can Make Guns Safer

First this article DOES not address Constitutional rights advocated by gun owners- A dutiful law abiding constitutional gun advocate would NEVER allow technology that disables their weapon at the flip of a switch via RFID. Criminals kills people, not responsible gun owners "who responsibly safeguard their weapsons" and "Safe Zones or Location Awareness" DOES NOT mean jack to a criminal. Biometrics can be used to track past owenership of a weapon, if a gun is confiscated or found on a person then YES the person holding that weapon should fit the BIOMETRIC imprint of the actual registered owner. RFID in guns could allow sensors to identify who has a gun BUT this would only work with responsible gun owners who have NOTHING to hide, criminals or people with criminal intent can and will make sure their weapon isnt capable of submitting and RFID signal. Target Recognition? Again, perhaps with a person that is a safe and responsible gun owner that has a gun with the technology. BUT CRIMINALS kill people and NOTHING in the article suggests or could ever prevent a criminal from using a weapon. You would have to eradicate every weapon in the entire world and replace them with fail safe technology dependent guns. Listen up people, this propaganda is limiting and will destroy your constitutional rights to bear arms. Its taking away from the fact that Criminals, not True Lawful Abiding responsible gun owners, BUT Criminals kill people.

Some great ideas here. We use digital technology to enhance the safety of so many things. Time to do the same with guns.

Well said IZMIR JOE. To Mike Maxwell. . . . And all the other sheeple (or would be dictators) If you want to produce these things and see if there is a FREE market willing to pick them up, I am all for it. Because in reality, you will go broke. What I am NOT for is legislating these mandates on items that have ZERO basis is reality. If the starting point for firearms was today. . . . I might agree with some of these feature. But after several centuries there are Hundreds of MILLIONS of guns out there that would not be accounted for by these "advanced features" and could not be wiped out in order to make the social utopia everyone anti gun is trying to say is possible. It is NOT possible, guns exist, and the only way to make the world a better place is to embrace that fact and educate our children in safe handling and operation.

This sort of thinking is stupid. Respect the rights of citizens to protect themselves and enforce the current gun and mental health laws. That will solve most of the problem. If you think restricting private and lawful ownership of guns will fix the problem then you are not very smart. Tell me how successful the war on illegal drugs is doing these days and then talk to me about how you are going to get guns out of the hands of criminals.

1. Well said izmirjoe! I would add that the RFID chip technology is not reliable enough to trust it with my life. e.g., the RFID sensors associated with our bldg access fail frequently. 2. I am amazed by the number of people who think it is the government's job to protect them - and their families. If you own something dangerous (like a kitchen knife) it is YOUR responsibility to prevent your kids from playing with it - NOT the goverment.

Interesting article. So biometrics will only work with the registered user - this would allow the CO theater shooting to happen because the gun was registerd to Holmes. Safe zones disable a weapon - would this not also disable the law enforcement's weapons that respond to a person with a bomb? Great scienece fiction read! I am with Nunya, let the industry develop it and see if it flies. Robert Lee you are right - address the mental health issue and enforce the first gun law and gun problems will solve themselves.

These ideas will not solve any problem because there will always be old guns that do not have this tech. How about using the technology they use in LA. The police dept has microphones setup around the city that can detect when and where someone fires a gun. If this type of tech was deployed at Sandyhook, an automated system could alert the teachers to lock down and call police before the shooter even entered the inner hallway.

I agree that this is just another end play around the Second Amendment, our politicians have NOTHING but contempt for what is left of The Constitution.. Remember this, you can not take over a country until you disarm the people. History proves this again and again. Assume for a moment that all guns were electronically controlled,OUR guns anyways, like your automobiles. How about GPS in the gun(s)too, so that your friendly ffederal government can come and get them anytime they want to? With the advent of flying EMP drones, the ffederal government would have to overfly all the areas of the United States and turn OFF your gun; ZAP, you have a boat anchor. Then you could do like one 'school defense expert' suggests, throw something at the shooter! All these so called random acts of violence, used to herd the 'sheeple' in to thinking that gun confisication is the answer, need to be REALLY investigated. Has anyone ever thought to question, WHY the majority of these shooters conveniently shoot themselves after the deed is done? Anyone see the movie, Manchurian Candidate? We are there! Clay Dungey

It is not the guns! The people need to be trained on how to handle the guns. It is the crazy people that have the guns that kill people. Do you think putting more safety features on a weapon will stop crazy people from killing with a gun. Quit trying to find more ways to take guns away and do something about the nut cases that get their hands on them. Those that are prone to hurt or kill will find a way with or without guns. Maybe you could put a chip in everything that can cause blunt force trauma or knives or even bomb making material. Lets be realistic. Because of the actions of a maniac you want to control 300 million guns? How about going after the parents that talk about how their child was acting a little unusual and doing nothing about it before that child kills 26 people? What do they get for doing nothing when they see what would be called socially unacceptable behavior! If you felt that there was a terriorist living next door to you would you not report it? It is not the guns that need to be controlled. Why don't we put the blame where it belongs. Video games, Hollywood, unattentive parents, etc.

Forgetting the constitutional and legal issues, these suggestions have been around for years. First non-digitially and now digitally. Without exception, none of the applications have succeeded because they are not reliable. And the one thing you don't want is for the weapon to fail to go boom when you want it to go boom. Consider the challenges: power, shock resistance, temperature ranges, interface with thousands of type of weapons, cost, water, mud, electromagnetic environment, EMP vulnerabilty, radio wave interference, etc. 99% reliability is not good enough. To the averag3e person, it all sounds good, but in reality, it will be many years before technology will be able to address these issues.

Doc & Shane both voiced my thoughts: 1) "So biometrics will only work with the registered user - this would allow the CO theater shooting to happen because the gun was registerd to Holmes. Safe zones disable a weapon - would this not also disable the law enforcement's weapons that respond to a person with a bomb?" 2)"How about using the technology they use in LA. The police dept has microphones setup around the city that can detect when and where someone fires a gun. If this type of tech was deployed at Sandyhook, an automated system could alert the teachers to lock down and call police before the shooter even entered the inner hallway."

Biometrics and RFID are neat ideas. If they are voluntary options installed by the manufacturer and I have a choice of buying with or without the technology its perfect! A note about the RFID.... I have this special pocket in my wallet that stops anyone from scanning the RFID chips on my cards in that pocket. Why couldn't I get a holster for my gun made of the same stuff and *not* have my gun get turned off when I walk into whatever area?

Lol, yes, welcome to Fantasy Land. As one of the commenters wrote, "[s]ome great ideas here"...not. Nice to see that the overwhelming preponderance of comments fall squarely in the realm of common sense as well as respect for the rights of law abiding Americans and simple history of this nation, not to mention recognition of the associated realities and facts, and the absurdly extreme (even life threatening) fallibility of the "great ideas here." As far as possible real world, real life measures go, however, I hope this gun detection technology is deployed in my own city soon; last I heard it was still just in the RFP phase. I have read about it being remarkably beneficial elsewhere, however. Someone I know also suggested strategically deploying some bullet proof technology for safe zones within schools along with gunshot detection technology. That first element might actually be much easier than some might think, as there is a type of bullet proof film for glass that has already been available for some time, for instance. As for reinforcing things like doors, I imagine that would probably be even easier, though one may have to be extra careful in terms of cosmetics and appearance so as not to upset those who oppose things like armed security in schools and want to make sure everything remains looking like an unguarded invitation to other would-be shooters...in Fantasy Land.

"Person of Interest" Thursday night CBS. Check your local listings.... ;-)

Biometrics seems the most viable. That would have helped in Newtown, CT b/c those guns were not his guns and even though he fired them w/ his mother biometrics would have allowd her to disable his access when they were not at the range. "Safety Zone" - I can think of ways to disable or by-pass this technology. You could either jam the local signal emanating from the school that disables your gun or otherwise 'hide' your gun so that it's not affected by the shutdown signal. "Location Awareness" is suspect b/c what if the other person has a BIG KNIFE or somehow figures out a way to get around the software to detect his gun. "Target Recognition" - what if the target is crouched down and gives off the appearance of a child. Or, maybe the target is a very short adult (little person or to be politically incorrect...a midget) with evil intent. They both have the stature of a child, therefore, my gun won't fire...thus I cannot defend myself. I applaud the efforts and the ideas but the bottom-line is...bad stuff happens and we will NEVER be able to prevent that 100%. That’s not to say we should not try to prevent some obvious holes in the 'system'. But we will go bankrupt trying to make sure nobody under the age of 18 ever gets killed by another gun. Everybody wants the government to protect them from EVERY bad thing that could ever possibly happen. So we spend a lot of money fixing "IT", which includes giving up a few more of our rights as citizens in the process. Then the next ‘bad thing’ happens and they are outraged all over again. Their little world is shattered...again! But, when discussing all this keep in mind, none of these school shootings, not Columbine, not Newtown, NONE were perpetrated by the legal owner of the gun(s) used. Either the gun was obtained via an illegal purchase or it was stolen. I'm not a gun owner but they have rights too!

I fail to see a need in our society for high powered automatic weapons. If you can't hit a dear without one, you shouldn't have a license. It's this incessant overreaction of gun owners (I own a gun) that damages credibility of responsible owners. Without a reasonable discussion, eventually there will be much stricter restrictions. All your points are valid, but don't address the issue - nut cases have been around a long time, and this has happened as far back as the 60s, but never have we had such an ability to do so much damage so quickly. Let's get the automatic weapons off our streets and keep our pistols and rifles for there intended use. Other countries seem to be able to retain their freedom without automatic weapons in every home, so why can't we? Our biggest threat to freedom are ignorant citizens who don't understand that every time the government "gives" you something, they are just tightening the shackles.

#1 was used in the latest Bond movie.

Hmm, People driving cars kill THOUSANDS more a year in this country than guns Driving a car on public roadways is considered a privilege, NOT a right guaranteed by the United States Constitution. Driving a car (especially in heavy traffic) encumbers a huge amount of stress on people that has a direct impact on their mental health. Cruising the strip and doing "drive-by's" to kill people in inner city's is one of the primary reasons the murder rate with guns is what it is. You don't hear about drive-by's from a bus, and people on foot are less prone to shoot as they don't have a means for a quick getaway, except maybe a car-jacking. Too many people waste gas by not driving in a ecologically minded way; many do not buy cars with good mileage; the US government restricts the sale of engines/vehicles in the country (yes you're non-haliburton sweety Obummer actively denies this technology from this countries citizens); the US sends troops overseas with guns to keep the gas (for the cars) flowing. Solution is simple. Keep the 2nd Amendments and all of the US Constitution intact (or what's left of it after this administration) and BAN ALL CARS NOW. Buses for everyone. Use the now available capacity/space/right-of-ways on the highways to put in light rail. bring back the trolley's to city's. get rid of car insurance payments and the fiscal stress paying a large chunk of your paycheck to between insurance and payments. this would free up discretionary spending, improve the economy, and reduce the amount of violence not just in this country, but in the world. Hah!

To Dave, the issues have nothing to do with automatic weapons! And, the second admendment right to bear arms, has nothing to do with hunting DEER (not dear). Private ownership of full automatic weapons* has always, been, and still are, banned by law. It is semi-automatic weapons** that look somewhat like their full auto military cousins (labeled assualt rifles) that the president wants banned as well. Suprisingly, ownership of a semi-automatic 30.06 hunting rifle does not fall under the proposed ban. The purpose of the second admendment is allow for an armed citizenry giving them the right to form militias whose primary intent would be to stage a revolution (as during the cival war) to overthrow a corrupt goverment (as a lot al people are beginning to view Obama's administration tromping on all our constitutional rights by his multiple executive orders). The other issue is to also ban high-capacity magazines/clips capable of 10 or more cartridges, with drums or belts that have the potential for 100 or more cartidges. I am not sure what is being proposed as the maximum number is, but I would guess it is something like only three similar to restrictions on shot guns in some states, with a possibility of six as the maximum. * An automatic weapon/rifle allows for continuous rapid fire just by holding down the trigger. ** A semi-automatic weapon/rifle are capable of firing as rapidly as one can pull the trigger, which is much slower than a full auto weapon yet much more rapid than a bolt-action or pump rifles that must reload a cartridge one-at-a-time before pulling the trigger. most hand-guns are semi-automatic and can also have high-capacity magazines but even a six-shot revolver can be considerd semi-automatic. Please make an attempt to know your fact before commenting.