can ‘smart guns’ help prevent violence_
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6/15/2015 Can ‘Smart Guns’ Help Prevent Violence?
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Homeland Security and Public Safety (/safety)
Can ‘Smart Guns’ Help PreventViolence?Technology like fingerprint recognition, hand biometrics, coded locks orother features to make sure a gun can be fired only by its owner could beused to prevent casualties.Melissa Healy, Los Angeles Times | June 15, 2015
Each year in the U.S., 31,000 people die in gunrelated incidents and 73,000 more are injured,according to the CDC. Shutterstock (http://www.Shutterstock.com)
(TNS) — German entrepreneur Bernd Dietel had a radical idea about gun safety.
After a 2002 shooting at the Gutenberg-Gymnasium in Erfurt that left 16 people dead,Dietel envisioned guns with coded digital locks, similar to the ones his companyinstalled on buildings.
In eight years, the Armatix iP1 — a pistol that can be fired only if its user is wearing awireless wristband that broadcasts on a specific frequency — was ready.
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But no gun shop in America will sell it.
The Armatix iP1 and other so-called smart guns have become the latest flashpoint inthe long-running battle between gun rights and gun control.
Although the weapons have broad support among gun owners, the staunchestsupporters of the 2nd Amendment say smart guns only make it easier for thegovernment to control the sale and use of lawful firearms.
They fear, among other concerns, that the advent of guns with high-tech safetymechanisms will prompt state governments to mandate their use. New Jersey alreadyhas such a law on the books.
Andy Raymond, co-owner of Engage Armament in Rockville, Md., said he had noinkling of the controversy when he announced last year that he would sell the iP1. Hedidn't see the harm in offering customers a new gadget.
"I should have known better," he said. "I would rather be shot by an i-gun than ever getinvolved with it again."
Political Backlash
Each year in the U.S., 31,000 people die in gun-related incidents and 73,000 more areinjured, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Smart technology — using fingerprint recognition, hand biometrics, coded locks orother features to make sure a gun can be fired only by its owner — could be used toprevent many of those casualties.
Had Nancy Lanza owned a smart gun, perhaps she, her son and the 26 people he shotin 2012 at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., might have lived.
In addition, the technology could save some of the 650 Americans each year betweenthe ages of 10 and 19 who, according to published estimates, use relatives' guns to taketheir own lives.
Criminologists say they believe many of the nation's roughly 11,000 annual gun-related homicides are committed with stolen weapons. At least 18 police officerswhose weapons were used against them have been killed in the line of duty since2007.
Colt's Manufacturing Co., one of the nation's oldest gun makers, built a prototypesmart gun in the late 1990s that could be fired only if the user wore a ring emitting a
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specific radio frequency. The project prompted sporadic boycotts of Colt by gun rightsenthusiasts and was scuttled.
In 2000, rival Smith & Wesson promised to make all of its new guns available withhigh-tech safety features. The initiative, sparked by a request from the Clintonadministration, was dropped after gun rights activists boycotted the company, nearlydriving it out of business.
Detached from the politics of gun control in the United States, Dietel poured hisfortune into building the iP1.
"The only reason we're here today is because our founder has his own money — no onecould fire him," said Belinda Padilla, chief executive of Beverly Hills-based ArmatixUSA Inc.
Dietel drew on the expertise of his other company, SimonsVoss Technologies, whenhe launched Armatix. And he poached engineer Ernst Mauch from Germany's leadingarms manufacturer to design the gun.
The .22-caliber iP1 fires only when it is within 15 inches of a synchronized wristband.A light on the butt of the weapon glows green when activated or red when it is too farfrom the wristband.
The $1,800 iP1 hit the U.S. market last year, landing in a political storm that had beenbrewing for more than a decade.
It began in 2002, when a New Jersey state senator sponsored a law to spurdevelopment of safer weapons and boost the fortunes of researchers at the New JerseyInstitute of Technology.
The law required that 30 months after a viable smart weapon came to market, all newguns sold in the state had to be equipped with mechanisms to limit unauthorized use.
At the time, engineers at the university predicted their invention — a sensor that couldidentify a person's unique pattern of grasping a pistol — was years, if not decades,away from production.
The law helped attract research funding but largely faded from public consciousnessbecause there were no working smart guns.
Until the Armatix iP1 arrived.
Raymond, the Maryland gun shop owner, jumped at the chance to sell the weapon. Hethought it might appeal to customers who already owned guns, as well as to younger
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ones drawn to consumer electronics.
But before long, Raymond — who calls himself "a huge 2nd Amendment guy" — wasthe focus of threats to burn down his store and kill his bulldog, Brutus.
Enraged gun owners also lashed out against the Oak Tree Gun Club in Newhall, Calif.,where the iP1 had been demonstrated and displayed in the pro shop.
Both businesses backed away from the gun. Armatix now distributes the weapon onits website, declining to say how many it has sold.
'Safety Does Sell'
The gun industry and gun rights activists are wary of smart weapons.
"There are serious questions about the reliability of this technology," said MikeBazinet, a spokesman for the National Shooting Sports Foundation. "That's the mainreason that firearms manufacturers do not feel this technology is ready to bring to themarketplace."
Those concerns were underscored in a report by Sandia National Laboratories in 1996— and reaffirmed in 2001 — that law enforcement officers could not depend onpersonalized gun technology to fire when necessary. Since police departments tend todrive the civilian gun market, it was a damning assessment.
But in 2013, the Justice Department released a far more optimistic appraisal of smartgun technology, finding at least three firearms to be on the cusp of commercial use.
After the Sandy Hook massacre, surveys showed that gun users as well as those whohad never owned a firearm were hungry for solutions to lessen the harm suchweapons could inflict, said Dr. Garen Wintemute, an emergency physician and gun-violence researcher at UC Davis.
A nationally representative survey commissioned by organizers of the Seattle SmartGun Symposium in January found that two-thirds of Americans believe dealersshould offer guns fitted with technology that makes them more secure. In addition, 4in 10 gun owners — and 54 percent of those between 18 and 44 — said they would"consider swapping" the guns currently in their homes for "new, safer smart gunswhen they come on the market."
"Safety does sell," Wintemute said.
Public health experts say the iP1 could shift the demographics of gun ownership in
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the United States by attracting people who have been too afraid to own firearms.
Ron Conway agrees. The San Francisco billionaire — who was an early investor inGoogle, PayPal and Facebook — started the Smart Tech for Firearms Challenge a yearafter the Newtown shootings, offering grants of $10,000 to $100,000 to develop safe,high-tech firearms.
One of his 15 grantees, Tom Lynch of Safe Gun Technology Inc. in Columbus, Ga., isputting the finishing touches on a fingerprint recognition device for the AR-15semiautomatic rifle — an assault weapon that gun control activists repeatedly havesought to ban.
Gun owners, he said, want to be able to choose when to activate safe technology, whento turn it off and whom to designate as an authorized user. They want immediate andreliable access to their gun, with no extra steps.
In the face of political stalemate, even ardent backers of gun control legislation arepinning their hopes on smart technology.
"The 2nd Amendment is part of the landscape," said Ralph Fascitelli, president ofWashington CeaseFire in Seattle. "Technology is the most appealing way out of thisconundrum."
Steve Teret, a public health expert at Johns Hopkins University who has tracked theevolution of smart weapons for more than three decades, said it was only a matter oftime before they were readily available.
"I see more people involved and more interest," he said. "We're getting quite close tohaving personalized guns be a reality in the United States."
In the meantime, Armatix announced last month that it had entered Chapter 11-stylerestructuring proceedings in Germany. Advocates for safer firearms are closelytracking the company's fortunes.
©2015 the Los Angeles Times. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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