Tuesday, December 8, 2015

Smart Guns and the Current State of the Gun Control Debate

I would like to start off with, this blog is not intended to be a controversial post, it is intended to bring awareness to smart guns as on option which has not been talked about in many posts or reports in recent media.

In a world where everything we use has been influenced by technology the firearm industry has not hopped on the digital bandwagon yet. With all the current gun control debating and propaganda going around not much as been brought up in the form of Smart guns. This article I read the other day posted by CNET was one of the first ones I read that brought up the use of smart guns as a means to prevent gun related incidents. Smart guns are guns which can only be operated by an authorized user. They are also known as personalized or owner-authorized guns. These guns are not currently commercially available however there are a few companies that have been testing the idea of smart guns with various technologies.

Some of these technologies are integrated in the trigger with bio-metric sensors and others are integrated in a wearable RFID watch or ring which will only allow the firearm to operate when near by. As with all technological advancements there are initial kinks which need to be worked out and negative kick backs from certain organizations. In the case of the smart guns, Kenneth W. Royce a gun ownership advocate wrote that "No defensive firearm should ever rely upon technology more advanced than Newtonian physics. That includes batteries, radio links, encryption, scanning devices and microcomputers." The other big kick back is from gun owners claiming that the government will be able to track individuals.

Will smart guns be the hot topic of gun control in the foreseeable future or still just a scene from 007 Skyfall?

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