How far away is the capability of making weapons that can only be used by the person they were issued to? Could we make a fingerprint responsive trigger reliable enough for practical use, and ammunition that could be satellite tracked when used?
It has already been invented and could be implemented in lots of ways. Here is a trigger guard ring patent for starters.. You have to be wearing the right ring on your finger for the gun to fire. Someone could potentially steal the ring but that isn’t practical or realistic in most circumstances especially in armed combat or through unauthorized accidental firing. I doubt fingerprint sensing would be as reliable as a ring but you could use voice recognition or any other security technology that anything else already uses if you insisted on it.
The issue isn’t with the available technology. It is with the development costs and the cost/benefit analysis that goes along with that. There aren’t that many guns that should ever be fired by only one person or a designated group of people. People quit the police force and their equipment needs to be issued to the next person. People like to share their personal firearms on the range. It comes done to the specific goal you have and how much cost and effort should go into it.
Actually, the issue IS with the available technology. If it doesn’t work 100% of the time it creates a situation where the user can be put in serious peril when they go to use the weapon. Imagine, if you will, that you pull out a firearm to defend yourself and you have no choice but to use it. You pull the trigger and it doesn’t work due to some electronic malfunction. If it were simply mechanical there are steps to correct the situation, but in this case, due to the failure of the electronics to recognize you as a user, there is no fix. You have now pointed a gun and demonstrated intent to use it. You are now at the mercy of the criminal that you thought was dangerous enough that you had to pull the trigger. That is bad, to say the least.
It’s a neat idea, but flawed in practice. It adds a layer of complexity that can only cause problems down the road when the weapon is most needed.
The “satellite tracking” part of the OP is silly beyond words. If something like that were ever implemented I’d learn how to make my own bullets. I don’t need to give law enforcement a call every time I go to the range, for instance.
The problem with a fingerprint reader is how is it going to work if the user is wearing gloves, or has dirt, mud or grease on their hands? It also needs batteries, which often go dead at inconvenient times.
It doesn’t even take that much to screw them up. We have a fingerprint time clock where I work. They guys who do mechanical assembly and hard wiring often have trouble with it due not only to dirt but also due to blisters, calluses, burns, cuts and scrapes. Every employee has three fingers registered in the system for this reason, but that workaround wouldn’t help much with a gun.
Stupid question here: If we could do it, why would we want to do it?
The goal, as with every one of these sorts of ideas, is risk mitigation and accountability. The real reason, of course is the typical one: won’t someone please think about the children?
Noble as that is, it is people who become convinced that they have the right answer to the question that pass laws that mandate stuff like this, which is enough to make me care not one bit about the children.
If they do manage to make this technology viable, I’m all for it. Currently they allow for a lockout of the feature for sharing at the range, whatever, so that’s easily overcome. All they need to do is make it reliable, to the point that it is even less obtrusive than mechanical failure. But if they try to mandate this before the technology is mature I will most assuredly oppose it.
If they try to mandate this ever I will assuredly oppose it. If some people would prefer to buy a more complicated gun with an added safety feature, for their own peace of mind or to satisfy their paranoia, that’s their choice. Hell, if it works well enough, I might even buy one. But I’ll retain that choice for myself, thank you very much.
Why woulod a criminal beg borrow or steal such a weapon when there are a gazillion old style weapons out there?
The people who obey the stupid laws and the good laws are not the problem.
No way to enforce the technology without magic…
YMMV