Is a reliable handgun that can be fired only by the owner feasible with 2014 technology?

[Francis_Vaughan]

Whereas the statistics support this view, as you might note with the comments from gun owners, the perception of requirements is the opposite. Since they are the people that will be buying these weapons you still need to convince them to actually buy them. From a marketing and simple pragmatic point of view of actually being able to sell the system, you will need to get the false negative rate down to very low levels.

I do suspect that if a reliable system was developed the marketing allure of creating a system that makes it “my” weapon in a very practical sense would sell well.

It also needs emphasising that the only use case for these systems is for defensive weapons. That is weapons that have been bought with the primary purpose of being carried, not as a collectors pieces, range use, etc. LEO use is probably going to be a primary use. But as a system for those that wish to have a defensive weapon, and still avoid the remarkably high risk of being shot with their own weapon, it remains a good idea.

[usedtobe]

Use multiple chips - any two in the body an entire network of chips could be required - you can chop off my hand and get a chip - but what about the other 5 (3 of each, for redundancy - only 1 required to complete the “circuit”)? The chip in the weapon would need a “circuit intact” signal to do what - a stepper motor to flip a traditional safety lever? A solenoid to withdraw something in the path of the bullet (that would be the best safety - let the bad guy fire, but have it blow up in his face).

Until a fingerprint scanner can recognize a dirty hand ( and who wants to have to remove a glove? Most cops aren’t going to be so certain of needing their weapons as to go gloveless in -10 weather. maybe a window of transparent material over the finger being scanned. That scanner is probably not an off-the-shelf item at this point.

[Novelty_Bobble]

Is there not already a decent analogy for this that has been in use for well over a decade?

There are millions of cars out there already that are keyless and require the legitimate owner to have a card with them to first open the car, disable the immobiliser and then to start the engine.

I don’t know what the stats are for the failure of any of those three interconnected systems but I’ve not come across any chronic issues regarding failure to start.

Much more telling is the fact that immobiliser technology in general means that it is far harder to steal a new car and drive it away. You want to steal it? you are going to have to tow it.

[Orwell]

@bengangmo

It’s difficult for me to understand why, for self defence alone, you would need to carry so many different guns. For range or sport shooting I think its a big difference.

Some sort of interlock is, in my mind, a priority for “self defence” guns - why would it be so difficult that you keep one handgun accessible for self defence - with just such a device, and the rest are locked up?

I have two pistols I bought for carrying, and one larger one I have in a handgun safe under my bed for at-home defense. Carry guns now come in many sizes - pocket, subcompact, compact, medium, large. Many people have two or three or more handguns for concealed carry depending on how they are dressed and outside temperatures. And they have different guns used for protection in their home or store. It’s really not unusual at all.

Most of my guns are locked up. But what does that have to do with what so-called “smart gun” proponents want? Are you suggesting that interlocks - if they are ever implemented by some foolish legislature - would only pertain to handguns carried for defense outside one’s home? I would fully suspect that a state such as CA, NJ, MD, DC or IL would want a law that would apply to all new handguns, which makes my concern about keeping track of various devices and systems pertinent.

As to other posters talking about “market acceptance” and what cost premium or failure rate might be acceptable, I can tell you most gun owners/buyers would not be willing to pay ANY premium and would require a miniscule failure rate, and would prefer to buy a traditional version with no fancy electronics that would add size, weight and complexity.

[doorhinge]

@crucible

probably already stated. The failure you need to worry about is the one where the gun can be fired without the owner firing it. A failure to fire when the owner is using it is only important when there is no choice but to use a gun to defend oneself. Usually, the fact that you are holding a gun is enough to convince an intruder to run away, even if they are carrying.

Since homes with usable guns are far less safe by statistical reports than ones with no weapon, having a gun that fails to fire 100% of the time would logically be far safer than having one that fires, reliably, whenever you, or your kid, or your spouse…aims it at you and pulls the trigger.

@Habeed

This. Supposedly there are a smaller number of actual incidents where an intruder was shot than incidents where an intruder or an unauthorized party got ahold of a firearm and used it against the owner. As I recall, the ratio is hugely skewed.

Are you, to the best of your abilities, recalling actual studies or anti-gun conversations hosted by the Brady bunch or Bloomberg-types?

[Chronos]

Quoth doorhinge:

I know several people who would never buy a firearm but insist that I buy some high-tech smart gun.

I honestly cannot conceive of anyone, on any side of the issue, who would insist on this. Can you elaborate?

Quoth Bone:

Here’s my criteria for minimum requirements:

Low failure rate: less than 1 failure in 100,000 attempts.
No external devices to wear, carry, or implant
No balance changes on the weapon
No significantly added cost ~5% max.
Support multiple users
Non-mandatory
Easy for user to fix if there is a failure
Wide adoption by police

On your first point, can you give me a cite for any manufactured product, gun or otherwise, that has a reliability that high?
On your second point, external devices are the most reliable way of accomplishing this goal. If you don’t want them, then that means you don’t want reliability.
On your third and fourth points, relative to what? I presume that you already have different guns which cost different prices and have different balance. Any new gun you purchase is guaranteed to have a different balance from at least one of your guns.
Your fifth point is fairly easy, provided all of the users have whatever the key is. If you want to support multiple users who don’t have the key, then we’re back to “OK with it as long as it doesn’t exist”.
Your sixth point is ludicrous. Nobody who proposes smart guns has ever suggested that such devices be mandatory. The only people I’ve ever heard of who suggest mandatory guns are extreme right-wingers, who would prefer that they all be as unsafe as possible.
On your seventh point, do you require this of dumb firearms as well? Because I’m sure that there are many ways a gun can break which can’t be fixed by the typical user.
And your eighth point amounts to saying that you want the police to use an unacceptable weapon, because by your standards, it can’t be acceptable until after they use it.

[doorhinge]

@Novelty_Bobble

Is there not already a decent analogy for this that has been in use for well over a decade?

There are millions of cars out there already that are keyless and require the legitimate owner to have a card with them to first open the car, disable the immobiliser and then to start the engine.

I don’t know what the stats are for the failure of any of those three interconnected systems but I’ve not come across any chronic issues regarding failure to start.

Much more telling is the fact that immobiliser technology in general means that it is far harder to steal a new car and drive it away. You want to steal it? you are going to have to tow it.

While there are people who are willing to buy higher end cars with keyless ignitions, I don’t know of any actual firearms buyers who would buy smart guns with electronic systems that might fail when the firearm is needed most.

Way back in 1987, London-based Tomkins PLC bought Smith & Wesson for $112 million. In 2001, Saf-T-Hammer Corp., a U.S.-based firearms company bought S&W for $45 million in cash and debt.

What happened? A successful company destroyed it’s own market by kowtowing to the anti-gun zealots and pushed a product that actual firearms buyers didn’t want and wouldn’t buy. S&W is currently doing well (without the failed european guidelines).

*Arizona Firm Buys Smith & Wesson
May 15, 2001

Smith & Wesson Corp., a manufacturer of handguns since 1852, has been sold by its British owner to Saf-T-Hammer Corp., a Scottsdale, Ariz.-based firearm safety and security device developer, for $45 million in cash and debt.

…In March 2000, Smith & Wesson agreed to install safety locks on all its guns and adopt other safety features and marketing changes. In return, federal, state and local agencies agreed to drop the company from their lawsuits.

But gun rights supporters accused Smith & Wesson of selling out and vowed to boycott the Massachusetts company. Smith & Wesson’s sales were cut roughly in half.

Smith & Wesson has assets of $97 million and debt of $53 million, a $30 million note payable to Tomkins PLC in May 2011. London-based Tomkins bought Smith & Wesson in 1987 for $112 million*.

http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2001-05-15/business/0105140526_1_smith-wesson-wesson-corp-wesson-s-sales

[doorhinge]

@Chronos

I honestly cannot conceive of anyone, on any side of the issue, who would insist on this. Can you elaborate?

S&W almost went out of business trying to sell key-locked and smart-firearms that actual buyers of firearms did not want.

The people who believe that such firearms should be sold DID NOT step up and support the company by buying such weapons in numbers that would have kept S&W in business.

S&W was sold, at a bargain price, to a company who intended to sell firearms that it’s customers would buy.

[Orwell]

@Chronos

I honestly cannot conceive of anyone, on any side of the issue, who would insist on this. Can you elaborate?

Gun control proponents are foaming at the mouth ready to write laws mandating this expensive, unproven, unneeded technology.

Massachusetts attorney general candidate wants to mandate smart gun technology

Democratic house member would mandate smart gun technology

New Jersey wants to make smart gun technology mandatory as soon as first guns are available for sale in US

Why you should be concerned about smart guns/

[Francis_Vaughan]

Interestingly, the FBI stats over ten years (2003-2012) show that of 493 officers (of any kind across the USA) killed by a firearm, 43 were killed with their own weapon.

So 8.7% of gunshot murders of police officers in the USA were effected with their own weapon. This is higher than I would have guessed. It would suggest that there is a latent market for a mechanism as the OP proposes. However the criteria for an acceptable system are going to be even more stringent. As noted above, it would need to work with gloves. And it would need to work in the face of dirt, blood, and water. That is going to be a hard task. OTOH, an implant would probably be much less of an issue for an LEO than others.

[RaftPeople]

New idea for a mechanical system:
You know how there are some things with tools and devices that require you to do them in just the right way due to some imperfection? And sometimes the thing is stuck until you can find just the right angle/or pressure or something?

What if each gun was manufactured with an intentional mechanism that required certain pressure or twisting or shifting at a angle or something to be fired.

It could be something that would take a person a week to learn that particular guns unique pressure and/or angle or something (on the handle?), but after a week of practice a human could get it every time.

The advantage is that it keeps electronics out of it.

[Francis_Vaughan]

@Orwell

Gun control proponents are foaming at the mouth ready to write laws mandating this expensive, unproven, unneeded technology.

As an outsider, I will confess to be somewhat bemused by this. In both directions of the argument. The technology is pretty much orthogonal to the question of gun control, and in the overall context of guns in the US essentially noise.

The OP’s question however is interesting. It isn’t a trivial problem, and current attempts are clearly far short of acceptable. That an effective technology would save the lives of some LEOs is difficult to refute, and that makes it potentially economic to pursue. So, the geeky questions arise as to what might be an effective system.

[pkbites]

@Habeed

This. Supposedly there are a smaller number of actual incidents where an intruder was shot than incidents where an intruder or an unauthorized party got ahold of a firearm and used it against the owner. As I recall, the ratio is hugely skewed.

:dubious:

Where are you getting this from? “supposedly” and “as I recall” are no substitutes for cites.

Besides, this isn’t the goal of a useful smart gun. Keeping a firearm secure, yet accessible in a home is easy and there are a zillion things on the market for it. The goal I’m looking for is when the gun is loaded and in a holster. Modern police holster are excellent when it comes to retention in a scuffle, but they are not infallible.

[Habeed]

@pkbites

:dubious:

Where are you getting this from? “supposedly” and “as I recall” are no substitutes for cites.

This is : Injuries and deaths due to firearms in the home - PubMed

OBJECTIVE: Determine the relative frequency with which guns in the home are used to injure or kill in self-defense, compared with the number of times these weapons are involved in an unintentional injury, suicide attempt, or criminal assault or homicide.

METHODS: We reviewed the police, medical examiner, emergency medical service, emergency department, and hospital records of all fatal and nonfatal shootings in three U.S. cities: Memphis, Tennessee; Seattle, Washington; and Galveston, Texas.

RESULTS: During the study interval (12 months in Memphis, 18 months in Seattle, and Galveston) 626 shootings occurred in or around a residence. This total included 54 unintentional shootings, 118 attempted or completed suicides, and 438 assaults/homicides. Thirteen shootings were legally justifiable or an act of self-defense, including three that involved law enforcement officers acting in the line of duty. For every time a gun in the home was used in a self-defense or legally justifiable shooting, there were four unintentional shootings, seven criminal assaults or homicides, and 11 attempted or completed suicides.

CONCLUSIONS: Guns kept in homes are more likely to be involved in a fatal or nonfatal accidental shooting, criminal assault, or suicide attempt than to be used to injure or kill in self-defense.
A rational person who had no bias towards or against private gun ownership would probably conclude based on this rather compelling evidence that purchasing a firearm for self defense has a higher chance of resulting in your death for various reasons than it does of saving your life.

As far as I know, all published, credible research supports this conclusion. The only research I know of that shows otherwise is a telephone survey asking about self defense incidents that had very poor methodology.

But that’s not the topic of this thread. The main thing is that if you have an electronic mechanism with a chance of failure, but the mechanism also prevents accidental shootings by anyone other than the gun owner, it may result in a net increase in lives saved even if there is a small chance it fails at a critical moment and allows an attacker to kill you.

[Bone]

@Chronos

On your first point, can you give me a cite for any manufactured product, gun or otherwise, that has a reliability that high?

I don’t know, are you asserting that one does not exist? Vaccines come to mind. Or, you yourself said this:

@Chronos

…A single-purpose electronic system can be made simple enough to essentially never fail.

What were you thinking when you said ‘essentially never fail’?

On your second point, external devices are the most reliable way of accomplishing this goal. If you don’t want them, then that means you don’t want reliability.

That’s actually not what I mean. I mean, I’m not willing to sacrifice either reliability, or the necessity of an external device. This isn’t some tradeoff that must be accepted. Both are requirements, for me.

On your third and fourth points, relative to what? I presume that you already have different guns which cost different prices and have different balance. Any new gun you purchase is guaranteed to have a different balance from at least one of your guns.

Relative to similar models of the same weapon. In other words, If I have a Glock 17 standard, the ‘smart gun’ Glock 17 shouldn’t cost more, or feel different. I grant the feel part is subjective, the cost part is not.

Your fifth point is fairly easy, provided all of the users have whatever the key is. If you want to support multiple users who don’t have the key, then we’re back to “OK with it as long as it doesn’t exist”.

Great! I would need a system that allows all the authorized users in my house to access all of the different quick access weapons in the house, in no more time than it does currently. If this is easy, wonderful.

Your sixth point is ludicrous. Nobody who proposes smart guns has ever suggested that such devices be mandatory. The only people I’ve ever heard of who suggest mandatory guns are extreme right-wingers, who would prefer that they all be as unsafe as possible.

I think you misunderstood my point here. This is referring to laws that require smart gun tech, and prohibit sale of non smart guns. CA currently prohibits the sale of any new hand gun without smartgun tech. Surprise, no new handguns can be sold in CA because they dont exist. It’s being litigated by SAF, CGF, Ruger, and Glock at the moment. So yes, there are proposals and actual laws that make this tech mandatory.

On your seventh point, do you require this of dumb firearms as well? Because I’m sure that there are many ways a gun can break which can’t be fixed by the typical user.

Yes. Typical weapon failures like failure to feed or eject are simple fixes that can be done in a second or two.

And your eighth point amounts to saying that you want the police to use an unacceptable weapon, because by your standards, it can’t be acceptable until after they use it.

Like I said, that’s my personal criteria. I wouldn’t choose or want to be forced to be an early adopter of a new technology. I would want to see it being used widely by police. They will have their own standards - and their adoption would go along way to assuage concerns as their needs overlap individual needs in many areas.

[Bone]

@Habeed

This is : Injuries and deaths due to firearms in the home - PubMed

…

CONCLUSIONS: Guns kept in homes are more likely to be involved in a fatal or nonfatal accidental shooting, criminal assault, or suicide attempt than to be used to injure or kill in self-defense.

If I recall correctly, this study didn’t distinguish between guns kept in the home and those that were brought by people foreign to the home. It’s not on point.

[Orwell]

Those NIH stats are both erroneous and misleading. First off, counting only cases where a gun is fired and someone is injured or killed ignores the vast majority of times a firearm is used in defense. Most of the time a gun is “used” in self defense, shots are not fired. Announcing or showing you have a gun often scares off a burglar, intruder or attacker without any shots being fired. The stats also completely ignore times when a gun is used against wild, rabid or vicious animals.

Second, suicides are the largest single category, and I believe should be excluded. If someone is intent on killing themselves, the tool is largely irrelevant. Beyond this fact, wouldn’t the owner of a smart gun be able to off himself anyway?

Even the recent report commissioned by our gun control supporting president came to the conclusion that guns are often used to save lives.

“Studies that directly assessed the effect of actual defensive uses of guns (i.e., incidents in which a gun was ‘used’ by the crime victim in the sense of attacking or threatening an offender) have found consistently lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims compared with victims who used other self-protective strategies,” the CDC study, entitled “Priorities For Research to Reduce the Threat of Firearm-Related Violence,” states.

The report, which notes that “ violent crimes, including homicides specifically, have declined in the past five years,” also pointed out that “some firearm violence results in death, but most does not.” In fact, the CDC report said, most incidents involving the discharge of firearms do not result in a fatality.

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/cdc-study-use-firearms-self-defense-important-crime-deterrent

[pkbites]

@Habeed

This is : Injuries and deaths due to firearms in the home - PubMed

That is a mish mash of all instances mixed together. it certainly does not qualify your previous statement about a large ratio of intruders using homeowners guns against them. Apples and oranges.

[Chronos]

Quoth Orwell:

Gun control proponents are foaming at the mouth ready to write laws mandating this expensive, unproven, unneeded technology.

None of those laws would mandate use of this technology. The only place I know of where gun ownership is mandatory is a small town in Georgia, and I doubt that the gun-grabbers living there have required this particular sort of gun.

Bone, just what would be the problem with a system based on a ring or other external device? When you strap on your holster, you put on a ring, too. If ambidexterity is important to you, then you put a ring on each hand. If you want to be innocuous, then the ring could be made to look like a class ring or the like, and if you want to openly mark yourself as a gun owner, I’m sure rings would be designed for that purpose, too. If, for some reason, you want to carry a different gun on some occasion, then you can put on a different ring when you change your holster.

And why the assumption that the smart guns would be variants of existing gun designs? If I buy a Prius hybrid, I don’t demand that it handle the same as a non-hybrid Prius, because there isn’t any such thing.

[Orwell]

@Chronos

None of those laws would mandate use of this technology. The only place I know of where gun ownership is mandatory is a small town in Georgia, and I doubt that the gun-grabbers living there have required this particular sort of gun.

That is quite the absurd response. Props.