There has been a lot of talk lately about “smart gun technology”. The president recently said:

We need to develop new technologies that make guns safer.  If we can set it up so you can’t unlock your phone unless you’ve got the right fingerprint, why can’t we do the same thing for our guns?   If there’s an app that can help us find a missing tablet — which happens to me often the older I get  — if we can do it for your iPad, there’s no reason we can’t do it with a stolen gun.  If a child can’t open a bottle of aspirin, we should make sure that they can’t pull a trigger on a gun.

Read the whole thing here.

In Skyfall, James Bond had a modernized version of his classic Walther PPK which used biometrics in the grip to make sure the hand firing it was his. In a fight scene, when the bad guy got his gun, it didn’t fire. That’s pretty cool. The Lotus Esprit that turned into a submarine in Moonraker was cool too. Stuff usually works really well for James Bond. Maybe that’s because he’s a fictional character in movies.

What’s involved in making a smart gun work? Could it be as simple as the president suggests? First, the gun needs to be able to recognize a safe condition for firing, such as when the proper owner is holding it,  then there needs to be a mechanical device that prevents the operation of the gun, finally there needs to be a link between the two so that the recognition of the owner can automatically release the lock. So, recognition,  a mechanical safety, and a motor mechanism. These kinds of things exist already in different places.

Recognition

I have a fingerprint lock on my phone. It’s very nice.  It works most of the time. Sometimes it doesn’t, and it asks for the code. Sometimes my finger is dirty, wet, or I’m wearing gloves and I can’t instantly use my phone. That’s fine on a phone. That’s completely unacceptable on a gun. My iPhone 6 cost around $700. Apple is the best manufacturer of user-interface devices on the planet. So the best consumer technology, costing by itself as much as a nice gun, only works sometimes. Fingerprint recognition is only one method. A ‘smart gun’ already on the market, sold by by Armatix, uses an RFID chip in a watch to identify the user. Another approach could be grip recognition. The RFID approach eliminates the need for the gun to be programmable. Working like the card based door locks which are common in office buildings, a device in the gun would sense the proximity of the watch or other transmitter. With a grip or fingerprint recognition system, the gun needs to have a sophisticated enough user interface and operating system for the owner to be able to program it. Or perhaps it could connect to some kind of external computer for programming. Maybe you could have a keypad on the device so that the owner could enter a code to unlock the gun. That’s getting pretty close to the Smith and Wesson internal lock idea in which the owner uses a key to unlock the gun.

Mechanical Safety

Existing safeties come in three flavors on a firearm.

• There are internal safeties that are completely passive and have nothing to do with the user’s operation of the gun. For example, a hammer block safety releases as part of the trigger mechanism, but while engaged prevents something other than a trigger, like a drop on a hard floor, from firing the gun.
• There are passive grip safeties that are activated by the user in normal operation. On a 1911 pistol, for example, the grip safety will naturally be released when the gun is held normally, but will prevent firing if, for example, the user snags the trigger removing the gun from the holster.
• Then there are active safeties which the user must disable through a distinct action, like switching a lever with her thumb. The purpose of a thumb safety would be to require a deliberate act of the user prior to firing in order to minimize accidental firing.

The purpose of all of these is to minimize the possibility of the gun firing accidentally. The application of safeties relates to the design of the gun. Traditional revolvers with heavy triggers typically don’t have active safeties, for example, because it would be much harder to accidentally pull the trigger.

Another category of mechanism is the lock. There are internal locks that require a key to disable and there are external locks that block the trigger or chamber until opened with a key or combination.

Some designs for safeties have been around for a very long time, like the grip safety on a 1911 semi-automatic pistol. With heavy combat use through two world wars as well as Korea and Vietnam, this design has been well proven. It is still widely in use today. I’ve never heard it criticized as unreliable. On the other hand, the internal locks on Smith and Wesson revolvers are known to jam the gun and they are often removed by gun owners. Otherwise, though, the design of a Smith and Wesson revolver is excellent and they are considered some of the most reliable guns made.

I think most experts and gun owners would agree that it’s possible to design a safety which prevents operation of the gun without compromising the reliability of the gun, at least on some types of gun.

Motor Mechanism 

Once the gun has recognized its owner by some means, the safety would need to be turned off. That requires a small motion of some sort. Maybe a twist, a pull or a push on the safety mechanism. Can you think of any handheld electronic devices that move something automatically? I can’t. Possible technologies include solenoids, such as are used in many electric locks. Piezo-electrical components can make small precise movements, and electric motors exist which are small enough to fit inside a gun. Whatever the method, it will require electricity to activate, it must be robust enough to resist moving upon a hard blow to the gun or under the force of recoil after firing, and the action must be reversible so that it can both lock and unlock automatically. There’s not a lot of precedent for that. We’ve clearly gotten past the technology of iPads and aspirin bottles and into a new frontier.

Everything I’ve just described is possible. In fact there are existing smart guns on the market. But there’s also a high standard to meet. Most modern guns are built on antique designs which have seen extensive use. Models are available which are lightweight, small and easily concealed. Certain designs are easy to operate for someone disabled, for example by arthritis, or for someone with use of only one hand or arm. Most guns will be impervious to brief immersion in water. Most will fire correctly after being left for years in a safe. Most will work in extreme cold or heat conditions. Existing consumer technology, such as we see in phones is only a small part of what must go into a smart gun and it will take years in use and many refinements of existing technologies to match the performance of current handgun designs.

What’s the point, anyway?

There’s the James Bond scenario – you’re in hand-to-hand combat and your assailant gets control of your gun. If a technology could render it useless in his hand, just like in the movie, that would be great. That’s the holy grail of smart gun technology. For a gun to work like that, it can’t use proximity to unlock. RFID bracelets are out because the gun might be in or near the owner’s hand when the assailant fires it. The lock must activate and deactivate instantly. As soon as it’s out of the grip of its owner, it must become inoperable and as soon as it is recovered it must fire, since the owner may be involved in a lethal struggle. Any technology that unlocks the gun through a combination or a key is completely out of this game. The technical standard for the James Bond gun is extremely high and far beyond anything which exists today in any device. Q is very good at his job.

How about child safety- would you want your child playing with a loaded gun?  I wouldn’t. I don’t care how good the technology in it is, I don’t want any gun in any unsupervised child’s hands. A gun, in any condition, should not be anywhere that a child might access it. It shouldn’t be on a nightstand or in a purse or a dresser. I don’t care if it is unloaded or if it has a trigger lock. If it is not being carried securely by its owner, it should be in a strong lockbox or safe which is bolted to an immovable object. Locked up in a metal box. Period, end of story.

Then there’s theft prevention. Preventing the theft of guns could help to keep them out of the hands of criminals. But a firearm is a machine, it isn’t magic. It has a bunch of moving parts that need to be accessible for cleaning and repairs. These safeties and locks are simply more machinery. They can be removed, they can be disabled. For this reason, a safety or internal lock is not useful in preventing the theft of a gun. Once the gun is stolen, the thief needs only some basic hand tools to take apart the gun and remove the safety. If the burglar is too dumb to do it, he will have a friend who knows how. Trigger locks can be drilled out. Cables can be cut. Internal locks can be altered and removed. None of this takes more than $100 in tools (which could also be stolen) or a lot of expertise.  Any technology or marketing that makes a gun owner think that it’s ok to leave a gun lying around unsecured only increases the chance of a child or a criminal committing a terrible act of violence with that gun. A locked metal box is also effective for theft prevention, if it is bolted down so the whole thing can’t be taken.

So the James Bond scenario is really the only good reason to use a smart gun, and the technology must be absolutely perfect to serve in that situation. If it takes one second for the gun to lock once out of its owner’s hand, an attacker could pull the trigger in that moment. The James Bond gun would be especially useful for police who are probably more likely than any of us to have an assailant reach for their gun.

Why are gun rights advocates seemingly so opposed to smart guns? Read this. A New Jersey law mandates that, once smart guns have been available for three years, it will become illegal to sell any other kind of gun. It’s arbitrary and unrealistic to think that any new technology could be refined to the point of being absolutely fail-safe in three years. The result is that the gun industry and gun rights advocates have done everything possible to prevent the sale of smart guns in this country.

It is terrible that so many small children fire guns, killing or injuring themselves and others. It’s terrible that violent crimes are committed using stolen guns. It’s worth taking steps to prevent these tragedies, but it’s at best useless and at worst dangerous to suggest that guns can be rendered safe using technology. Instead, I suggest that we focus on encouraging more gun owners to properly secure their weapons. So would I like the James Bond smart gun, if it could be built for real? Yes, but I’d still keep it in a good safe.