As we noted earlier today, after a couple of abortive attempts, Armatix finally has someone selling its iP1 “smart gun” to the public. A fortune.com article reported that DB Guns & Smithing is selling the “personalized” weapon, a prospect many people have opposed due to the potential for triggering New Jersey’s law requiring all handguns sold there to be similarly equipped. TTAG talked to Doug this afternoon about his decision to sell the Armatix .22 handguns and he explained his rationale . . .
Doug (he wouldn’t give his last name) told us that he’s a life-long NRA member and staunch Second Amendment advocate and supporter. His reason for selling the iP1, he said, is to get guns in the hands of those who would not otherwise buy one. His hope, he told us, is that once comfortable with owning a “safer” gun like the Armatix pistol, those buyers would expand their firearms ownership, adding more and different traditional guns to their collections.
As for the New Jersey aspect, at first he asserted that the New Jersey law was no longer operative. That may have been a misunderstanding based on the Garden State’s attorney general’s opinion that the Armatix system would not trigger the state’s smart gun mandate. Be that as it may, Doug made it clear that if he determined that selling the Armatix pistol resulted in a smart-guns-only mandate in any other state, he would stop selling them to the public.
Rest assured that TTAG will be purchasing an iP1 from Doug for a thorough review and extensive testing. We look forward to putting Armatix’s wundergun through its paces. As always, we’ll keep you informed.