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Ernst Mauch courtesy armatix.com

“The safety mechanisms that I designed are completely in line with the values underpinning the U.S. gun-rights movement and represent a market-driven approach to firearm safety. It’s about having access to more technology features and the right to choose the firearm that best suits your needs. This is a solution everyone should be able to get behind.” – iP1 designer and Armatix managing director Ernst Mauch in ‘Smart guns are a smart choice for consumers’ [via washingtonpost.com]

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90 COMMENTS

    • Not to mention the pattern is a Gen 1 POS with what I only imagine is a worse than airsoft trigger and mag release, and your own dumbass watch 🙂 You mean thats not something we cant all get behind something like that? Balderdash.

  1. A solution everyone [who happens to be looking for the same non-existent problem] should be able to get behind.

    FIFY.

    • It’s the solution to the gun problem…

      Make gun that can be remotely disarmed, check.

      Pawn said gun off as new super “safe technology”, check.

      Mandate all newly manufactured guns to be “safe guns”, check.

      Years pass, does not matter how many, it’s all about the end game, now “safe guns” are common place and dominate the market, check.

      Some event takes place and the G hits the kill switch on all guns, it’s for the children don’t cha know, check.

      Reset of all gun kill switches to be determined, checkmate.

      * Adjusts tinfoil hat*

      • You have to admit, if “super safe” is your goal, a gun without a firing pin would be pretty cool!

      • What tin foil? It’s a wet dream for these statist control freaks if all guns in the publics hands were to have an on/off switch that they would control

        As for a technology that’s market driven? Unless it was government mandated; it would be an utter fail to try to sell such an abomination to the general public.

      • Wait for the dumb-gun downgrade kit to be available for this model, complete with blinky light.

      • I am all for remote kill switches. Arm the Police in areas where out of control behavior has been exhibited with them. Maybe we can prevent incidents where 377 rounds are fired at unarmed crash victims.

    • Agreed. Keep in mind he’s trying to create a market for his product just like folks have for bottled water and whatnot. “Create an opportunity where one doesn’t exist. Sell the solution to a perceived problem.”

    • This.

      There are hundreds of products introduced to the consumer market every day that fail. The “smart gun” is just another one of them.

      • What worries me is the New Jersey Effect. Could their “Mandatory -Smart-Gun-Once-One-Is- Available” law create a market where there would otherwise not be one?

        • Yes, the market would decide that fate of the technology, if the market was truly free. Unfortunately, it’s not.

        • NJ is simply following CA AG Harris’ executive action with the Roster of “safe” guns and imposed microstamping requirement, also impractical to the point of useless and justified on the basis of an obscure study. It Progressive2.0 orwellian language to keep the sheeple asleep, enabled by the compliant StateRunMedia™. That WAPO would endorse this in an editorial removes any doubt about which way Bezos wants to take his new shiny toy.

          And makes me rethink my investment in kindle and Amazon use in future.

        • Well, except that I would maintain there are a couple of CA gun laws which actually make firearms more dangerous in terms of increasing the chances of negligent discharges.

          Make things more difficult to do properly, and there’s a greater chance of folks not doing it properly. It’s far easier to drop a mag and cycle the action to ensure a weapon is clear than to clear a fixed mag where you have to peer into the weapon. Bullet button promotes lazier/less dilligent/complacent folks not taking the trouble to drop the mag and instead just peer in regardless of lighting and more likely to miss something.

          The ‘loaded chamber indicator’ promotes the bad habit of entrusting a mechanical device as to the status of the weapon. Some folks, again through laziness/lack of dillegence/complacency, are likely to start pointing weapons where they shouldn’t based on the ‘loaded chambe indicator’ indicating unloaded.

          Just my .02 based on my experience as a safety officer in the military.

  2. It’s about having access to more technology features and the right to choose the firearm that best suits your needs. This is a solution everyone should be able to get behind.

    Or more accurately, “These are firearms everyone should buy . . . . so I make more money.”

      • Of course the problem with the Hindenburg was more the rocket fuel coating the aircraft’s shell than the hydrogen inside it.

        Just as the problem with smart guns is more the tendency of the government to require it rather than the technology itself.

  3. To quote Geddy Lee and Rush:

    “You can choose a ready guide in some celestial voice
    If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice
    You can choose from phantom fears and kindness that can kill
    I will choose a path that’s clear
    I will choose freewill”

  4. In engineering I believe that is called “a solution in search of a problem”

    Ignoring the addition of complexity where it is really not needed or wanted, there is no tangible benefits to smart guns and certainly anything it adds in terms of “safety” is outweighed by the numerous issues it introduces.

  5. Apple should should sue him for trademark infringement for his use of the “i” prefix in iP1.

    Also, I’m very happy and satisfied with the technology afforded me by the guns I currently own. I wouldn’t own his product even if he were giving it away. I have no use for a firearm that can be hacked by the government or criminals. He must think the rest of us are as idiotic as he is. What a tool.

    • Don’t forget, he lives in Europe. Where you are the subject of the state. There’s a much different mindset at work there.

  6. “This is a market driven approach.”

    Yeah, and if it weren’t for the potential that State Governments might mandate the use of your product it would be an epic failure in the free market. Subsidy by regulation and legislation is not free market.

  7. We have an inveterate dislike of the profusion of safety devices with which all automatic pistols are regularly equipped. We believe them to be the cause of more accidents than anything else. There are too many instances on record of men being shot by accident either because the safety-catch was in the firing position when it ought not to have been or because it was in the safe position when that was the last thing to be desired. It is better, we think, to make the pistol permanently “unsafe” and then to devise such methods of handling it that there will be no accidents.
    – Captain William Ewart Fairbairn and Captain Eric Anthony Sykes

    • If I’m correct, this quote stands out even more when you consider that it originates from the book “Shooting to Live” which was originally published in 1942.

    • Well quoted! Though I disagree with those esteemed gentlemen’s absolutist approach on utilitarian grounds, still, if we must go to one extreme of the other I’ll take the pistol with no safety over the one with too many any day.

  8. If it’s the solution, then put it on the market without any compulsory legal requirements supporting it (read laws like NJ) and let’s see how it does in a free market. It will disappear within three years. This horrible idea/design requires laws to support its very existence. If it cannot survive on its own in a free market and requires laws to prop it up, it’s not a very good idea.

  9. I’m not worried about the iP1.

    It’s the successor model that I’m concerned about. Once someone develops Version 2.0 and its tough enough to pass NATO standards, the way will be cleared for a leftist police agency to adopt it over the loud objections of the rank and file.

    That will be the turning point, and from there the elevator can only go down.

    • What you talkin’ ’bout? I don’t mind if ALL police agencies adopt it! So long as they get no additional tax dollars to pay for the silly things, that’s fine. They can adopt sabers instead, if they like.

      • So long as they get no additional tax dollars to pay for the silly things

        I’m sure the cops will just go out back behind the police station and pick some cash off the money tree.

    • Actually if these things are such an awesome idea, let the cops and military adopt them first.

      They’ll drop them like a bad habit the first time some smartass decides to jam them.

  10. This is truly a bad technology no matter what he says. Like all technology it will fail when you need it the most.

  11. “…guaranteeing that a child cannot fire the gun.”

    I do believe that man has zero experience with children. Either that, or he slept through his kids’ childhoods.

    Also, I apparently now have one more reason to look sideways at HKs. An admittedly irrational one, but there it is.

  12. Yes, because every gun owner wants obstacles (specifically, a butt-ugly and obvious watch that must be held within ten feet of the gun AND have a passcode manually entered) between them and having a functioning firearm. Tell ya what, Ernst old pal, how about we put a breathalyzer on your car’s ignition and require you to enter a CAPTCHA just to get it started in the morning? Oh, and we’ll put a kill switch on the fuel pump just in case we decide you don’t actually need to be traveling freely anymore.

      • Actually, that’s a pretty good idea, except as long as you don’t turn the engine off, you can start drinking as soon as you drive off.

  13. See Klaus from Germany’s comments yesterday. It’s clear these folks ain’t the good guys Der Fuehrer would love this POS. But hey I’m not anti German-momma was a Schmidt.

  14. I don’t think he understands what “market driven” means. It’s not market driven if no one is buying it.

  15. So we want a GERMAN company to sell us weapons that can be remotely disabled . . . ? Hmmm, didn’t we learn anything from 80 years ago about trusting the “motivations” of GERMANS??

    Just sayin. . . . . .

    I will buy one when the US military and my local po-po adopt this technology .. . . US v MIller.

      • R.I.P. Ernest Borgnine.

        back on topic… do I have to convert to Islam become a Cleric to declare a Fatwah denouncing all “smart” guns and go Jihad on Ernst Mauch’s ass? Just want to know what my options are.

        • Well, if you don’t convert you’ll be a bitter gun clinging redneck threatening people. If you do convert, the violence part will be overlooked completely. Because political correctness.

  16. I am all in favor of a free-market. As long as consumers are free to buy — or NOT buy — smart guns, I support any manufacturer providing smart guns to market.

  17. I personally think there is a market segment for smartgun technology, albeit a niche one. If someone wants to own such a firearm, or if it would help alleviate some of a persons anxiety over entering the firearm world, then so be it. I have no desire to own one. But I could see for instance, a public instructional shooting range filled with smartguns for teaching and rental purposes. There is zero problem with offering a new product for sale, especially anything that expands current firearm offerings regardless of the technology therein. Just don’t force it down our collective throat as law, that is the way of finding yourself up against an armed resistance.

    • I think there is a market for them too; paperweights for those elitist wanna-be’s with money to spend who would like something unique to sit on their desks.

  18. I’m convinced. I want an expensive, unreliable firearm that can be remotely disabled. It’s the best match I can think of for a computer warrant / DMV system that occasions doesn’t work. So when I’m at work, I don’t always know if I’m dealing with a felon. I might as well have my gun not work, either.
    If I just get enough life insurance, I might be worth more dead than alive.

    /sac.

  19. “The safety mechanisms that I designed are completely in line with the values underpinning the U.S. gun-rights movement . . ”

    Either this man lives under a rock or else he’s a bombastic liar. As nearly as I can tell as an observer, the gun rights movement in the US considers this thing a an unholy abomination and anyone backing it a quisling. Two gun shops have offered it for sale and then pulled it amid such controversy and resistance that it remains to be seen if they can even remain in business.
    Personally, as a member of the AI, I think it’s a terribly unattractive, horrifically over-priced pistol of limited utility and doubtful reliability and that’s before I’ve even seen a review. If this were any other sort of product no one would make it; Those who like the concept aren’t likely buyers and those who are likely buyers hate it on form and principle. The whole concept is DOA. From a ‘gun rights’ perspective I hate this thing even more. It would be a curiosity in the absence of the anti gun rights baggage it carries, over priced and ugly but an interesting toy. With its baggage it’s a hateful object that represents the ceaseless encroachment on our rights.

    The problems with the gun itself aside, this guy needs to lay off the Kool-Aid before he passes out.

    • All things being equal, he would be actually be correct since the pro-gun movement supports the right to own the gun of your choice.

      The problem is that this gun is being set up by the lawmakers as a beachhead for mandated ‘smart’ tech and thus anyone pushing it falls on the side of denying choice be default and even deliberately if they’re trying to corner market share.

  20. Dear Mr. Ernst Mauch:

    Choice requires free will. The ability to choose without undo influence.

    As long as your option is legislatively mandated, that is NOT a choice by any definition. I see no attempt by your company to attempt to remove the mandate. This is of course because your company WANTS the mandate thus you can force the non-Choice upon gun owners. Oh, you say I am wrong? Then show me by action not just words that you acting to repeal the NJ law that REMOVES ALL CHOICE.

    It make no sense to talk about choice when the act of selling your option basically eliminates all choice from NJ gun owners.

    Next, let us not forget the patent to create a mechanism that effectively would allow government to shutdown the use of your weapon choice whenever they damn well please. Once again, removing choice.

    Perhaps you should work on your definition of choice or in your case, no-choice the next time you speak to gun owners. When you work in tandem with legislatures whose only motive is to eliminate the choice of any gun or any choice whatsoever, you are speaking about a no-choice option.

    No person in their right mind would choose your no-choice option as it currently stands — so please, go away and thing about what you are doing before you speak.

  21. I fail to see any actual link between intelligence and the desire to adopt superfluous technological additions to fully safe and functional mechanisms that already exist in firearms due to irrational, unsubstantiated fears. There is nothing smart about choosing a smart gun, and it’s down right stupid to let a government dictate with force, that these will be the only weapons suitable for the masses.

  22. There is no way the Founding Fathers could have imagined a gun with this much technology. Therefore the 2nd Amendment does not apply, and it should be banned.

  23. This is a solution everyone should be able to get behind.

    Or in front of – it turns out it doesn’t much matter.

  24. It’s a .22 with a validated 10% failure rate, correct?

    Lets all get behind…,the tragedies and lawsuits this POS will no doubt generate.

    Had a convo with an open minded neighbor yesterday that confessed she was scared of guns, tried shooting, said its so scary that someone can simply turn and kill someone with a small piece of metal. I said “all those time we have had dinner, and somehow everyone has resisted the urge to turn and jam a larger piece of metal, this thing we call a steak knife, into each others heart”. It’s the person. Not the gun. She completely understood. And agreed. It’s not the gun.

    A “smart gun” does nothing. It’s pathetic.

  25. Yeah that’s all well and good that he designed it for safety. Problem is he forgot about BASIC HUMAN NATURE. Put in other words people that use this system will end up getting killed when it fails, someone figures out how to jam it when they invade homes, said criminals will figure out how to gut out the ‘safety’ in guns they steal, or the government will decide to use it to turn everyone’s guns off.

    That’ll be the BEST case scenario. Worst case… all four happening at once.

  26. Just like when he overcame her objections to converse,
    he should be overcoming her objections to blissful sex.

    Your in the adult world now and a lot of things change.
    Mask Surf Pro ( is powered by Tor, which is a complex open source project designed to
    increase surfer security.

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