Last week, we lambasted reports of a new “smart gun” that Reuters raved about in a glowing “exclusive.” Reuters reporter Daniel Trotta wrote that the third-generation prototype fired “without issue” during a live-fire demonstration for investors and the media.
Now though, additional footage of the event has since surfaced that shows the LodeStar Works gun couldn’t manage to fire two rounds without an issue during one of the exercises.
Whoops.
Maybe Daniel Trotta apparently misremembered what happened at the event when he wrote this in the original story:
A range officer fired the weapon, a third-generation prototype, in its different settings without issue.
Perhaps he ducked out to use the restroom during some of the live-fire demonstration. Or maybe Reuters used some creative editing in their video (not embeddable) from their report to conceal the reliability issue the gun revealed at the event. After all, the mainstream media are big cheerleaders for the pro-gun control narrative.
Here’s another recording that is embeddable from a local TV reporter. It shows the LodeStar not-so-smart gun can’t even fire two rounds back-to-back.
During a demonstration to share holders last week, the operator clicks the key pad on the side of the 9mm smart gun. Once unlocked, the smart gun is operable. @Lodestarguns @6abc https://t.co/gVzML0sARg pic.twitter.com/c8O8zNbp6i
— Christie Ileto (@Christie_Ileto) January 18, 2022
In the Christie Ileto video from 6ABC, the range officer says he’s going to fire two rounds. The first round breaks as expected. Then the RO presses the trigger again and…nothing. And again. No bang. It had become a dead trigger after a single shot. Clearly, in this instance, LodeStar (didn’t) Works.
Imagine that’s you holding that LodeStar Works gun when you’re facing down a bad guy who’d just broken into your home. He has a big ol’ half-rusty butcher knife in his hand, ready to plunge it into someone you care about.
One more point from the Reuters story. Trotta wrote — in the second paragraph of the story — how law enforcement “agents” are beta-testing LodeStar’s gun.
Four-year-old LodeStar Works on Friday unveiled its 9mm smart handgun for shareholders and investors in Boise, Idaho. And a Kansas company, SmartGunz LLC, says law enforcement agents are beta testing its product, a similar but simpler model.
LodeStar Works didn’t say which “law enforcement agents” were conducting the testing, or at least that didn’t make it into the Reuters story. But in the video, it’s hard to miss the pistol the range officer chooses as his personal defensive sidearm.
The range officer didn’t have one of the LodeStar Works pistols on his hip. Instead, he packed a full-size conventional GLOCK with a +2 magazine extension.
That image speaks a thousand words for which gun the range officer trusts with his life.
