“TriggerSmart, a startup that has patented a system that relies on an RFID reader embedded in the handle of a firearm to authenticate its owner, is the brainchild of gun enthusiast Patrick O’Shaughnessy.” An enthusiast? Really? ‘Cause I don’t know of a single gun guy who thinks “smart guns” are a good idea. Setting aside reliability issues, tactical problems (oops! I forgot my gun-enabling decoder ring!) and ignoring the cost implications, RIFD in guns technology opens the door a dystopian future of techno-driven gun control . . .
Remind me why an “enthusiast” would want to risk the possibility of their gun failing? For the children!
If the reader does not detect the RFID tag, it will not allow the gun’s safety to disengage. This way, if a gun were wrestled away from its owner, the safety would re-engage (the reader could only detect the tag at very close range, so the user would need to be holding the gun for the safety to open). And if, say, a child were to discover the gun, or a thief were to steal it, he or she could not disengage the safety.
This is not the first time bio-metric firearms safety technology has been mooted. But every time some inventor encourages the gun grabbers’ dream of electronic gun control—whether its through RIFD chips or micro-stamping or some other final solution—is a bad day for gun rights. To wit:
“If I had $500,000 at my disposal now, I’d have a reliable smart gun ready within the year, but realisticially speaking, I think you’re looking at three to five years. There are some states that have already introduced legislation with regard to smart guns. A New Jersey law states that once smart guns become available, all gun stores will need to sell only smart guns. Other states have smart gun laws ready to go through [their legislative systems]. So we are trying to get some political support in those states, particiular in New Jersey,” says [marketing maven Robert yes Robert] McNamara.
This is from smartplanet.com? Anyway, one thing’s for sure: gun enthusiasts would resist this technology until it was cold dead hand gun prying time.
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Fried chips? Of course! [h/t DB]