{"id":93345,"date":"2023-06-01T21:57:12","date_gmt":"2023-06-02T02:57:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=93345"},"modified":"2023-06-01T21:57:12","modified_gmt":"2023-06-02T02:57:12","slug":"93345","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=93345","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Why All the Hate for Smart Guns?<\/a><\/p>\n

We\u2019ve been hearing about \u201csmart guns\u201d for well over a quarter century. The dream (of some) has been a\u00a0gun<\/a>\u00a0that recognizes its owner and will only work for that person. The idea is to make sure that people who aren\u2019t authorized \u2014 thieves, children \u2014 are locked out and can\u2019t use the firearm. That ideal is obvious and laudable. The history and execution, so far, have been less than impressive.<\/p>\n

Lots of people have advocated a wide array of designs and hyped allegedly market-ready\u00a0models<\/a>. Some were well intentioned people who thought they could overcome the technological challenges involved.\u00a0Some<\/a>\u00a0seemed more like snake oil salesmen who\u00a0hawked<\/a>\u00a0not-ready-for-prime-time contraptions, some of which were\u00a0downright awful<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But we\u2019re living in a time of\u00a0string theories and God particles<\/a>. Anything is possible, right? Technology marches on and no one really doubted that one day, someone would develop and market a viable \u201csmart gun\u201d with systems of one type or another that would reliably (within reason) ID authorized users.<\/p>\n

Then along came the legislative wizards in New Jersey state government who single-handedly stifled \u201csmart gun\u201d design for a couple of decades. Led by some very big brains like\u00a0Senator Loretta Weinberg<\/a>, they enacted a law that mandated that once a smart gun\u00a0design was marketed to consumers anywhere in the US, all guns sold in the Garden State would have to have the technology.<\/p>\n

In the grand tradition of Soviet central planning,\u00a0Senator Weinberg\u2019s mandate<\/a>\u00a0had some, shall we say, unintended consequences among rational economic actors who live and work out here in the real world.<\/p>\n

To wit, the Jersey mandate put a damper on \u201csmart gun\u201d R&D. No one wanted to\u00a0trigger<\/a>\u00a0the law and be\u00a0responsible<\/a>\u00a0for\u00a0condemning<\/a>\u00a0millions of Garden State gun\u00a0buyers to having a choice of exactly one gun<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Over many years and against all odds,\u00a0enough people<\/a>\u00a0screamed, yelled and ridiculed Senator Weinberg that finally, in a significant concession and a\u00a0sotto voce<\/em>\u00a0admission of responsibility, she was finally persuaded to\u00a0alter the New Jersey mandate<\/a>\u00a0law. Now, under the revised statue, once a \u201csmart gun\u201d is marketed to consumers in the US, New Jersey gun\u00a0retailers will be\u00a0allowed<\/em> to continue to sell traditional guns. They\u2019ll just have to also stock the smart gun\u00a0model so buyers will have that as an option.<\/p>\n

ll of which is how we finally find ourselves today with what appears to be an actual, viable product being sold by\u00a0Biofire<\/a>. The company has been taking orders for guns that they say will begin shipping in small quantities in the last quarter of this year and become more widely available to consumers in the first half of 2024.<\/p>\n

We talked to Biofire\u2019s founder\u00a0Kai Kloepfer<\/a>\u00a0last week and he told us that orders had been coming in faster than the company had projected. And Biofire bought a sponsored email blast from us, which went out a couple of days ago.<\/p>\n

The advertising side of the business here at TTAG is handled by other folks. That\u2019s why I wasn\u2019t even aware of the ad until I started to get emails about it. Most of those who wrote weren\u2019t happy.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a selection . . .<\/p>\n

I know TTAG needs money, Dan, but . . . .\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

No way should anyone have to rely on a weapon that needs charging . . .<\/em><\/p>\n

How ironic they call this \u201cthe truth about guns\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Not interested in smart guns whatsoever. \u00a0In fact I\u2019m opposed to them and you should be too.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

You\u2019d be able to count all the emails we got on two hands, but you have to figure that these represent the views of a lot more people who didn\u2019t take the time to email.<\/p>\n

A not insignificant number of gun\u00a0owners seem to be morally affronted that a company would produce a firearm with biometric technology. They somehow see \u201csmart guns\u201d as a threat to their gun\u00a0rights and can\u2019t believe that we would stoop so low as running an ad for a product like the\u00a0Biofire smart gun<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Biofire\u2019s Kloepfer is under no illusions. He\u2019s well aware that his product probably won\u2019t have much appeal for most of the kinds of people who read this and other firearm-related sites. But as he told me last week, he and Biofire are staunchly against any type of mandate like the disastrous one that New Jersey enacted lo these many years ago. And he\u2019s one of those who worked to finally convince\u00a0Sweet Loretta<\/a>\u00a0that her mandate law was counterproductive and only hurt the cause of \u201csmart gun\u201d development.<\/p>\n

Does that mean some other anencephalic anti-gun\u00a0legislator in another blue state won\u2019t try the same thing once the Biofire and possibly other biometric guns become more widely available? Of course not. If there\u2019s one thing that\u2019s every bit as certain as death and taxes, it\u2019s elected officials wanting to enact ill-conceived, poorly written laws for the rest of us to live under. Because they can. But good luck with that now that\u00a0Bruen<\/em>\u00a0is the law of the land.<\/p>\n

Do you want a smart gun? No? OK, don\u2019t buy one. I don\u2019t plan to ever buy one either. The idea of relying on a firearm \u2014 especially an early generation model \u2014 that depends on electronics to operate inside a tool with all of the forces generated by a typical handgun doesn\u2019t give me a feeling of confidence. I\u2019ll stick with\u00a0my current home defense gun<\/a>, thank you very much.<\/p>\n

But that doesn\u2019t mean I don\u2019t think smart guns should be made and sold to the public. There are undoubtedly a lot of people out there who aren\u2019t comfortable owning a handgun. The additional safety systems (fingerprint ID and facial recognition) that are designed into the Biofire gun\u00a0might be enough to get them over the decision-making hump and prompt them to become gun\u00a0owners.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know how many of those people are out there. Kloepfer and Biofire\u2019s investors are banking that there are a lot of them. However many there may be, to the extent that \u201csmart guns\u201d like Biofire\u2019s result in more gun\u00a0owners, that\u2019s a net plus no matter what kind of guns you choose to own.<\/p>\n

More gun\u00a0owners in America means more people who care about gun\u00a0rights. That\u2019s a win no matter what you think of \u201csmart guns.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why All the Hate for Smart Guns? We\u2019ve been hearing about \u201csmart guns\u201d for well over a quarter century. The dream (of some) has been a\u00a0gun\u00a0that recognizes its owner and will only work for that person. The idea is to make sure that people who aren\u2019t authorized \u2014 thieves, children \u2014 are locked out and … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gun-schtuff","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=93345"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93345\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93346,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93345\/revisions\/93346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=93345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=93345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=93345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}