{"id":93621,"date":"2023-06-15T18:40:01","date_gmt":"2023-06-15T23:40:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=93621"},"modified":"2023-06-15T18:40:01","modified_gmt":"2023-06-15T23:40:01","slug":"93621","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=93621","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2018Smart Gun\u2019 Inventor Explains Why He\u2019s Trying to Get a California Gun-Control Law Struck Down<\/a><\/p>\n

The man behind the first gun with an integrated biometric lock set to come to market is backing a suit against one of California\u2019s most restrictive gun laws.<\/p>\n

Kai Kloepfer, Biofire founder, told\u00a0The Reload<\/em>\u00a0his company wrote an\u00a0amicus letter<\/a>\u00a0supporting plaintiffs in a case against the state\u2019s Unsafe Handgun Act (UHA) because it believes the law holds back firearms safety innovation. That law bans the sale of any handgun that isn\u2019t on the state\u2019s approved roster, which hasn\u2019t seen a new handgun model added to it since 2013. Biofire wrote to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals earlier this month urging them to strike down the law in\u00a0Boland v. Bonta<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur argument is the roster doesn\u2019t serve the needs of Californians because it arbitrarily restricts the options that are available,\u201d Kloepfer told\u00a0The Reload<\/em>. \u201cCalifornia is to guns as Cuba is to cars. You can\u2019t take advantage of all the advancements in technology, including in safety, that have been made since the guns the roster grandfathered in.\u201d<\/p>\n

The company\u2019s involvement in the case is at least a public relations win for the California Rifle and Pistol Association and other plaintiffs in the case. It could also help sway the appeals panel reviewing the case that the law does more harm than good in its stated goal of protecting Californians from unsafe handguns. The move also indicates how Biofire plans to convince gun buyers, who have long been skeptical of \u201csmart gun\u201d technology, it is working in their interests.<\/p>\n

Kloepfer said the company, like other gun manufacturers, isn\u2019t planning to become directly involved in general gun-rights legal activism. However, he said they do plan to pursue legal action when a law impacts their business.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we do engage in are areas directly involved with smart guns. And, in particular, we have this very strong stance of being against mandates of this technology,\u201d Kloepfer said. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t make any sense for the market. It doesn\u2019t make any sense for our customers. It doesn\u2019t make any sense for us. So, areas like\u00a0Boland<\/em>\u00a0as well as, obviously, the now-repealed New Jersey mandate for smart guns and things like that. We do get involved in direct smart gun topics or topics that impact our ability to serve our customers.\u201d<\/p>\n

California passed the UHA in 2001. Initially, it barred the sale of any new handgun models without a loaded chamber indicator or magazine disconnect safety. In 2013, the state mandated new pistol models must include so-called microstamping technology. In theory, microstamping imprints an identifiable mark on every spent casing with the goal of helping police solve crimes. But, as Kloepfer pointed out, there has never been a production gun anywhere in the world that incorporates the technology, and critics argue the technology is impossible to implement in a practical firearm.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur understanding is that the roster requires microstamping, which has never been implemented in any sort of commercially available firearm,\u201d he said. \u201cBiofire does not have microstamping in it. Similar to every other manufacturer, we have not seen a viable approach there.\u201d<\/p>\n

The real-world effect of adding the microstamping requirement, which New York is now considering implementing, was a complete ban on selling any handgun models created after 2013. Outside of law enforcement officers, who are not subject to the handgun roster\u2019s restrictions despite unrostered guns\u2019 status as \u201cunsafe,\u201d Californians have been mostly limited to buying pistols first introduced to the market more than 15 years ago.<\/p>\n

Boland v. Bonta<\/em>\u00a0is already changing that, though. In March, Federal District Judge Cormac J. Carney\u00a0issued a preliminary injunction against the UHA<\/a>\u00a0because he found it likely unconstitutional.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese regulations are having a devastating impact on Californians\u2019 ability to acquire and use new, state-of-the-art handguns,\u201d Judge Carney\u00a0wrote<\/a>. \u201cSince 2007, when the [loaded chamber indicator] and [magazine disconnect safety] requirements were introduced, very few new handguns have been introduced for sale in California with those features. Since 2013, when the microstamping requirement was introduced, not a single new semiautomatic handgun has been approved for sale in California.\u201d<\/p>\n

California filed to appeal the ruling. However, it only requested a stay on Judge Carney\u2019s ruling in regard to the loaded chamber indicator and magazine disconnect safety requirements. The court\u00a0agreed to that request<\/a>. That means the microstamping requirement will remain enjoined as the appeal proceeds.<\/p>\n

Kloepfer said Biofire has a version of its gun that includes a loaded chamber indicator and magazine disconnect safety. But he argued those features shouldn\u2019t be required either, and the company would continue to support the case against the law.<\/p>\n

Biofire has already brought in thousands of pre-orders for its first \u201csmart gun\u201d model and plans to ship the first batch of\u00a0$1,500-$1,900 firearms<\/a>\u00a0by the end of the year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve seen really tremendous demand so far,\u201d Kloepfer said.<\/p>\n

The gun is only available for direct purchase through Biofire\u2019s website at this point, but Kloepfer said the company hopes to expand in the coming months.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just very simply don\u2019t have the inventory capacity to stock at distributors or things like that,\u201d he said. \u201cSo, as we get larger and start to sort of fulfill a lot of this backlog of demand, the goal is definitely to build positive relationships with distributors, especially ones that our customers are excited about.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oral arguments in the Boland v. Bonta appeal have been scheduled for August 23rd.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018Smart Gun\u2019 Inventor Explains Why He\u2019s Trying to Get a California Gun-Control Law Struck Down The man behind the first gun with an integrated biometric lock set to come to market is backing a suit against one of California\u2019s most restrictive gun laws. Kai Kloepfer, Biofire founder, told\u00a0The Reload\u00a0his company wrote an\u00a0amicus letter\u00a0supporting plaintiffs in … 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":[23,50,36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-courts","category-goobermint","category-gun-schtuff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93621","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=93621"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93621\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93622,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93621\/revisions\/93622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=93621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=93621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=93621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}