Smart Firearms Jammer
http://www.mcdl.org/MD_Info/2000/Smart_Gun_Jammer.htm
by George E. Buss
Responsible Gun Safety Act, MD JPR Committee Hearing Testimony, 16 March 2000
My opposition to smart gun legislation is based on the technical fact that any solid state device used to control a gun or any other device is
susceptible to both jamming and destruction by an easily built and concealable countermeasure. In both cases the components for these devices can
be purchased at most electronic stores, like Radio Shack. You will or may already have heard from the manufacturers that their designs are not
subject to jamming because the design is hardened. That is equivalent to saying that all radars used to issue speeding tickets are invulnerable to
error, however slight.
As you well know, TV sets, computers, cell phones, and car radios especially are shielded from the many sources of noise occurring in the normal
environment, i.e. jamming. Ever heard a car radio when the noise filter has failed? Nothing useful comes out of the radio it is effectively jammed and
unable to perform as designed. That is exactly what will occur when a person attempts to use a gun that is controlled by a solid state device -- it will
not perform as designed, when a jamming signal is present.
One worst case scenario would be a person with a smart gun, confronted by an attacker with a regular gun and unknown to the smart gun user, a
fifty dollar jammer. The victims gun will not fire, so he keeps pulling the trigger as he jumps behind a steel door. Now thoroughly panicked, he fires off
a round or two from the now shielded (by the steel door) smart gun. I wonder where those bullets are going? Most likely not at his attacker.
I have here an electronic mock-up of a pocket sized jammer that would have a range of approximately 30 to 50 feet in all directions. The critical
components have not been installed in order to preclude the design falling into the wrong hands.
As I mentioned in paragraph one above, destruction of the solid state circuitry in the smart gun is also easily accomplished. The device used is called
an "Electromagnetic Pulse Generator (EMPG)". Again this is a device easily constructed from standard electronic parts. Due to the improvements in
battery design, an EMPG could easily be constructed to fit into a large pocket in a coat or otherwise concealed on the body. Activation of an EMPG
would not only damage a smart gun beyond repair, but also damage all solid state circuits in the vicinity i.e. computers, microwave ovens, cell
phones, watches, TV and radios. Any device that has a micro processor.
)or you can call it Gents for Guns or Lesbians for Levers - I don't care. Point is, this nonsense must be met with public outrage & resistance at the point of issuance.