New Approach to Smart Gun Technology

The cynic in me says "we harp on reliability, and adding electronics that are remotely accessible offers too many variables I don't like" ...
 
Fingerprint readers are notoriously unreliable. They can have up to a 30% equal error rate (EER) that includes both false rejects and false acceptances. This can mostly be attributed to dirty fingers and/or a dirty platen / scratched platen; or a change in the fingerprint due to injury, finger cut, or change in the fingerprint pattern.

The federal government does not use fingerprint readers for biometric identification at high security facilities - they use hand geometry readers as the EER for the hand geometry reader is nearly identical to an eye retina scan at 0.00004% EER - about one false acceptance or reject in 27,000 attempts.

Much better than a fingerprint reader is a finger vein reader that uses the blood vessel pattern. However, they require a relatively high powered infrared LED to penetrate the skin surface - not applicable to something being run by batteries on a gun.

Any time I see a fingerprint reader as part of a system, I automatically reject the idea as the person making the suggestion has very obviously no working knowledge of the technology and is merely using it because it sounds good to them - and most definitely NOT because it's reliable and robust.
 
Hey, I got an ideer! Let's hook up y'alls guns to a big 'lectronic system, and anybody what wants to shoot somebody will have to enter a password! Hyuk!

Gun control: it's not about guns, it's about control. Remember? If we can put it on a network, we can track it. If we can track it, we can turn it on or off. How's about that?

But first and foremost: who's going to get the criminals to comply before law-abiding citizens do?
 
Bartholomew Roberts-thank you for posting the link to this article.

I think we need to be aware of what's going on in the 'smart gun' world, both for technology reasons and political reasons.

That said, I didn't 'get' the article. I thought the article was poorly written. The author seemed to gloss over how some kind of 'lock' would be fitted onto the gun or how the gun would communicate to the network or what kind of battery would be required on the gun to run the system. In short the writer didn't address any of the concerns a gun owner would have about the gun itself.

I would be interested in how these features would be physically built into the gun. What would be the size of a Ruger LCP with all this stuff added to it? Would a 'lock' or 'block' to keep the gun from firing be easily disabled? Obviously you'd have to build the gun so the lock could NOT be disabled but how would you do that and what would be the size/weight penalty?

Again thanks for posting the link to the article, I'm very glad you did, I have issues with the article itself.
 
Hey, dood, we are software writers.
All that mechanical stuff is what SF Fans call "Handwavium." We need it to work so we assume it will.
 
Maybe 20 years down the road the police might start using such a system. 20 after that I might consider it. Of course I will be dead from old age or in a nursing home somewhere.....
 
Technology is not at that point, at least not in the U.S.. We cannot fully track a plane. Our wireless cell network still has vast amounts of dead zones. Most of us cannot stream a movie in its entirety without buffering. I have yet to encounter a consumer biometric device function reliably. Our tech savvyness is disappearing quickly. But, this is the kicker, if it can line a politician's pockets it would happen quickly, no matter what side of the aisle they sit.


Ps: when I joined this site, the only option for internet service was still dialup. I had a smartphone and did most of my TFL reading on that and still do. Internet service has improved though.
 
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