Race is on to develop a foolproof 'smart gun'
By MICHAEL HEDGES
Scripps Howard News Service
January 10, 2000
WASHINGTON - Consider a potentially tragic scenario with a twist: A police officer is surprised and overpowered, his weapon knocked from his grasp. A desperate suspect grabs the firearm, points and squeezes the trigger.
And nothing happens.
The drive to develop so-called "smart gun" technology that would disable a firearm when not in the hands of its intended user sprang directly from the depressing truism that the most dangerous weapon many police officers face is the one in their own holster.
"Over a 15-year period, about one officer in six killed in the line of duty was killed with his own gun," said David Boyd, director of science and technology for the National Institute of Justice, who has headed government smart gun research.
In the early 1990s, Boyd and others began exploring whether a firearm could be developed that could be used only by the person who owned it, or a few others.
That has led to a dazzling array of theoretical technology under development by several gun companies.
It also has generated growing controversy over whether the technology is practical, and whether the government should be involved in its generation.
The Clinton administration has proposed _ and congressional leaders have cautiously endorsed _ spending $10 million to develop and test several proposals for guns that could be fired by their owner. The guns would be disabled if lost or stolen.
Colt's Manufacturing Company, with a $500,000 National Institute of Justice grant, has developed a prototype smart gun, which was delivered to the institute Jan. 4.
That gun works by having a person wear a radio transponder around his or her wrist or elsewhere on the body, containing a computer chip that is tuned to a chip in the gun. The gun would be disabled if the radio connection between the owner and the firearm were broken. The range of the radio signal could be adjusted, but likely would be a few feet.
While Colt got a head start by seizing a government call for prototypes early, four other firms have submitted proposals for alternative smart weapons, including U.S. firearm heavyweight Smith & Wesson.
A panel of scientists and engineers will consider those ideas, then some or all of them could be funded as prototypes under the $10 million in developmental money that, if passed by Congress, could be available as early as October.
Some of the other systems in the theoretical stage include a fingerprint ID scanner that would require the gun to be activated by a pre-programmed fingerprint. Another system is voice activated.
There is a proposal for an electric gun in which a power source on the user's body would be necessary to fire rounds. And, in theory at least, a gun could be programmed to be "directional," that is, it would not fire if pointed in the direction of someone wearing a device coded with the gun's signal.
The technology will be costly at first, probably adding hundreds of dollars to the price of a side arm. Gun companies hope the weapons eventually can be marketed as safer weapons for those who want a gun for protection of their home.
Paul Bolton, a program coordinator at the International Association of Chiefs of Police, said in the abstract the idea of smart guns is appealing to police groups. "The firearms committee (of the IACP) passed a resolution supporting the technology in general," he said.
The problem is, none of the technology has been demonstrated foolproof, said Bolton, Boyd and others.
"Typically, most shootings in which officers are killed with their own guns happen in three to five seconds, at three to five feet, with three to five rounds," he said.
That means a smart gun would have to be really smart _ disarming instantaneously if dropped or grabbed, disabled at extremely close ranges, yet capable of being re-activated by an officer who drops a gun during a struggle.
"What makes me nervous is that some states are already talking about mandatory smart guns before the technology even exists," said Bolton.
That also makes some gun advocacy groups nervous.
One of the large ironies of the smart gun initiative is that some groups that oppose virtually all guns embrace smart guns, while groups that have as their primary goal protecting guns aren't too thrilled with the idea.
Handgun Control, a gun-control advocacy group, has said guns should be at least as smart as cars, and need some sort of technological "key" to operate.
But the National Rifle Association is tepid about the proposal for smart guns being pushed by the National Institute of Justice, despite the NRA's strong advocacy for citizen's rights to own firearms.
"There are misgivings, so much of it is being framed as a government mandate to replace existing firearms," said Jim Manown, an NRA spokesman. "We have to remain skeptical because we haven't seen the technology developed to a practical level."
The NRA's concerns are shared for diametrically opposite reasons by the anti-gun Violence Policy Center of Washington, which has issued statements attacking the Clinton proposal as a subsidy by the federal government for gun makers.
Boyd insisted that the National Institute of Justice is determined to stay out of the gun control debate. "This is simply another step in the technology of making guns safer," he said. "It doesn't have anything to do one way or the other with the gun control debate."
The analogy Boyd uses to describe where smart gun technology is headed is with police body armor two decades ago. Even after studies showed it could save police lives, the National Institute of Justice had to encourage the use of body armor by giving away 5,000 of the bullet-stopping vests. It was a decade before as many as a third of cops wore them.
But today as many as two-thirds of beat police wear body armor, and in an average year it saves 100 officers.
For smart guns, there is a long road ahead. By realistic estimates, it would be five years before a smart gun is developed that police officers are comfortable with.
"No police officer in his right mind would take this as a primary weapon until there was an extensive confidence building stage," Boyd said.
"This is still a research and development project. I would go so far as to say it is inevitable that smart guns will be used, but it will take a long, long time to make a crucial difference."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Joe's Second Amendment Message Board
(Michael Hedges is a reporter for Scripps Howard News Service)
By MICHAEL HEDGES
Scripps Howard News Service
January 10, 2000
WASHINGTON - Consider a potentially tragic scenario with a twist: A police officer is surprised and overpowered, his weapon knocked from his grasp. A desperate suspect grabs the firearm, points and squeezes the trigger.
And nothing happens.
The drive to develop so-called "smart gun" technology that would disable a firearm when not in the hands of its intended user sprang directly from the depressing truism that the most dangerous weapon many police officers face is the one in their own holster.
"Over a 15-year period, about one officer in six killed in the line of duty was killed with his own gun," said David Boyd, director of science and technology for the National Institute of Justice, who has headed government smart gun research.
In the early 1990s, Boyd and others began exploring whether a firearm could be developed that could be used only by the person who owned it, or a few others.
That has led to a dazzling array of theoretical technology under development by several gun companies.
It also has generated growing controversy over whether the technology is practical, and whether the government should be involved in its generation.
The Clinton administration has proposed _ and congressional leaders have cautiously endorsed _ spending $10 million to develop and test several proposals for guns that could be fired by their owner. The guns would be disabled if lost or stolen.
Colt's Manufacturing Company, with a $500,000 National Institute of Justice grant, has developed a prototype smart gun, which was delivered to the institute Jan. 4.
That gun works by having a person wear a radio transponder around his or her wrist or elsewhere on the body, containing a computer chip that is tuned to a chip in the gun. The gun would be disabled if the radio connection between the owner and the firearm were broken. The range of the radio signal could be adjusted, but likely would be a few feet.
While Colt got a head start by seizing a government call for prototypes early, four other firms have submitted proposals for alternative smart weapons, including U.S. firearm heavyweight Smith & Wesson.
A panel of scientists and engineers will consider those ideas, then some or all of them could be funded as prototypes under the $10 million in developmental money that, if passed by Congress, could be available as early as October.
Some of the other systems in the theoretical stage include a fingerprint ID scanner that would require the gun to be activated by a pre-programmed fingerprint. Another system is voice activated.
There is a proposal for an electric gun in which a power source on the user's body would be necessary to fire rounds. And, in theory at least, a gun could be programmed to be "directional," that is, it would not fire if pointed in the direction of someone wearing a device coded with the gun's signal.
The technology will be costly at first, probably adding hundreds of dollars to the price of a side arm. Gun companies hope the weapons eventually can be marketed as safer weapons for those who want a gun for protection of their home.
Paul Bolton, a program coordinator at the International Association of Chiefs of Police, said in the abstract the idea of smart guns is appealing to police groups. "The firearms committee (of the IACP) passed a resolution supporting the technology in general," he said.
The problem is, none of the technology has been demonstrated foolproof, said Bolton, Boyd and others.
"Typically, most shootings in which officers are killed with their own guns happen in three to five seconds, at three to five feet, with three to five rounds," he said.
That means a smart gun would have to be really smart _ disarming instantaneously if dropped or grabbed, disabled at extremely close ranges, yet capable of being re-activated by an officer who drops a gun during a struggle.
"What makes me nervous is that some states are already talking about mandatory smart guns before the technology even exists," said Bolton.
That also makes some gun advocacy groups nervous.
One of the large ironies of the smart gun initiative is that some groups that oppose virtually all guns embrace smart guns, while groups that have as their primary goal protecting guns aren't too thrilled with the idea.
Handgun Control, a gun-control advocacy group, has said guns should be at least as smart as cars, and need some sort of technological "key" to operate.
But the National Rifle Association is tepid about the proposal for smart guns being pushed by the National Institute of Justice, despite the NRA's strong advocacy for citizen's rights to own firearms.
"There are misgivings, so much of it is being framed as a government mandate to replace existing firearms," said Jim Manown, an NRA spokesman. "We have to remain skeptical because we haven't seen the technology developed to a practical level."
The NRA's concerns are shared for diametrically opposite reasons by the anti-gun Violence Policy Center of Washington, which has issued statements attacking the Clinton proposal as a subsidy by the federal government for gun makers.
Boyd insisted that the National Institute of Justice is determined to stay out of the gun control debate. "This is simply another step in the technology of making guns safer," he said. "It doesn't have anything to do one way or the other with the gun control debate."
The analogy Boyd uses to describe where smart gun technology is headed is with police body armor two decades ago. Even after studies showed it could save police lives, the National Institute of Justice had to encourage the use of body armor by giving away 5,000 of the bullet-stopping vests. It was a decade before as many as a third of cops wore them.
But today as many as two-thirds of beat police wear body armor, and in an average year it saves 100 officers.
For smart guns, there is a long road ahead. By realistic estimates, it would be five years before a smart gun is developed that police officers are comfortable with.
"No police officer in his right mind would take this as a primary weapon until there was an extensive confidence building stage," Boyd said.
"This is still a research and development project. I would go so far as to say it is inevitable that smart guns will be used, but it will take a long, long time to make a crucial difference."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Joe's Second Amendment Message Board
(Michael Hedges is a reporter for Scripps Howard News Service)