Among the futuristic gadgets supplied to James Bond in the film Skyfall there is also a Walther Ppk pistol equipped with a microdermal sensor, capable of scanning the palm of 007’s hand so that only he can use it to shoot. But if 14 years after the iPhone debut there is a smartphone in every American’s pocket, smart guns remain the prerogative of some screenwriter’s imagination.
Two American startups, LodeStar Works e SmartGunz, however, they are convinced that the time is ripe to bring digitization into the holsters of the Americans: “The time is right, because the batteries have been miniaturized and the motors are getting smaller and smaller – he explained. Ginger Chandler, co-fondatrice e Cto di LodeStar Works, speaking with the Reuters agency – We can bring electronics into firearms and people will accept it, because they are now used to having electronic components everywhere ”.
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Guns as smartphones
The LodeStar Works 9mm, first shown last week in Idaho, includes a fingerprint sensor that unlocks a metal lock inside the barrel. If the sensor does not work properly there is also an NFC chip, to unlock the weapon with an app automatically, or a numeric keypad on the stock. Remembering the code quickly before shooting could be a problem in an emergency, but the basic idea is to make the trigger less immediate, avoiding accidental firing.
On the other hand, the approach of SmartGunz, who on his smart guns (so to speak) preferred to implement a safety release system based on radio frequencies. Co-founded by Democratic Senator Tom Holland, the company is already testing its weapons with some police forces. Prices start at $ 1,795 per pistol for the police and rise to 2195 for private individuals; the offer of LodeStar Works is cheaper: the entry level model costs 895 dollars.
The resistance of the lobbies
A smart pistol that cannot fire if its rightful owner doesn’t unlock it hasn’t been a chimera for some time now. The technologies to make it are already there, the components as well. So why will the first smart guns arrive on the market, hopefully, only this year? The reason, as often happens when it comes to policies on the use of weapons, especially in the United States, is to be found in the fierce resistance of the lobbyists. In 1999 the pressure of public opinion after the Columbine massacre convinced many large arms manufacturers to a sort of mea culpa: to avoid lawsuits supported by President Clinton, Smith & Wesson negotiated a series of changes in the design of its products to make them safer. Among other promises, also that of investing in the development of smart weapons, made safer by the use of electronic components.
Nra and Nssf (the acronym stands for National shooting sports federation) did not hesitate to point to the concessions of Smith & Wesson, moreover a British company, as anti-patriotic affront to the Second Amendment of the Constitution, the one that establishes the right of every American to own firearms. The position was soon endorsed by other minor associations. The company was inundated with thousands and thousands of protest emails and phone calls, while a series of wholesalers immediately stopped ordering his guns. Other producers such as Glock, who also appeared to be joining Smith & Wesson in giving in to pressure from the Clinton administration, stayed true to the line.
The campaign of the pro-arms associations was very effective: in September 2000, the CEO who had negotiated with the Clinton government, Ed Schultz, was forced to resign. Close to bankruptcy and with stock market prices collapsing to 19 cents per share, Smith & Wesson was sold in May 2001 to an American holding company for only $ 15 million. The new Bush administration soon forgot the legal arrangements made by the previous administration, and after September 11, fear started to make sales fly again of revolvers and automatics.
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The smart guns in the drawer
The new company quickly swept the floors on the so-called smart guns and was rather concerned with getting back into the good graces of the lobbyists. Since then the smart guns have been a real taboo for producers, which have no intention of antagonizing the powerful industry associations. When the Clinton ban on assault weapons was not confirmed by the Bush administration in 2004, the new Smith & Wesson brought another type of innovation to market: the M & P15 tactical rifle. Which was the weapon chosen, among others, by the authors of the massacres of Aurora in Colorado in 2012 (12 dead, 58 injured), of San Bernardino in 2015 (14 dead and 22 injured) and at Stoneman High School in Parkland, Florida (17 dead and 17 wounded).
Can technology help?
Today the arms lobbies are already ready to oppose even the proposals by LodeStar and SmartGunz: “If I had a penny for every time someone promised to bring a smart gun to the market, I’d be retired for a while – he said. Lawrence Keane, portavoce at Nssf, always commenting with Reuters on the first public demonstration of LodeStar Works 9mm – The only thing we oppose are government obligations, for the rest it is the market that has to decide “.
If on the one hand the hostility of pro-arms associations is clear, favorable to the market only when it does not jeopardize the Second Amendment, on the other hand the startups that have tried their hand at the production of smart guns in the past have certainly not helped the cause. In 2014, the German company Armatix brought a .22 caliber with radio frequency safety to the market: it was forced to withdraw it quickly, after some hackers demonstrated how easy it was to circumvent the security system using trivial magnets.
Hoping to solve a complex and politicized problem such as that of gun violence with the help of technology seems to be a naïve approach. And that’s not what LodeStar is aiming for, which instead offers these “custom guns” as a solution to 25% of deaths from guns. These include the accidents involving children, suicides with weapons owned by others and murders with half a million weapons stolen every year in the United States. Despite decades of horror and suffering that all statistics inextricably link to the spread of weapons, the market in the US continues to grow, so much so that the estimated turnover for 2022 is 15 billion dollars. The only real news is that, for the first time, part of that turnover could end up in the coffers of smart gun manufacturers.
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