smart guns

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Just wondering what was the latest on smart guns.

I heard a police officer saying the police departments would be the first ones to get these as they would prevent someone else from using their gun, and that the whole department could get approved implants in their hand to make them work interchangeably within the department (for example).

Any links would be great. Thanks.
 
Coyote33 said:
I heard a police officer saying the police departments would be the first ones to get these as they would prevent someone else from using their gun, and that the whole department could get approved implants in their hand to make them work interchangeably within the department (for example).

I'll bite - what department was THAT?
 
[offtopic] [banana]

So, any links to anything for me? I'd be interested in if people think whether or not police departments are for or against use of "smart guns".
 
Coyote33 said:
Just wondering what was the latest on smart guns.

I heard a police officer saying the police departments would be the first ones to get these as they would prevent someone else from using their gun, and that the whole department could get approved implants in their hand to make them work interchangeably within the department (for example).

Any links would be great. Thanks.
HA! My town wouldn't be able to afford the money that it would cost to negotiate that into the contract. Do you realize what it would cost them to pay us to allow hem to implant something into our bodies?!?! That's why they haven't tried to drug test us, too much to bargain.
It pisses the DPW guys off who have CDL's and are subject to random tests.

Right on, Derek!
 
Coyote33 said:
[offtopic] [banana]

So, any links to anything for me? I'd be interested in if people think whether or not police departments are for or against use of "smart guns".

Years ago, it was the magnetic ring. I agree with Jon, it'd take beau-cou dollars for a department to switch over. And the use of an officer's gun against him isn't exactly leading the charge for officer deaths.

RJ
 
Coyote33 said:
He made it sound like it is something they all wanted for their own safety.
I don't think that the number of officers killed per year with their own weapon could justify the costs. Then again, we're talking about the government, "And if it just saves one life...." yada yada yada...

I'm still suffering from the last implant that the "Visitors" put in me a few years ago.
 
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Coyote33 said:
I heard a police officer saying the police departments would be the first ones to get these as they would prevent someone else from using their gun, and that the whole department could get approved implants in their hand to make them work interchangeably within the department (for example).
He's smoking stuff from the evidence room.

In the People's Republik of New Jersey, it is a law that three years after the first "smart" guns go on the market all guns sold in NJ must be "smart" guns.

With one exception. Any guesses? Yes, you down there in Plymouth. LEOs? Yes, you're absolutely correct; you win the booby prize!

That's right... all the subjects in NJ will only be able to buy "smart" guns - police can buy the real ones. Their unions saw to that.
 
dwarven1 said:
He's smoking stuff from the evidence room.

In the People's Republik of New Jersey, it is a law that three years after the first "smart" guns go on the market all guns sold in NJ must be "smart" guns.

With one exception. Any guesses? Yes, you down there in Plymouth. LEOs? Yes, you're absolutely correct; you win the booby prize!

That's right... all the subjects in NJ will only be able to buy "smart" guns - police can buy the real ones. Their unions saw to that.

Got a link or a cite? Thanks.
 
You know what would be a good idea? You know for the saftey of the kids...

A fingerprint reader on the trigger. A GPS transmitter in the handle. And a way to stamp the serial number of the gun on each casing. I have no idea if it's possible, but I don't care. I'm pretty sure this will triple the price of every firearm, but again I don't care.
 
Coyote33 said:
Got a link or a cite? Thanks.

A google search of the phrase "new jersey smart gun law" turns up the following results. (BTW, it took all of 3 minutes... including time to cut & paste this stuff into the message. Feel free to follow this link for more reading material. I remember this happening and followed it in the press because I grew up in NJ, bought my first guns there... and still have friends (who own guns) who live there.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,73763,00.html

http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/2002/Bills/PL02/130_.HTM

Legal Community Against violence said:
On December 23, 2002, New Jersey adopted a law that requires personalized handgun technology to be incorporated into all handguns sold in the state within a two to three year period after the technology is deemed safe and commercially available for retail sale by the state Attorney General.

New Jersey Rev. Stat. § 2C:39-1dd defines a “personalized handgun” as:

[A] handgun which incorporates within its design, and as part of its original manufacture, technology which automatically limits its operational use and which cannot be readily deactivated, so that it may only be fired by an authorized or recognized user. The technology limiting the handgun’s operational use may include, but not be limited to: radio frequency tagging, touch memory, remote control, fingerprint, magnetic encoding and other automatic user identification systems utilizing biometric, mechanical or electronic systems. No make or model of a handgun shall be deemed to be a “personalized handgun” unless the Attorney General has determined, through testing or other reasonable means, that the handgun meets any reliability standards that the manufacturer may require for its commercially available handguns that are not personalized or, if the manufacturer has no such reliability standards, the handgun meets the reliability standards generally used in the industry for commercially available handguns.

New Jersey’s Attorney General is required to report to the Governor and the Legislature every six months regarding the availability of personalized handguns for retail sales purposes until the Attorney General deems such firearms technology available for retail sale. Section 2C:58-2.3a. Personalized handguns will be deemed available for retail sale if at least one manufacturer has delivered at least one production model (a handgun that results from a manufacturing process that produces multiple copies of the same handgun model, but not prototypes) to a registered or licensed wholesale or retail dealer in New Jersey or any other state. Section 2C:58-2.3b.

Once 23 months have elapsed from the Attorney General’s report announcing that personalized handguns are available for retail sale, the Attorney General must work with the Superintendent of State Police to promulgate a list of handguns that may be sold in New Jersey. Section 2C:58-2.4. This process must be initiated following the 23-month period, and must be completed within a further six months. Id. Section 2C:58-2.4b provides for the listing of new handguns as well as the removal of previously authorized firearms from the list. The list will be distributed to all licensed firearms dealers. Section 2C:58-2.4b also directs the Attorney General to create a process that will allow manufacturers to submit handguns for testing and authorization for sale.

Beginning six months after the initial list of approved handguns is completed, no licensed manufacturer, wholesaler, or retail firearms dealer, or any of the dealer’s employees or agents, shall transport into New Jersey, sell, expose for sale, possess with the intent of selling, assign or otherwise transfer a handgun unless it is a personalized handgun or an antique handgun (defined under section 2C:39-1aa). Section 2C:58-2.5b, c.

Exceptions exist for handguns used by law enforcement or military officers, and for handguns used in competitive shooting matches. Section 2C:58-2.5b, c.

Licensed firearms dealers or their agents or employees will be prohibited from delivering any handgun to any person on and after the first day of the sixth month following the release date of the initial personalized handgun list pursuant to section 2C:58-2.4, unless the handgun is identified as a personalized handgun and included on the state-approved list of personalized handguns, or is classified as an antique handgun. Section 2C:58-2a(5)(e).

Within 30 days following the release of the initial personalized handgun list, a seven-member commission within the state Department of Law and Public Safety shall be created, which will meet once annually thereafter to determine whether state and local law enforcement should use personalized handguns. Section 2C:58-2.5d.

The adopted text of New Jersey’s “smart gun” law can be found in its entirety at the New Jersey State Legislature’s website.

http://www.lcav.org/states/newjersey.asp#Personalizedsmartguns
 
If a production "smart gun" ever does come to fruitation and the NJ laws takes full effect, there should be a nationwide boycott of the manufacturer that would make the S&W boycott seem minor by comparison.
 
Didn't follow the google link, did you?

Posted on Mon, May. 29, 2006
`Smart gun' shows promise - and promises controversy
BY TOM AVRIL
Knight Ridder Newspapers

PHILADELPHIA - As police in Philadelphia struggle to stop a scourge of shootings, some New Jersey engineers say they are closing in on a "smart" solution: a gun that can be fired only by its owner.

The prototype, developed at the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark, has pressure sensors embedded in the gun handle that recognize a person's unique grip.

The team says a commercial model is up to five years away, but if it works, it will trigger a singular - and controversial - state law. Within three years, all handguns sold in New Jersey would have to be personalized, with this or some other recognition technology.

Michael Recce, who dreamed up the grip-recognition concept in 1999, said the only obstacles are time and money.

"It's an engineering problem, not a scientific problem," he said.

However long it takes, it's safe to say the university has embarked on a product-development quest like no other - wading into a contentious issue on the fault line between red and blue America.

Various smart-gun efforts have flamed out in the past, amid vocal skepticism by the National Rifle Association. Many gun owners chafe at the notion of any restrictions on their Second Amendment right to bear arms, and warn that any such modifications would make guns more expensive.

Gun-control advocates, meanwhile, are split, with some warning that personalized firearms would give owners a false sense of security.

Most see New Jersey's 2002 law as a commonsense safety measure, but they are starting to run out of patience.

"These guns should have been developed 20 years ago," said Bryan Miller, executive director of Ceasefire New Jersey.

Duke University economist Philip J. Cook estimates that if all handguns were personalized, more than 4,000 lives would be saved each year from fewer murders, accidents and teen suicides.

Though the New Jersey law exempts law enforcement, police might also benefit from the technology. According to FBI statistics, as many as one in six officers killed each year is slain with his or her weapon.

In the last few months, Recce's team has crammed the necessary electronics into the handle of a prototype, so the firearm no longer must be tethered to a computer.

Inside the grip, 16 ceramic discs generate a charge when pressed. They are called piezoelectric sensors, from the Greek piezo, for "pressure." Barbecue lighters use a similar feature.

Once the shooter squeezes the trigger, the grip sensors spring into action, recording the pressure for one-tenth of a second. In that moment, the pressure applied by each finger varies enough that engineers can distinguish between shooters with a high degree of reliability. A grip's signature does not vary significantly from firing to firing, even in stressful situations, researchers have found.

A year and a half ago, a prototype recognized authorized users nine out of 10 times. Now, the rate lies between 95 and 99 percent, said Michael Cody, a computer science engineer on the team.

The goal: at least 99.95 percent - or good enough that the recognition process fails less often than a regular gun would jam or fail. A higher success rate will require better placement of the 16 sensors; currently, four or five do most of the work.

The latest prototype still holds just one 9mm round, and while it recognizes its user most of the time, it cannot prevent others from firing it. Both problems are surmountable, Recce said.

Solving the first problem means creating more room in the handle by designing small, custom batteries and circuits to replace the clunky, off-the-shelf parts, team member Timothy Chang said.

The second problem - preventing a gun from being fired - has already been studied by other manufacturers.

The most sensible approach may be to marry Recce's recognition technology with a gun that fires electronically - without mechanical, moving parts such as a hammer. If an authorized user were recognized, it would be a simple matter to turn on the firing circuitry.

Recce estimated that his revolving team of graduate students and postdocs could develop a market-ready product in five years, and that a private company could do so in three.

Estimated cost: an additional $5 million. To date, the school has received $4.4 million in state and federal funds, said Donald H. Sebastian, a university senior vice president who oversees the research.

A 2005 study by a committee of the National Academy of Engineering was less optimistic, predicting that any of the various smart guns would need five to 10 years and $30 million.

That kind of money would likely have to come from government, as gun makers don't have big research budgets, committee chair Lance Davis said.

"They manufacture new models," Davis said. "It amounts to incremental changes."

Yet several gun makers have developed smart-gun prototypes. Some identified a physical characteristic, such as a fingerprint. One required the user to wear a special ring that the gun identified with a radio frequency signal.

In a 1999 memo, Colt's Manufacturing Co. told investors that a police model could be introduced in two or three years.

But Carlton Chen, vice president and general counsel for the Connecticut company, said in an interview that the technology didn't work well enough and that the company "ran out of money."

Even if technology works, there is some question how much it could reduce violence in a city such as Philadelphia. Most of the city's gun crimes are committed by people who obtain weapons from a "straw" buyer - people who buy guns legally and then sell them to someone with a criminal record.

Recce said his grip-recognition technology could solve that problem if the rightful owner had to get the firearm programmed by a dealer or at a police station. If someone else wanted to buy the gun, he or she would have to go back to get it reprogrammed.

At the very least, the technology would cut down on violence committed with the 500,000 handguns that are stolen each year, said Stephen Teret, public health professor at Johns Hopkins University.

"If all those guns had been personalized guns," Teret said, "they would be useless when they were stolen."
 
And another article on the same gun...

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/12/041219154600.htm
Source: New Jersey Institute Of Technology

Posted: December 27, 2004

Shots Fired At Bayonne Range Prove Smart Gun Technology Works

Sixty people crowded last week into a small room at the Bayonne police firing range to witness smart gun technology. Donald H. Sebastian, senior vice president of research and development at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), stood near an oversized screen displaying a real-time video of an NJIT policeman shooting an experimental handgun in an adjacent indoor range. Although there was no applause as shots rang out, the action demonstrated that smart gun knew friend from foe.

Sixteen electronic computerized sensors embedded in the gun's grip distinguished known from unknown users. "We've only just begun and we're pleased to say that we're getting 90 percent reliability when scanning users," said Sebastian.

Since 1999, Sebastian has led the project based upon Dynamic Grip Recognition, a technology invented by Michael Recce, PhD, associate professor of information systems at NJIT. Since June of 2004, five members of the NJIT police force have been trained to use the test gun and be recognized. Ultimately computerized sensors in each gun will record data on dozens of known users while also blocking unauthorized users.

The project has the enthusiastic backing of Sens. Frank R. Lautenberg and Jon S. Corzine. In addition to proudly witnessing the technology, the pair announced last week that, once again, they had secured $1 million in federal funding for the project. Last year, they secured a similar amount. The funding was included in this year's U.S. Department of Justice budget. Reps. Robert Menendez and William Pascrell, who have also supported the research and sought federal appropriations, also spoke, as did NJIT President Robert A. Altenkirch and Bayonne Mayor and State Senator Joseph Doria, an early New Jersey legislative supporter.

Under New Jersey law, passed in Dec. 2002, only smart guns can be purchased in the state three years after personalized handguns become commercially available. Lautenberg said New Jersey's legislative effort to introduce smart gun technology should be a national model for the country. Once Congress returns to session next year, Lautenberg and Pascrell plan to introduce legislation modeled after New Jersey's law, so families across the country will be able to ensure that guns they own will not fall into the wrong hands.

The demonstration included a description of how the technology works. "Everyone has body features that are unique signatures," said Sebastian. "Fingerprints and retinas number among the best known markers. Identifying a person by such attributes is called the science of biometrics."

Another form of biometric--the dynamic biometric--depends on both physical markers and behavior. "This is about who you are and how you do something." said Sebastian. This biometric is the foundation of Dynamic Grip Recognition. The technology measures not only the size, strength and structure of a person's hand, but also the reflexive way in which the person acts. For smart gun, the observed actions are how the person squeezes something to produce a unique and measurable pattern. Embedded sensors in the experimental gun then can read and record the size and force of the users' hand during the first second when the trigger is squeezed.

"This technology is similar to how electronic machines read an individual's signature upon completing a credit card transaction," said Sebastian.

The next step is for NJIT researchers to turn over their invention to the Australian-based research and development company Metal Storm Ltd.. Currently January of 2006 is the target date. Metal Storm will then incorporate the NJIT technology into their patented electronic handgun, as NJIT researchers continue testing.

"NJIT is doing pioneering research to make a firearm that can save thousands of innocent lives," said Lautenberg during the demonstration. "On any given day people across the country can turn on their TV news or read in their local paper the sad story of a child taking another child's life because they got their hands on a loaded gun. However, we know now that these deaths can be prevented -- or at least reduced -- through technology that will render a gun inoperable in the hands of the wrong user."

Corzine called the NJIT's dynamic-grip technology cutting edge and said that it represented a really positive step forward in public safety. "NJIT is involved in important life-saving research," he added. "There is no question that manufacturing handguns with advanced technology to limit operation can save lives. No child could pick up a gun and pull the trigger. The gun just won't work, and that's how it should be."

Menendez said that by making handguns operable only by authorized users, many gun deaths can be avoided. Pascrell said he looked forward to introducing legislation in the 108th Congress similar to the legislation in New Jersey.

Since 1999, NJIT has spearheaded efforts to develop a personalized handgun that can instantly and reliably recognize one or more pre-programmed authorized users. To date, the New Jersey legislature has awarded NJIT $1.5 million for the project.

In 2003, Recce received a patent for Dynamic Grip Recognition. The invention enabled NJIT electrical engineering professor Timothy Chang, assisted by a team of engineers, to embed multiple small electronic sensors in the grip. The sensors identify the user. The finished gun will eventually feature both electronic features and computerized parts. Recce sees his invention someday also being used in other applications--perhaps the yoke of a plane or a car's steering wheel.

Also in 2003, NJIT signed an agreement with Metal Storm, which owns a patent for its Electronic Firing System that can be used in a handgun. Metal Storm's O'DwyerTM VLe® system is a unique, patented approach to firing projectiles. Entirely electronic, the system utilizes preloaded barrels holding multiple projectiles that are fired by electronic ignition. For the first time, interchangeable and multiple barrels can be made available to fire a range of projectiles of varying calibers from the same handgun.

Feel free to boycott Metal Storm. [wink]
 
dwarven1 said:
A google search of the phrase "new jersey smart gun law" turns up the following results. ... snippage ...


I wasn't looking for info on New Jersey, but "smart guns" in general, and in particular, recent developments or old arguments against them. Even more specifically, the use of embedded biometric chips to activate them. I tried a search on this forum, but came up kind of empty. Thanks anyhow.[thinking]

I was given the site http://www.viisage.com/ by the pd, but was having trouble accessing it.
 
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Coyote33 said:
I wasn't looking for info on New Jersey, but "smart guns" in general, and in particular, recent developments or old arguments against them. I tried a search on this forum, but came up kind of empty. Thanks anyhow.
Ah. I see.

Well, I suspect that this forum won't have much interest in them except to see how ridiculous the concept is - as in, a gun that fires a tenth of a second AFTER you squeeze the trigger.

But the articles I cited about NJIT's work on them is pretty interesting. It's certainly a new approach from the magnetic ring or implant idea.
 
Watch Judge Dredd.
Judge_Dredd_02-thumb.jpg
 
JonJ said:
Watch Judge Dredd.
Judge_Dredd_02-thumb.jpg

Or the 5th Element...

That gun was so smart, you could aim it somewhere else, and the bullets would still turn around and hit the intended target for you!
 
I would expect Mumbles Meninyo to attempt to implement such a thing. He'll have NO PROBLEMO getting his drones behind him for the photo op! [One must realize that EVERY BPD officer above the rank of Sgt is a "political appointment" and not their civil service rank! They can then be busted down to their civil service rank at any time, for any reason. Source of info was a couple of BPD POs.]
 
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