John Kelsey
Ready, Aim, ID Check: In Wrong Hands, Gun Won't Fire By ANNE EISENBERG
I just wonder what the false negative rates are. Seem like a gun that has a 1% chance of refusing to fire when you *really need it* might not be worth all that much. Similarly, one that you can't get to work if you've got a band-aid on your finger, or a cut on your hand, or whatever, loses a lot of its value. On the other hand, a gun that can't be made to go off by your toddler is a pretty huge win, assuming you're willing to trust the technology, but a 90% accuracy level sounds to me like 10% of the time, your three year old can, in fact, cause the thing to go off. That's not worth much, but maybe they'll get it better. And the "suspect struggles with cop, gets gun, and shoots cop" problem would definitely be helped by a guy that wouldn't go off for 90% of attackers.
--John
A remarkable number of police deaths are 'own gun' incidents, so the police do have a strong motivation to use 'smart guns' if they are reliable. In New Jersey, there is some kind of legislation in place to restrict sales to 'smart guns', once they exist. Other types would be banned. (Actually, getting a carry permit in NJ is already almost impossible, unless you're politically connected.) This particular model seems to rely on pressure sensors on the grip. This bothers me - under the stress of a gunfight, you're likely to have a somewhat different pattern than during the enrollment process. Many 'smart guns' also have big problems with issues which arise in real life gun fights - shooting from awkward positions behind cover, one-handed vs two-handed, weak hand (righthander using left hand, and vice versa, which can happen if dictated by cover or injury), point vs sighted shooting, and passing a gun to a disarmed partner. There are other systems which have been proposed; magnetic or RFID rings, fingerprint sensors, etc. The one thing that seems to be common to all of the 'smart gun' designs is that they are conceived by people with little experience in how guns are actually used. To look at a particularly ludicrous example, try http://www.wmsa.net/other/thumb_gun.htm For a gun to work, it is just as important that it fires when it should, as that it does not fire when it shouldn't. A safety system which delays firing by even half a second, or which introduces a significant false rejection rate (and 1% is way over the line), is a positive hazard. When the police switch to smart guns, and have used them successfully for some time (say, a year at least) without problems, I'll beleive them ready for prime time. Peter Trei