Monday, January 28, 2013

A brief history of personalized ("smart") firearms

Push for futuristic guns builds on embattled past (Houma Today)
It sounds, at first, like a bold, next-generation solution: personalizing guns with technology that keeps them from firing if they ever get into the wrong hands.

But when the White House called for pushing ahead with such new technology as part of President Obama’s plan to cut gun violence, the administration did not mention the concept’s embattled past. As with so much else in the nation’s long-running divisions over gun rights and regulation, what sounds like a futuristic vision is, in fact, an idea that has been kicked around for years, sidelined by intense suspicion, doubts about feasibility and pressure tactics.
The Associated Press has an article out today that covers the history of the "smart gun" both as a political issue and as a technology.