Armatix’s wireless gun safety
Danger Room reports on a unique pistol made by German firm Armatix. The gun is armed by a wristwatch and disarmed when the watch is out of range. The .22 pistol sells for 7000 EUR ($9750)!
Obviously this device is very impractical in the real world. The bright green light shining into the user face would make the sights very hard to use at night, not to mention making the user an easy target.
[ Many thanks to all the readers who emailed me the link. ]
Not that this gun (or system) will ever be used… but I have a UI suggestion. Put the indicators in the sights. If your sights are tritium green, your ready to rock. Red or no sights, something’s wrong.
Maybe this idea would work better for informing the user of ammo levels. Two rounds left, back sights glow red.
/scifi fantasy.
I am worried that anti gun politicians could pounce on this ridiculous exercise in designing a lousy gun to mandate that the technology be incorporated in all guns, making their prices prohibitive for anyone in the USA. The COmmiefornian moonbats in Sacramento tried getting gunmakers to devise a system that would imprint some kind of ID on every case and bullet fired from them until they were told that this was not possible with currently available technology. They never stop anyway – just wait for some clown in CA, IL, NJ, MA or NY to start demanding that every gunmaker in the USA license this stupid technology . . .
I don’t have a problem with these being offered for sale. I could even see myself wanting one strictly as a novelty item if they were priced like other .22 novelty firearms. I do, however, have a big problem with people who will try make this the standard, whether it’s trough litigation (think: corporate liability for security personnel) or legislation (common sense gun control, “it’s better than nothing” doublespeak, etc).
You can argue in favor or against mag disconnects. I’ll admit that they have their place and there’s obviously a market for guns that have them. I personally don’t like them but the idea is sound.
But *this* is just an overall bad idea. I’m sure they will work on the design (Robocop much?), make this cheaper, more reliable and whatnot but that doesn’t change the very basic fact that the underlying concept is just plain bad. If the ABS, ESC and emergency brake assist in your car all fail simultaneously you still have your brakes which will work just fine, the same way they did decades ago. If even one of the components of this system fails, you’re dead.
Honestly, I’d prefer a rusty kitchen knife over this for SD and if you have kids, well, you can buy one hell of a gun safe for $10k and have enough over for a nice vacation.
Not to be a hater, but it’s a very impractical gun concept that US Law Enforcement will never buy into. It doesn’t take very long to defeat. I was talking with an Armatix sales rep at SHOT show and he was explaining how it would be impossible for an officer to be shot with his own gun, due to the RFID style sensor in the watch. At which point I grabbed the rep by his forearm, and then held the gun against his forearm, shoved both into his gut and pulled the trigger. Fail.
Bad news for people in New Jersey. I’m under the impression that NJ passed a law several years ago that bans the sale of conventional handguns whenever ‘smart guns’ become available. Note: “available” but not necessarily practical, common, or effective. I wonder if that law requires it to be available in the US?
So I was acquainted with a senior manager, and I have friends who knew engineers and gunsmiths working on the Colt Smart Gun initiative some years back. The big problem they ran up against was sustainable reliability with any significant defensive caliber over even a short amount of time; the shock of firing the gun buggered the delicate works of the smart technology then available.
Beef up the protection of the smart works, and the gun became unwieldy; keep the gun functional as a robust tool, and the smart works stopped doing their job. And when that happened, the gun usually just became a brick.
The basic ideas all sounded like science fiction, and it turns out that’s what they were. I don’t know if any of that’s been overcome since, but how many of these have we seen on the market – or even talked about anymore?
I suspect there’s still work happening, but another factor that discouraged developers was that control mechanisms, like watches or rings weren’t robust or reliable either, and human factor concerns needed to be addressed. Watches get left behind, rings get dinged up, batteries run out and most folks don’t check them, etc., so then the person who needs the thing is left high and dry.
Training. The best way to have a smart gun, is to have a smart user. Just like the best safety is the safety consciousness in your brain.
“Obviously this device is very impractical in the real world. The bright green light shining into the user face would make the sights very hard to use at night, not to mention making the user an easy target.”
Screw the light! How practical is a .22 handgun that sells for more than $9K!
James, LOL, good point
There was a shooting in Germany a couple of years ago where a gunowner hid the key to his safe on a super-secret hiding place whereupon his son of course located the key and proceded to kill a number of his schoolmates.
I don’t know if this contraption is inspired by such events, but it won’t work either way. People who try to hide their gun safe keys from their kids aren’t clever enough to realize that you would need to store this gun and the wristwatch in separate places.
I don’t see this technology goimg anywhere soon. However in response to a post above by Squidpuppy I have to say it is hard to imagine doing it soon but if we can stick a gps device in a 155mm art shell like the excaliber and get it to survive, and work dam well to boot, then the tech is there to eventually shrink it and put some tech on some guns. Feasible? Not for a while lol.