#SmartGuns

The United States Army is on track to select a defense contractor in 2020 for its Next Generation Squad Weapon. Defense contractors General Dynamics, SIG Sauer, and the Conglomerate Textron have been narrowed down as the three finalists for next year’s contract award. The United States Army is making the requirement for a “smart rail” system to be equipped on the weapon. This technology is a communication and power interface between digital technology and the physical gun.

Presented at the 2016 International San Francisco Smart Gun Symposium (ironic, considering the city shuttered its last gun shop in 2015), then 18-year-old Kai Kloepfer presented a new handgun design that incorporates a fingerprint reader. Young Mr. Kloepfer is sponsored by angel investor Ron Conway, who’s Smart Tech Challenges Foundation is spending $1.5 million for the development of “firearms safety technology.” Kloepfer is one of about 15 start-ups that Conway is sponsoring.

The National Institute of Justice, the research arm of the US Department of Justice, has released guidelines on the development of new “smart” handguns for law enforcement. The guidelines are intended to help firearms manufacturers produce firearms with integrated electronic safety features that still meet the standards that have been refined through the modern, highly effective all-mechanical handgun. You can find the guidelines at the link here.

Smart guns are at the front of the gun industry’s mind right now. This is due in large part to Obama’s recent order that the Department of Defense, Justice Department, and Department of Homeland Security must come up with a viable plan to speed along the progress of smart gun technology. In the wake of Obama’s executive order announcements at the beginning of January 2016, a company by the name of Sentinl took it upon themselves to make a big announcement: they just happened to have a product coming out of R and D capable of fulfilling Obama’s request.

Discussions about smart guns have been underway for some time now and has, in recent years, been actively pursued by a handful of tech companies. In fact, Jonathon Mossberg who is indeed part of the almost 100-year-old O.F. Mossberg and Sons company, started his own smart gun research a few years ago. His company, iGun Technology Corporation, first set its sights on shotguns. Their idea was to use magnetic spectrum token technology which works much like RFID. The 12-gauge shotgun was designed to fire only within a certain range of the token which was, in this case, a ring meant to be worn on the shooter’s trigger hand. In 2013 the National Institute of Justice called the gun “the first personalized firearm to go beyond a prototype to an actual commercializable or production-ready product.” And, of course, Jonathon Mossberg is not the only one involved in the smart gun race.

Adam Clark Estes from Gizmodo recently posted an exclusive hands-on with DARPA’s version of the smart scope, named the Computational Weapon Optic (CWO). The author is definitely not a gun guy, but you can find it the original article here: What It Feels Like to Shoot With the Military’s Experimental Smart Scope

Politics of “smart” guns aside, it is fascinating to see the technological developments that are being proposed or currently in production. From precision “guided” firearms (Tracking Point) to new GPS location-aware and cloud connected firearms, the (long-term) future of firearms likely includes electronics in some form. Firearms are one of the few products that are yet to be significantly enhanced by on-board electronics due to their small size and recoil.