Smart Guns: Life Savers or 2nd Amendment Violators?

An 18-year-old Real Life Vigilante invented a smart gun that allows only authorized users to fire their weapons. Will this save hundreds of lives or is this infringing on our Second Amendment rights? Today I invite young inventor Kai Kloepfer (kaikloepfer.com) onto #OffTheGrid to get the lowdown on his biotech breakthrough. Would you own a smart gun?

a reply to: JesseVentura

I think this is brilliant. It would save lives. Now small children who find their parents guns won't tragically shoot themselves or others. Now people who steal guns (contributing to the illegal weapons trade/gangs) won't be able to use them. That has to be really key, though--if these things can be hacked, then we have a major issue here. They need to be useless to anyone besides the owner of the gun/anyone else the owner has decided to register on the gun.

And that's a major hurdle for this product.

I remember hearing about this, a while ago. Glad someone brought it up and reminded me.

How would this violate the second amendment? I'm afraid I don't immediately understand what you mean by that.

a reply to: JesseVentura

It is a great idea as an OPTION.

I for one would never use anything that had an electronic component to work when my life depends upon it. When my life depends on it, I will not trust a cheap Chinese made circuit board to work when I need it.


The primary problem will be the Gun Control Crowd will not want this to be "optional". They will want this mandatory so that all these firearms can be disabled remotely or easily via kill switch or EMP.

Infolurker said it better than I.
100% agreed.

I am all for the option to buy a smart gun. The problem though is that New Jersey will be instantly screwed once the first smart gun in the country is sold.

There has been renewed interest in smart guns since the Newtown school shooting, which reinvigorated the gun-control debate. However, there is immense pressure not to be the first to sell them. That’s because of a New Jersey law passed in 2002 known as the Childproof Handgun Law, which says that all guns sold in New Jersey must be state-approved smart guns within three years of a smart gun being sold anywhere in the country. The goal was to make smart guns mandatory as soon as the technology existed. Officially, no smart gun has been sold in the US yet — meaning if Raymond had sold one, it would have triggered the clause in New Jersey.

"My apologies to the people of New Jersey," Raymond said in the video, which was posted to Facebook but has since been deleted. "I did not know that I would be screwing you over."

How easily hackable?

ps: Nice shirt.

Wait! Wait! Wait!
I gotta change the battery in my gun so I can defend myself..... Hold on mr criminal...

I think it's a great idea and I was thinking of something similar like smart bullets, but this is better. Don't like the look of it though but with some heavy investors and partnerships with some good gun manufacturers, could make it look pretty slick. It really does solve many debates.

a reply to: JesseVentura

What's to stop the government, or another entity from having a back door control to the weapon, just like they have with other electronic devices?

Practicing gun safety is the best form of security.

It will not do anything for gun safety as it will never get added to the millions of guns on the current market
Both legal and illegal.
Besides the most common self defense/carry guns have no safety and a no mag disconnect
For a carry gun I want as little as possible to be able to go wrong.

No. I wouldn't own one.

It wouldn't save as many lives as you might think it would.

Doesn't stop 'mass shooters'.

Doesn't stop other events.

It may save a police officers life.

It may save a child. But guns should be locked up to begin with when a person has children.

In other words the 'smart' gun is no magic bullet.

Just like any other technology, there will be a way around it for those that want to get around it. Great idea for home safety, horrible idea for crime prevention.

Great...now I have to "root" my gun??? Do you have any idea how many phones I FUBARed untill I got the hang of it? This could get very expensive.

originally posted by: Vector99
Just like any other technology, there will be a way around it for those that want to get around it. Great idea for home safety, horrible idea for crime prevention.

untill your battery is dead and a home invader takes it and beats you to death with it

When i read the tittle i was imagining the gun that judge dread uses, now that would be an epic gun.

originally posted by: dukeofjive696969
When i read the tittle i was imagining the gun that judge dread uses, now that would be an epic gun.

Now I would own one of those.

Full auto.

Grenades.

ETC.

Maybe in another 100 years.

originally posted by: infolurker
a reply to: JesseVentura

It is a great idea as an OPTION.

I for one would never use anything that had an electronic component to work when my life depends upon it. When my life depends on it, I will not trust a cheap Chinese made circuit board to work when I need it.


The primary problem will be the Gun Control Crowd will not want this to be "optional". They will want this mandatory so that all these firearms can be disabled remotely or easily via kill switch or EMP.

Even as an avid anti gun nutter, I find the SmartGun to be of limited use. While it might prevent an accidental shooting in a domestic environment, it will never be very smart.

A gun with a round of ammo needs some sort of mechanical workings to send the bullit flying.
No amount of electronics will be able to stop a determined 4th grader from modifying the gun with minimal skills and household tools. In my opinion.

SmartGuns are lile the flying car - a fancy way of rasing funds for a project that will never catch on.

Aboslutely no-one will accept a piece of electronics to fail when you are fighting for your life.

What is really needed is rethinking the "control part". It is a strange construction that forbids certain citizens to get on a flight because they might be terrorristes, but they are allowed to own guns.

But of course - if NRA eventually allow for a law that poses some sort of restriction on "undesireables" then those same restrictions can be used on other mentally desturbed people, and we wouldn't want to open that can of worms - do we?

Not so sure about this. I guess as long as the government is in no way in control of this, or has any power to hack/disable the weapon, and their own bodyguards and security has the same device, i would be more open to it. Not sure if I would trust the private sector either but oh well I guess.

There will never be a market for this... bad idea..

I'll keep what I have thank you. I read a review recently where they tried out a smart gun. One of the main issues they had was pulling the trigger and waiting for the gun to decide whether to shoot or not.