NPR article on smart guns.

[JonathanRackham]

Found this in the NPR archive file. Good time to grab a cup of coffee to read thru this one.


http://www.npr.org/2016/04/07/473416699/how-an-idea-to-develop-a-safer-smart-gun-backfired?ft=nprml&f=2,3,46

If you have a smartphone, maybe you unlock it with your fingerprint. And if we can do that for a phone, some people wonder why can't we use digital locks on guns too? Well, one company tried it - tried to give its customers a safer kind of gun. As Joel Rose of our Planet Money podcast explains, it paid a steep price.

JOEL ROSE, BYLINE: That company was Colt. It made the first successful revolver back before the Civil War. One of its advertising slogans was God created man, Samuel Colt made them equal. But by the early 1990s, Colt had fallen on hard times. That's when Donald Zilkha bought the company with a plan to get it back on its feet.

DONALD ZILKHA: I was doing something that I thought was innovative in an industry that hadn't done too much innovation in a long time. It was going to improve things in this business.

ROSE: Donald Zilkha didn't even own a gun. He was an investment banker from Manhattan, wears nice suits, cufflinks. What attracted him to Colt was its iconic role in American history. And he thought he saw another historic opportunity, a smart gun - a gun that will only fire for an authorized user like its owner.


more at link.......

[Duckhunter935]

1. Good article

Just show what happens when yoi make a very simple mechanical device much more complex. It might not work when actually needed.

[CompanyFirstSergeant]

2. This situation....

Last edited Fri May 6, 2016, 10:37 AM - Edit history (1)

almost drove Colt out of business.

Thank goodness for them - the sales of AR-15s increased!

Flame away!

[Eleanors38]

3. I don't know, that's a RW source you have there. NPR.

[CompanyFirstSergeant]

5. You know... I heard someting funny this morning....

....NPR was going over their sponsor list like they do every hour or so, and I heard the 'Coke' brothers mentioned.

[Eleanors38]

6. Oh, hell, the Cokes are all over NPR and PBS.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

4. "If you have a smartphone, maybe you unlock it with your fingerprint."

Maybe it unlocks after using a fingerprint, maybe it doesn't. Maybe it takes a few times. Maybe it just gets annoying so I enter the stupid code.

Fortunately for me, when I need to unlock my phone, seconds normally do not count.

When police forces and military units adopt guns with this technology, then I'll believe it is ready for general use.

[Hangingon]

7. About 5% of us don't have readable fingerprints.

Sadly, I am one of them. Not interested in a fingerprint phone.

[CompanyFirstSergeant]

8. I never have fingerprints

after pouring concrete.

I'm putting up a fence, so I'm right in there with the stuff.

Fingerprints will burn right off.

I know, I'm probably not using the proper PPE if that is happening, I know.

[ManiacJoe]

9. Even if the tech was reliable (and it is not),

lots of real-world things keep fingerprint readers from working correctly:
dirty hands
bloody hands
gloved hands
wrong finger
dead batteries

The idea of smart guns is good but the tech has a long way to go yet.

[JonathanRackham]

10. Temperature extremes and humidity killed PLCs on my ships.

Static electricity too.