Technology exists to make guns safer

Announcing that "the foremost consideration in firearms manufacturing is to produce a weapon that is safe under all conditions," Smith & Wesson unveiled its new gun to the world.

The year was 1914.

Now, 89 years later, most American gun makers produce firearms that fall far short of the standards set by Smith & Wesson in its original safe gun. And even America?s biggest gun maker has retreated from some of the features in its super safe firearm.

In addition to internal safety features that prevented the gun from accidentally discharging if dropped or hit, the firearm had a manual safety and grip safety. The grip safety and the trigger had to be depressed at the same time, making it nearly impossible for young children to accidentally discharge the weapon and forcing the gun handler, according to Smith & Wesson, "to think before firing."

What the Detroit News won't tell you in this section of their "special report" is that while many guns today are available without the safety features listed here (ie, a manual safety, grip safety, and drop safety), many guns today are available with those features. It's a choice you make when you buy a firearm: do you purchase a high-quality model with several safety devices, a low-quality model that lacks them, or perhaps a gun whose safety devices are designed in such a way that some of the safety devices on their list don't make sense?

If you value a gun that will fire each time and every time the trigger is pulled, you might buy a Glock, which has a number of safety devices that accomplish exactly that -- but lacks a grip safety or a magazine disconnect. According to the Detroit News, those features should be mandatory, even though the Glock brand is one of the most popular brands for police officers nationwide.

The fact is, there's more to gun safety than technology. Gun safety starts in the person holding the gun.

The lack of safety features in many guns in America poses a serious risk to gun owners. Many have been wounded or killed when their guns accidentally discharged or were unintentionally fired because of manufacturers? safety omissions.

Remember, "many" is a very small number when compared to things like bathtubs, bicycles, or cars.

Gun makers have been allowed to decide what safety features, if any, to use on their weapons because no federal agency can set standards for firearms manufactured in the country. Not only have gun makers ignored long-established safety options, but they have been slow to embrace new technology.

Actually, gun makers haven't "ignored... safety options". Where the firearm was at fault, they have issued product recalls, changed the design of their firearms to correct the defects, and even today offer firearms with all the safety devices the Detroit News is so fond of. How that can be construed as "ignoring" I don't know.

In 1996, the Sandia National Laboratories ? a highly respected research unit in the Department of Energy ? completed a $620,000 study for the National Institute of Justice on available technology to personalize police guns and prevent their unauthorized use. But much of the technology reviewed by the lab has practical applications for gun safety in general.

The government decided to fund the study because statistics showed 16 percent of officers killed in the line of duty were shot with their own weapons, or those of their partners, by assailants who managed to get the guns.

The concept of a "smart gun" that can only be fired by its owner is a reasonable safety option, but not a reasonable safety requirement. Any firearm must make a tradeoff between reliability of operation and safety. Any improvement in safety (ie, making it harder to fire the gun in an unauthorized manner) has a corresponding decrease in reliability (ie, making it harder to fire the gun when intended). Most mechanical safety devices are reliable and simple; they are durable and rarely fail.

No one has yet devised a "smart gun" system that can distinguish between authorized and unauthorized users that even comes close to that level of reliability. This is a concern not only for the traditional reasons to value reliable operation, but because of the nature of firearm use -- a firearm that fails to fire at a shooting range or while hunting is a trivial matter, but a firearm that fails to shoot an attacking criminal in your home may cost you your life.

"Smart guns" are pushed for precisely that home defense use. It is believed that a "smart gun" can keep your child or a criminal from firing your handgun, while allowing its use for self-defense against a criminal. But what technology can be used to fit this scenario? The Detroit News covers a number of possibilities. But they all have the same flaws:

1. The gun needs batteries. Batteries fail.
2. The recognition system can be confused (by misplacing a special object, radio interference, or just dirty hands).
3. The keyed object in some designs can be misplaced, or simply not worn, or stored with the gun.

All of these potential problems could be fatal if you are depending on your firearm to stop a criminal. They could be just as fatal if you are depending on them to prevent your gun from firing in unauthorized hands, because (as the other stories in this series have shown), even simple mechanical safety devices can fail. In actual practice, these devices have substantial safety tradeoffs that must be evaluated by the purchaser -- including the increased chances for accidental discharge associated with the mechanism that readies the gun to fire.

Some states (New Jersey) have passed laws that pre-emptively ban "non-smart" guns from sale within that state after a gun manufacturer brings out a smart gun to the consumer market. This kind of heavy-handed threat ignores the real safety and reliability concerns of "smart gun" devices in favor of politically-motived regulation. Those safety and reliability concerns were acknowledged, albeit in a backhand way, by exempting the police forces of the state from the ban!

It seems that "smart guns" are not good enough for the police, even if they are good enough to force upon the average citizen. And until a smart gun mechanism is developed that is no less reliable than a standard mechanical firearm, "smart guns" will remain a fantasy.