Say you keep a firearm for home defense. Picture your small daughter finding your gun. If it’s loaded, that could be the last thing she ever does.It’s not exactly a rare scenario. Firearm injuries were the second-leading cause of death among children in 2016, according to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.Safety technology could make accidental firing impossible, at least that’s what developers hope.The technology exists. But after years of boycotts, political infighting and technological hurdles, it has yet to fully catch on. Now, developers are trying a new tactic to build a market: selling their products to police.
Unlocking Your Gun Like You Unlock Your Smartphone
Kai Kloepfer is the inventor of a fingerprint-activated 9 mm handgun called Biofire. Firearms like this are known as smart guns: They allow only someone they recognize to fire, without a trigger lock or attachment. The fingerprint technology is built into the gun.At the Gun Safety Technology Expo in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, organized by the local chapter of the Metro Industrial Areas Foundation, Kloepfer demonstrates how the technology works. There’s a small light at the bottom of the pistol grip. When an unauthorized user tries to fire, it flashes yellow.“If I try to pull this trigger, nothing is going to happen,” Kloepfer says.When he shifts his grip to hold the gun as if he were shooting it, lining his grip up with the fingerprint reader, the light in the base of the grip flashes green.“That means it recognizes my fingerprint,” Kloepfer says, “so if I try to pull the trigger, it’ll fire.”
