(AP Photo/AJ Mast, File)
It’s been nearly 20 years since the state of New Jersey approved a bill mandating that so-called smart guns could be the only type of firearm sold in the state once a smart gun model was made available to the public. The law also directed hundreds of thousands of dollars in grant money to researchers to develop “smart gun” technology, but despite (or maybe because of) the push, there are still no smart guns available for sale commercially.
The state hasn’t given up, however. Back in 2019, the legislature modified the law, which now requires gun store owners to carry at least one smart gun model once it’s available for sale, though old-fashioned firearms can still be sold without violating the law. To speed up adoption of the technology, the state created a Personalized Handgun Authorization Commission that’s supposed to approve smart guns for sale in New Jersey, and last month Gov. Phil Murphy announced four appointments to the board, including
N.J. makes new push to get controversial smart guns in stores after failing for years
Posted May 10, 2021
A prototype of a smart gun that the New Jersey Institute of Technology spent more than a decade developing. The gun uses sensors to measure a user s hand grip so only authorized users can fire. The NJIT research has ended after running out of funding. (Courtesy of NJIT)
Facebook Share
The 1911 pistol is one of Timmy Oh’s favorite guns.
Oh has experimented on firearms since he was a teenager, looking for ways to make them safer, and he said he was drawn to how the 1911′s “beautiful” design once changed the industry. When the gun was introduced more than a century ago, its improved durability made it a U.S. military mainstay.
1:59
Unsecured guns are among the top contributors to the nation s gun violence, so a coalition of public officials and law enforcement is putting out the call to create new safety technology.
Ron Hain - the sheriff of Kane County in neighboring Illinois - said of the tens of millions of gun-owning households in the U.S, fewer than half store their guns securely.
Startups in recent years have brought some potentially promising products to market - such as different kinds of personalized locks. Hain said these are being tested by law enforcement officers and firearms experts. We have to make guns childproof, and as accident-proof as possible, said Hain. In an age of technological innovation, this is not an unsolvable problem.
With Congress getting past the immediate aftermath of a burst of mass shootings to resume its regular thumb-twiddling and the Supreme Court taking up a scary challenge to New York’s strict firearm safety laws, these might feel like depressing days for those who care about bringing some sanity to a nation where easy access to guns and ammo yields nearly 40,000 dead bodies every year.
A Call for Innovative Gun Safety Products / Public News Service publicnewsservice.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from publicnewsservice.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.