Rather than engaging in polarized conversations about less guns or more guns, our focus is on decreasing violence to save lives and prevent gun-related injuries.
HARTFORD, Conn. A federal bill intended to curb gun violence would establish Consumer Product Safety Commission safety standards for firearm locks and firearm safes, taking a cue from existing Connecticut law. The state enacted Ethan s Law in 2019, which requires gun owners to store their firearms in a safe and secure way when a minor is present. .
(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)
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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.
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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.