
Any HN readers have ideas for improving gun safety? - pg
Ron Conway asked me to post on HN asking for tech ideas for
improving gun safety.  He asks that you email them to 
techcommiteeforgunsafety@gmail.com.<p>They're particularly interested in ideas for improving<p>- the safe handling, possession, storage and discharge of firearms
and ammunition, and<p>- the management, scaling, and privacy safeguarding requirements
for the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS).
======
philwelch
So here's a crazy little idea.

Most gun violence is directly linked to gang activity. Gang activity is
directly linked to the money involved in the drug trade. So the best
technological approach to reducing gun violence would be one that took all the
money out of the drug trade, giving the gangsters less to shoot at each other
over. There is precedent for this. The fact that crime, including violent
crime and violent crime committed with firearms, is so low now compared to the
80's and early 90's is directly linked to the collapse in the price of
cocaine.

We've made it almost impossible to stop everyday copyright infringement, why
not make it almost impossible to stop physical smuggling or fabrication of
narcotics? Commoditize the gangsters straight out of business. Part of what
made the bottom fall out of cocaine was crystal meth. So there's one
direction: freely distribute the information and materials necessary to
manufacture competing drugs. Then there's the distribution: Silk Road is a
start, but find a better way of doing it that will pull in more producers,
consumers, and distributors. If you work all the angles, you can engineer an
end run against the war on drugs the same way we engineered an end run against
copyright.

Too far out? ;)

~~~
rdl
Heh. I do agree that ending the drug war is the single best thing that can be
done to reduce violence, poverty, racism, hopelessness-among-minorities, etc.

Guns and gun violence are a very minor issue by comparison.

I'd rather not have a widespread "everyone a tweaker" program, though. Crystal
meth is actually pretty bad. Decriminalizing existing drugs and production of
drugs would probably be a lot better than replacing illegal pot/coke/etc. use
with illegal meth use.

~~~
philwelch
Sure, I was not being entirely serious. I'll just say that we're probably
better off in the current heyday of meth than we were in the heyday of
cocaine. Any reasonable approach to the drug problem is not about growing
demand for drugs, just better meeting the existent demand with fewer
externalities.

~~~
lancewiggs
So perhaps one of the HN responses could be "legalise, regulate and tax most
of the illegal drugs". That would certainly send an interesting message.

~~~
rdl
That's not technical, though. This is specifically for 2 technical meetings
they're having on technical measures to deal with gun violence.

------
Zak
What exactly do you mean by "gun safety"? I don't think you're talking about
accidental or negligent discharges resulting in injury or death. Firearm
enthusiast groups, firearms manufacturers and dealers have put significant
effort in to educating the public about safe handling which has reduced
unintended shootings by a large amount over the past 50 years or so. This
would be a strange problem for someone not involved in the firearms industry
directly to tackle.

If you were to include suicide, which accounts for the majority of fatal
gunshots, I submit that there doesn't appear to be much if any correlation
between suicide rates and access to firearms internationally. I'd certainly
try to keep a suicidal friend away from firearms, but it's just not that hard
to find a quick and reliably way to end one's life. Suicide prevention
probably shouldn't focus on methods of suicide.

If you're talking about reducing gun _crime_ , I actually do have an idea.
Right now, very few people who fail NICS background checks are prosecuted, yet
many of them have committed a felony by lying on the background check form
they're required to fill out when buying a gun from a dealer. If it's due to
criminal history, the police should show up to deliver the news about the
failure in person - and arrest the buyer. If it's for mental health reasons,
the person should be involuntarily detained for psychiatric evaluation.
Obviously, the false-positive rate needs to be low for this to work.

------
rdl
I know enough about firearms and mechanical reliability that I don't put much
faith in anything which modifies the critical firing path of a weapon. I don't
even like S&W revolvers with an integrated trigger lock. However, there are
lots of other areas for improvement.

1\. Figure out a way to make firearms registration easy to compute owner from
a given recovered weapon, but not to enumerate a list of all guns owned by a
specific person based on his identity only. There are a variety of
cryptographic ways to do this -- if we had a way to do write-only storage on
guns (say, with a 2d barcode or something which couldn't be removed, and which
included a cryptographic signature and timestamp), it would make tracing guns
recovered in crime easier (and thus catch/prosecute straw man purchasers for
gangs and such), but would prevent the "nazis seize all guns before
implementing the ovens" irrational fear.

2\. A way to do NCIC NICS checks without a huge amount of trust. A private
party should be able to run one (with consent of a purchaser), using a
smartphone and ID provided by the buyer. Something like a Square reader. Maybe
something which uses both the buyer's phone and the seller's phone and an
online server. It's unreasonable to require all buyers/sellers have
smartphones (a lot of gun owners are old, and there's a constitutional
argument to allow poor people to buy guns, too), but at a gun show, you could
loan iPod Touch to various sellers for the day. This would be supplemental to
normal at-dealer-premises FFL checks. You could possibly also just require all
FFLs to purchase a reasonable terminal, too.

3\. Safes suck. We can do so much on locking mechanisms to rapidly open safes.
For non-self-defense weapons, having safes which do periodic "I haven't been
broken into yet!" liveness reporting to the owner (and maybe law enforcement,
insurance) remotely, and then which alarm on tamper events, would be great.
I'd love these since my safes each contain >$50k.

4\. Third-party custody. I'm more than willing to lower the bar for
temporarily prohibiting someone from possessing firearms. Yet, turning them
over to the police isn't really fair. There should be some kind of self-
storage facility optimized for storing firearms where control can be
temporarily ceded to a trustworthy third party, on a bailment basis. If you
are suspected of mental illness/etc., they'd be safe, and you'd be prohibited
from access for a period of time; access would be restored at some point. This
would make it easier to lower the bar for removal of access to weapons.
Someone like Mrs. Lanza may have considered placing her weapons in such a
facility while trying to get rid of her son.

~~~
samstave
I like #3 - which is similar to one of my comments. I also like #4 - although
the suspicious side of me would worry that it could be used against someone;
i.e. I claim that RDL is a nutter and should not be allowed access to his
arsenal! some overly cautious system then prevents RDL from accessing his
cache, and instead he comes and bludgeons me with his fists out of anger, thus
proving that he is a nutter!

I really think that #3 - smart safes with an sms/email/http-host alerting
system is a very easy entry into this market. (I do not know if these exist
yet - I'll have to go look after this post) - but it would appear, based on
the current public sentiment - that a safe which can differentiate between
authorized access and not (two factor) would be a good thing.

The safe can open with whatever key/code it requires for physical access - but
there is a smart-phone dead-mans-switch which, if this portion of
authorization is not completed - the police are notified of the unauthorized
access.

An external access log, would also be good. If you specify what weapon is in
what slot/location - the alert could also include the exact weapon type moved.
(think of the weighted mini-bars in hotels)

My buddy from lockheed and I designed a bar system which could easily be
modified for this purpose, using weight sensors and passive RFID to tell which
alcoholic beverage was poured and how much - its trivial to convert this into
a gun safe system...

~~~
rdl
If the standard for temporarily locking someone out from access to guns is
similar to California's 5150 involuntary 72h psych hold, I'd be ok with it.
There could also be a legal requirement for the police to provide constant
protection during that no-firearms period, since otherwise someone might use
the process to disarm a target.

I'd _love_ a self-storage model for the guns I have as investments/collection
vs. active use.

~~~
samstave
You know what would be interesting: with your self storage setup: Add a range
and the ability for your guns to be 'Air-BnB'd as rentals in the range.

The cost of renting your gun at the storage range would include the cost of a
gunsmith (Gun Genius Bar) who takes care of them.

The gun ownership is all anonymous to all but the range/storage unit...

You can login to your account and allot weapons to being available to rental.
You can set usage thresholds etc.

This would be an interesting way to also let your guns get some regular
cleaning/service.

The system would keep a "gunfax" record of all its use as well.

~~~
rdl
I think that sort of gets done already when people have really rare guns at
ranges (in particular, it's how ranges tend to have post-1986 dealer sample
NFA items available; there's a range and then an affiliated company which
sells to police and has the dealer sample letter; blackwater got in trouble
for sending dealer samples to their forces in Iraq).

It would be interesting to have a "condotel" style gun range, but in general,
people who have huge private collections don't seem to want to rent them out,
and most of the guns used at ranges are of a very limited selection which are
most popular (you could probably fully stock a pistol range with $50-$100k
worth of Glocks, Sigs, HKs, and some S&W revolvers)

------
dmix
Penn Jillette made an excellent observation when confronted with a question of
how can we solve a problem together as a species?

He said, the best question to ask is how can we solve this problem with more
freedom rather than less?

So my only point is that we should be looking for ways to use technology for
freedom, such as spreading information about safety or getting help for mental
health issues.

And not trying to restrict the average normal healthy citizens with
technology. Which has been proven again and again throughout history that
technological restrictions are rendered ineffective against clever hackers or
criminals.

~~~
roguecoder
In that case we should be considering technology that allows me to disable
guns in my vicinity, since I want to be free from having high speed
projectiles discharged around me.

------
jellicle
This is a naive request.

There is plenty of tech that could create new, innovative weapons. Personal
tasers for everyone, charged with USB. Peppersprayers with chemical encoding
to identify assailants uniquely. Weapons that can only be used by one person.

The problem is these are NEW weapons and they do not in any way reduce the
current supply of weapons. The current supply of weaponry is deadly, cheap,
easily available, and apparently, no law can be created to reduce or inhibit
the current supply. Under those circumstances, adoption of any new tech will
be tiny and unimportant.

Gun violence is a political problem, not a technological one. Once the
groundwork is laid for political action to occur, then and only then can it
move into the realm of a technological problem.

~~~
monochromatic
Gun violence is a political problem? Really??

------
Harkins
It seems to me that one of the major drivers of hostility to NICS is the fear
that the government having a complete and accurate listing of gun purchases
will enable a future fascistic government to neuter resistance by confiscating
guns. So one way to reduce political opposition to NICS would be to make it
useless as a database of gun ownership. Run it in such a public fashion that
everyone can trust it's not keeping track of all guns, or constantly run fake
queries against it for all citizens so that gun owners cannot be identified.

I unsure if what I've read about this belief is fringey or common among gun
owners, so maybe this is not necessary to gain enough political support to
require background checks for all firearm sales.

~~~
rdl
There's actually federal law against building a national firearms registry, so
that should influence NICS design.

We saw in California and NY that registration -> confiscation. I actually
trust the federal government more than the California government, but I don't
think it's an unreasonable concern. Borderline guns (say, .50bmg) which are
100% registered would be at risk to confiscation in the future if possession
is banned. It would be much easier legally to ban possession of the .50bmg,
particularly in semiauto, than anything else, since those are so expensive and
rare, and so destructive that they look great on TV.

~~~
jberryman
what are you referring to with "registration -> confiscation"?

~~~
philwelch
If you register all the guns, or all the gun owners, then you have a list of
people so you can go knock on their doors and take their guns away from them.
Gangsters exempt, naturally--they didn't bother registering in the first
place.

~~~
jevinskie
I think the grandparent poster was looking for those specific CA and NY
examples.

Were SKS somehow confiscated in CA? How did CA get around the tricky "ex post
facto" thing?

~~~
rdl
There isn't a clear case:

The .50 and AW bans in California had a mandatory registration period. If you
did not register during that 90 day window, you could never register them in
the future, so they were illegal. There was a legal challenge during that
process -- the AG said he'd extend it, someone anti-gun sued him, and the
extension was invalidated; they then started sending letters to those who
hadn't registered by the original deadline telling them to turn their (now
illegal) weapons in.

NYC has local law 78 and there was confiscation based in prior registration.
[http://www.constitution.org/2ll/bardwell/richmond_boro_v_nyc...](http://www.constitution.org/2ll/bardwell/richmond_boro_v_nyc2.txt)

Essentially, NYC used long gun registration records from the early 1980s to
confiscate newly-defined assault weapons after a 1991 AW ban. There was a
window given for AW registration in 1991, I believe, to get around the legal
challenge.

Japanese-Americans had guns confiscated in Hawaii in 1942 (there were no mass
internments in Hawaii, though)

Outside the US, registration was used to facilitate confiscation in Ireland,
Bermuda, Jamaica, and Greece.

I think there wer also cases of registered handguns in Chicago where if the
registration lapsed (there was an annual renewal requirement), the
registration data was used for confiscation.

------
mindslight
I've got a modest proposal - the second simplest idea of them all.

Instead of beating around the bush with restrictions that should be ruled
unconstitutional but won't be, _simply ban all firearms_. The building-a-
better-world folks would be happy to finally get their wet dream. The
constitutionalists could stop deluding themselves as to its applicability, and
thus choose to secede or revolt. And everybody who wants personal freedom
would be free of a red herring and could better concentrate on _functional_
ways of neutering the modern governments' ability to do things like _ban
personal tools_ in the first place.

~~~
rdl
If someone passes an unconstitutional law, the reasonable response isn't to
secede (which is itself unconstitutional), but to challenge it in the courts
(as well as to vote out of office the legislators/executives who pushed those
laws).

"Cutting off your nose to spite your face" would be the cliche here.

~~~
mindslight
The courts actually ruling it unconstitutional would be a decent outcome as
well. And maybe they even would with such a _blatant_ contradiction. But if
not, hopefully the incongruence would finally be explicit enough to dispel the
wishful belief that the government is bound by a piece of paper.

------
roguecoder
* Require gun insurance and make gun purchasers criminally responsible if the guns they buy are later used to commit a crime.

* Provide incentives to encourage people to rent guns if they are going to shoot recreationally at a gun range. This could be accomplished through a flat tax on guns owned by individuals, combined with storage and tracking requirements for guns at ranges.

* Basic GPS tracking would seem easy and straight-forward, and reduce the problems with stolen (or "stolen") weapons.

* Repeal the second amendment. Any gun ownership should be based on efficacy and maximize safety. Currently gun ownership can not be optimized because it does not have a defined aim.

~~~
Zak
_Basic GPS tracking would seem easy and straight-forward, and reduce the
problems with stolen (or "stolen") weapons._

How do you prevent people from disabling the GPS when the gun is stolen or
"stolen"? It seems like it would be pretty difficult to make a GPS tracking
unit that couldn't have its power source disconnected. If you managed that,
it's fairly easy to destroy electronics. A few seconds in the microwave
usually does the trick.

~~~
rundmc
The point is that if you introduce legislation that makes it manadatory for
weapons to be location aware then this allows certain other features such as
de-activation of "hunting" rifles etc. within urban environments and so forth.

~~~
Zak
Aside from the technical difficulty of designing such a system _and_ making it
difficult to bypass, that sounds like a solution in search of a problem.
People firing rifles of any kind in urban environments, whether by accident,
for self defense or to commit a crime is quite rare. Handguns are the weapon
of choice for both criminal use and lawful self defense in cities. I suppose
you could disable those too, but the effect on crime would be similar to
banning them: criminals would still have working guns and non-criminals
wouldn't.

------
maxharris
What about better ways to recognize those people that are mentally ill and
violent before they strike again?

Unfortunately, this isn't really a tech problem. We're in this mess now
because Thomas Szasz began a movement to destroy the profession of psychiatry.
This led to the massive deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill thirty
years ago, swelling the ranks of the homeless. That, in turn, played a major
role in these recent killings, because of the impact the movement had on civil
commitment laws: it is now very difficult (if not impossible) to commit those
in dire need of effective, full-time treatment before people get killed.

~~~
roguecoder
Only 75% of adult spree killers have a mental illness diagnosis and the most
common diagnosis is "depression". Less than 20% of teenage spree killers have
a mental illness diagnosis. Tiller wasn't mentally ill at all, just racist and
power-obsessed.

As convenient as blaming mental illness may be, it is also short-sighted.

~~~
Zak
Going on a killing spree is prima facie evidence of mental illness. The fact
that it wasn't diagnosed beforehand is part of the problem.

~~~
rdl
Spree killers are ~100/killings/yr. "rational" criminal murders with guns,
domestic violence, etc. are more like 10k/yr.

I'm also not sure how many of the ~15k gun suicides (or, say, all suicides)
are mental illness/depression/etc. It may be unpopular, but I don't consider a
50-80 year old guy who is diagnosed with cancer which will painfully kill him
over the next 3 months, killing himself, to be particularly wrong. (it's sad
that he dies, but fuck cancer, in that case, vs. suicide being the problem)

~~~
Zak
I agree. I was just responding to roguecoder's point. Spree killings are so
rare as to be irrational to give much consideration to when making public
policy decisions.

------
quasque
Discouraging or banning ownership seems to work well in many countries. It's a
shame that so many citizens of the US feel intimately tied to these violent
objects, and for such archaic reasons.

~~~
Jayschwa
Having the ability to defend yourself is not "archaic".

------
kunle
What if guns were treated like cars.

Every single gun has a unique signature (like a VIN #), and you had to buy
insurance on your gun in order to own it, transfer title anytime its sold, and
be held liable for any violence damage caused by a gun you own.

Insurance companies would have to vet you in order to give you a price, and
any mishaps that occurred from guns you own, would make your insurance rates
increase. As such you would take as much care who has access to your guns as
you do with who has access to your car, and you'd only own guns you need.

Gun owners who are responsible would see the cost of owning guns go up a bit,
but more careless folks would feel the economic effects, which would prod them
to behave more responsibly.

This way, we can worry less about loopholes around what kinds of weapons
people should own, or deal with bans or gun buybacks (which would secretly
just be a boon for gun manufacturers). The people so adamant about owning
weapons would now have a mechanism to compensate society for the damage they
caused (if any).

Good policy because it's a market driven mechanism for gun safety, and good
politics because it's functionally the government setting the rules, and
getting out of the way (which the right wants) and reducing the societal
cost/damange of gun ownership by pricing in externalities (which the left
once).

~~~
rdl
Guns already have to have serial numbers (equivalent to VIN, but less
structured, and managed by manufacturer, and no central registry).

The issue is that car accidents are accidents (often involving negligence),
whereas gun crime is generally willful (sometimes involving crazy people, but
generally just criminals).

There's the issue that a lawful collector or random hunter or whatever with
lots of guns is a lower risk than a gangster with one gun, and the risk per
gun is _vastly_ lower for a law abiding person with lots of guns vs. a bad guy
with one or a few.

In fact, I'd bet that gun crime goes down as the number of guns possessed goes
up. Obviously 0 is the least, but 1 is the most, and it's probably close to
exponential after that. The guy with 31 guns is way less likely to kill
someone than the guy with 3.

The only risk when someone has lots of guns is that they'll get distributed to
others -- either through theft or through willful straw-man purchase or other
distribution. A person who holds ~30 guns for a gang, then distributes them as
needed for crime, is a problem, yes.

~~~
kunle
Right - I recognize there are limited things you can do about guns illegally
out and about. But if owners were held liable for the social effects of
weapons they own(ed), then:

1\. You'd choose carefully what you owned and why you owned it. No matter how
you slice it, its hard to justify why someone should own ~30, ~40, or ~50
firearms (dont know how often this actually happens but I believe owning
multiple weapons happens fairly frequently), and any insurer seeing that,
would price your risk accordingly. You'd be forced to take steps to reduce the
cost of ownership, hence reducing it to the amount you actually use.

2\. As a result of this change in ownership, the likelihood of weapons getting
stolen drops, and correspondingly the _flow of new guns into the black market.

_ assuming here that guns on the black market typically start out under legal
ownership.

~~~
rdl
1\. Actuarially-priced insurance for a white 50 year old male who lives in a
rich area and has an 800+ credit score, and owns NFA items and ~500 guns,
would be less for _all_ of his collection than for a single 21 year old black
male who owns a single Raven .25acp (legally) for self defense.

(Maybe the younger guy is a military veteran, is volunteering to help his
community and thus lives in a high-crime area, and has that gun to protect his
5yo niece from criminals in the neighborhood. Or, maybe he's a gang member who
hasn't gotten arrested yet. The insurer would assume the latter.)

I mean, look at car insurance. There's also more of a socially-beneficial and
defensible use for the 21 year old who wants to defend his family than for a
collector, really.

2\. Stolen guns are minor part of the supply of guns (10-15%). The benefits of
this whole proposal could come from universal background checks on transfers,
to the extent that they hinder straw purchases from dealers and "outside the
gun show" person to person sales across state lines.

~all guns start out legal (at the manufacturer); the issue is how they go from
manufacturer to first sale and then subsequent sales. Right now, a large
number of illegal guns (particularly handguns) come from straw purchases
(where a criminal has a non-criminal buy a gun from a dealer) or from private
party sales (generally across state lines, since high crime places like LA,
Baltimore, DC, Chicago have strict gun laws; places with low gun crime have
looser laws).

------
dr_doom
I don't think gun safety is the major issue, gun violence is the big killer.

Biometric scanners and high tech safes may help save a few people but there
are more murders during a Chicago summer than all school shootings in the last
10 years combined.

~~~
rdl
The question is, are the possessors of those (mostly handguns) in Chicago
lawfully able to purchase them?

If there were a 100% effective (no false positive or negatives) gun to legal
owner biometric ID thing, then that should reduce Chicago gang violence as
well. The problem is I don't believe it's technically possible to build even a
90% effective system like that (a trigger and firing mechanism is mechanically
simple; I could just open the gun and replace the advanced biometric system
with a traditional one, perhaps 3d printed), and the are the 200 million
existing weapons.

Biometrics are potentially good for preventing someone from taking your gun
and shooting you with it (which mainly applies to police who open-carry in
close proximity to felons), or potentially for keeping children from getting
access (although a traditional safe or lockbox works fine for that).

~~~
dr_doom
All fair points.

I guess I was looking at it from a criminal perspective. These same Chicago
gangs are able to import cocaine from Colombia, ecstasy from Amsterdam, heroin
from Afghanistan, hell even knock off purses and electronics from China, I
don't see why they wouldn't just expand and sell Romanian AK-47's or bootleg
Chinese glocks.

Personally I wouldn't mind biometrics on my guns but would HATE any kind of
registry.

------
ctoth
I often have discussions with pro-gun friends of mine about reasonable
solutions that would allow them to retain their weapons, which they evidently
greatly favor, and would still increase overall safety.

It seems to me that the argument that a gun provides protection is a valid
one. What other device gives us the ability to point and click and stop
someone literally dead in their tracks? This is the problem, and as I see it
one that is asking for a technical solution. Consider a device with the
following attributes:

    
    
      - It is extremely quick to deploy. Just as quick as drawing and firing a gun.
      - It can be used multiple times in succession
      - It renders a potential threat (say a hostile person with a gun) inert or otherwise incapacitated
      - It is affordable, $99 or less.
      - It is difficult if not impossible to block (no Faraday cage armor)
    

Now, how might this be done? Can we induce paralysis remotely without
deactivating critical muscles like the heart? I know about TASERS (TM), and
from what I understand the primary drawback with those is that they are only
one-time use weapons, once deployed they aren't easily reusable (I.E. if you
miss you're out of luck) and their range is not equivalent to a handgun. Can
one of you smart hackers find a link to a scientific paper about some sort of
field that makes rats fall over? As a blind person, I would love it if the
device could simply be pointed in the general direction of a threat and cover
a wider area, say a shotgun stun device.

This has interesting second order implications which I haven't thought about
-- what happens when you can easily go up to someone, shoot them, paralyze
them for 30 minutes and steal their stuff? But all things considered, if
someone is going to steal my stuff, I'd rather live through the experience.

Thoughts? Am I completely off base? Or is this a reasonable way to approach
the protection part of the problem?

------
johncarpinelli
An automatic gun defense device like a smoke detector that is cheap and
ubiquitous. The device should cost $100-$200 and could be installed in
schools, shopping malls, cinemas and street lamps.

If the device detects a gun-shot, it locates the shooter through triangulation
of the sound and image recognition. Non-lethal defenses would be deployed
automatically to prevent continued shooting: e.g. stun grenade/flashbang, tear
gas, electric shock. After detecting a gun-shot, the device would record
audio/video and call 911 automatically. The shooter's escape could be tracked
through a network of the devices.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroshock_weapon#Wireless_lo...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroshock_weapon#Wireless_long-
range_electric_shock_weapon)

~~~
jauer
Shot spotter (<http://www.shotspotter.com/>) does the detection aspect of
this.

A low-cost clone might not be feasible due to patents:
<http://www.shotspotter.com/patents>

~~~
johncarpinelli
A low-cost clone could be mounted on the ceiling in a room. Some stun grenades
and tear gas would disable the shooter anywhere in the room. This would be a
cheap solution. Include a wireless mesh network connecting the devices, and
they could disable the shooter even as he flees the first room.

~~~
jauer
I think the detection and logging aspect has a lot of promise as a cheap and
widely deployed system.

I'd worry about the liability from false positives with a active response
system. Even something as limited as locking the doors to a room to contain
the shooter could lead to liability from someone being trapped with the
shooter.

If you assume a large indoor setting, something like a mall or school, maybe
combine the detection network with a evacuation guidance system that leads
people away from the incident. Mass shootings are pretty rare so maybe you
could use it as a general "smart evacuation" system. OTOH there's probably a
crowd psychology problem in there that makes that unfeasible.

~~~
johncarpinelli
Good point about false positives. The device could upload images to a human
operator who would activate the defenses. This would add some reaction time,
but it would reduce the potential for false positives.

If the device has image recognition to detect firearms being brandished, the
operator could trigger the defenses before the first shot is fired perhaps.

------
codex
In this age of smartphones, it would be possible to mandate that all guns
radio 911 with the current location whenever _all_ the following events occur:

\- they are withdrawn from the holster

\- the safety is disabled

\- there is ammunition loaded

\- they are not at a shooting range or hunting area

This could help reduce the carnage from mass shootings and draw police to
legitimate threats sooner. It is compatible with gun owner's rights. Heck, it
could even take a picture and record audio whenever a shot is fired to aid in
the legal nightmare that is sure to follow any gun discharge.

Another technological solution: RFID rings that must be on the shooting hand
in order to discharge the gun. This keeps guns away from kids, prevents theft,
and prevents guns from being used against their owners.

~~~
Jayschwa
Any proposal that requires a battery pack probably isn't very reasonable.

~~~
rdl
Putting the battery/comms/etc. on the _holster_ and not the weapon would make
sense. If I unholster my self defense handgun, I want a 911 call placed
(ideally, with an open mic, and GPS, and open video) as soon as the gun leaves
the holster, and continue for as long as possible.

You'd have to be careful how to disable it when you took the gun out at the
end of the day, or whatever, but the fundamental idea would be useful for self
defense guns)

~~~
Jayschwa
A "smart" holster is an interesting idea. I wouldn't want such a thing
mandated by law though.

------
niggler
In almost all major gun incidents, the weapon in question isn't registered to
the shooter. Prima facie, something as simple as a fingerprint trigger lock
could be acceptable to the gun enthusiasts (much less use for a stolen
weapon).

------
alid
Microchip all guns? Or utilize nanotechnology to hook them up with a scannable
barcode that can be scanned with a smartphone app? If it's not chipped, it's
not legal. All police nationally should be equipped with necessary devices to
scan guns on the spot.

Why would this help? There are currently millions of guns that have been
subject to very little character checking or cross-checking. A gun census, of
sorts, is needed. So I would suggest a harmonized shooter's license scheme and
weapon registration scheme. Similar to a buyback - all gun owners have within
a defined period to re-license (read: microchip) every one of their guns,
after which time any unlicensed weapons (under the new universal license
scheme) are illegal and confiscated. Part of this new licensing includes
universal registration - so police nationally have records of all gun
ownership and licenses - providing a uniform standard of safety across the
country.

Bias: I'm Aussie, and in 1996 laws were introduced banning semi-automatic
weapons in Australia (via a buyback scheme). In the 18 years before the law,
Australia suffered 13 mass shootings - but not one in the 14 years after the
law took full effect. Firearm homicides and suicides reduced dramatically.
Life is safer without guns.

~~~
alid
Edit: I'm thinking we could use nanotubes, with a strength-to-weight ratio 117
times greater than steel.

------
strlen
This may be off-topic, but I thought I'd bring it up: in a nut shell,
defensive "use once" less than lethal weapons for public areas. They would be
strictly licensed and regulated by first responders, much like public
defibrillators are.

While I found NRA's idea of arming teachers to be (let's be honest here, and I
say this a strong second amendment supporter) absolutely nuts -- several
people have circulated the idea of providing less than lethal weapons to
teachers and administrators. I think most teachers (or most people in general)
are not keen in owning a firearm, do not have the time to go through the
training to use a firearm effectively in a high-stress scenario.

However (and this idea isn't original to me, I've seen it suggested elsewhere
online) provide a modified than lethal weapon (e.g., a carbine length taser)
in each classroom -- hidden behind glass door much like a fire extinguisher or
a defibrillator would be. They would be given training in using this weapon to
stop (or slow down) an opponent and there would be strict rules to ensure it
cannot be used for any other purpose (e.g., it would have "drive-stun"
capability removed and be limited to only a few rounds). Shattering the glass
in any classroom would immediately set of alarms in all classrooms (giving
other teachers time guide children to safety) and cause first responders to
come (irrespective of time or day).

While mass shootings do not represent most of gun violence, they are
especially unnerving. Generally, however:

1) Mass shootings are usually murder-suicide. Suicide here is either a primary
(with murder being secondary) goal or a way of escaping retribution. If, on
the other hand, the perpetrator knows they are more likely to be simply
disabled and then arrested and thrown in prison, this creates further
deterrence: it now makes more sense not to go through with the plan, to
surrender right away before committing any violence.

Sentencing guidelines could reflect it: attempted school shooters who
surrendered without firing a shot would receiving more lenient sentencing (but
the case itself would be sealed, put on a gag order to prevent those seeking
notoriety from making attempts), those are arrested by force would receive far
stricter sentencing than those surrender voluntarily (idea being surrender
voluntarily/commit no further crime crime < captured by force/commit no
further crime < surrender voluntarily/commit further crimes < surrender by
force/commit further crime).

Essentially the goal would be to sent two messages:

I) If you are suicidal, you're far more likely to fail, be captured, and have
your life made much worse (on top of what ever is ailing you) if you try to
"take others with you"

II) It is very difficult to escape retribution in a mass shooting, so the best
strategy would be to either not attempt a mass shooting or to peacefully
surrender without firing a shot.

2) Contrary to popular belief, mass shootings are not always in explici "gun
free" zones (Giffords shooting, Portland Mall shooting, possibly the Aurora
shooting) -- and usually a single armed guard or a CCW license holder might be
there but wasn't be able to do much.

However, several shootings have been ended early by multiple unarmed
individuals tackling a disoriented perpetrator. Obviously it is not expected
for elementary school teachers to be able to tackle an assailant, yet this
approach has the advantage that now there are multiple individuals (teachers
in different classrooms) armed with less than lethal (which by no means means
"non-lethal") tools that significant amplify their own physical ability and
can disorient the assailant even without directly hitting the assailant (i.e.,
one volunteer using the weapon now makes the assailant more susceptible to
additional uses of the weapon).

3) The less than lethal weapon should be designed with the purpose of making
an otherwise untrained individual (with no firearms experience) not only able
to incapacitate an assailant, but to also make them feel confident that they
are able to.

That is why I think a "carbine/shotgun-length taser" might be better approach
here than a hand-held tool: it would be easier to aim, look like a more
menacing weapon, and fit a wider variety of individuals.

4) (Added this later) Teachers, guards, other volunteers have a "homeground
advantage here" vis. an intruder. This would be more effective than a passer-
by CCW holder in a mall.

5) (Also added later) Less than lethal weapon have less chance of causing
serious damage to bystanders or those using the weapons.

~~~
rdl
In theory this is a good idea, but I'd be afraid of slippery slope. When a
teacher comes upon two kids fighting, the temptation to use a "non lethal"
emergency device to break up the fight would be a lot higher than the
temptation to shoot one of them.

You might be able to deal with it by declaring use of the device the same as
using lethal force, with criminal liability for any use where deadly force
wouldn't have been otherwise authorized.

I would be ok with the NRA "arm the teachers" IFF the teachers were given
~10-14 week sheriff's deputy/POST level training, and volunteered, in addition
to regular CCW. I couldn't imagine an elementary school teacher doing this,
but a college professor or a high school science teacher or someone seems like
a reasonable candidate. Putting full time armed guards at most schools is just
insane from a cost-benefit perspective even if it did help (which I don't
believe it would, overall). $1-5k of extra training for a volunteer teacher
would be a lot more reasonable.

~~~
japhyr
_I would be ok with the NRA "arm the teachers" IFF the teachers were given
~10-14 week sheriff's deputy/POST level training, and volunteered, in addition
to regular CCW. I couldn't imagine an elementary school teacher doing this,
but a college professor or a high school science teacher or someone seems like
a reasonable candidate._

I have been teaching middle school and high school math and science for 15
years, in 3 very different schools in different parts of the country. The
NRA's proposal was frightening. When I look back at all the colleagues I've
worked with, most of them would not want anything to do with guns in schools.
The teachers I respect most, who have been respected most by their students,
don't want anything to do with guns. But I can also pick out a good number of
my former colleagues who would probably like to arm themselves. A good number
of these are teachers who do not have particularly good rapport with their
students.

Think how many bored smart kids there are in schools. Think of the stupid
games kids play against their teachers to amuse themselves. Now imagine these
bored, smart kids knowing their teacher is carrying a gun. I imagine kids
goading teachers to show them their gun, to take it out, to pose with it, etc.
Most armed teachers would take themselves quite seriously and never have an
issue. But it takes just a small percentage of armed teachers to let their
guard down for some pretty ugly things to happen.

~~~
strlen
Yep, that's why I find this insane on more than just practical grounds:

1) You can't teach someone to effectively and safely use a firearm if they do
not wish to do so. Most teachers do not wish to own as much as use actual
firearms.

2) A firearm is more than just a machine for sending a projectile at a certain
rate in a certain direction. It has street value, it is considered "cool",
etc...

I still remember when a DARE councilor (a policewoman) came to our school when
I was first visiting the US in sixth grade: _everyone_ kept asking to see her
pistol (she had enough sense not to show it) and how she used it (her answer
is once she was threatened by a man with a chainsaw, but avoided using the
pistol), what would happen to her if she did, etc.... This was an absurdly
upper-middle class elementary school in Cupertino, right next to Apple's Bubb
Road buildings, etc. You can't even blame us "gun culture" as most of the kids
were immigrants/children of temporary workers like myself (we later moved back
to the United States on a permanent basis) and the community was very liberal.

It was a bit bizarre that she chose to carry it on her person to an elementary
school, however. My home country is a quasi-fascist second-turned-third-world
hell-hole yet majority of street police (at least when I lived time) did not
carry firearms on them. Merely pepper spray and a rubber baton (which they
would abuse extensively, of course).

------
femto
Are there any constraints? If not, the obvious (low) tech idea is a
steamroller.

------
varunkho
I have this thought recently that firearms should be replaced with faintarms
for general public. Guns for public should be designed to cause faint to the
aponent if discharged rather than killing. This way individual claim to 'right
to defend/protect' him/her is maintained while at the same time, his ability
to kill somebody is also curtailed with the use of that gun.

Just a thought.

~~~
rdl
Non-lethal weapons are something which have gotten a lot of research.
Unfortunately, there's no technology yet which works like a Star Trek phaser
on stun -- instant incapacitation without serious risk of death. So,
"faintarms" don't exist. If you can develop them, they should go to every
police officer, military unit, etc., as well as for self defense.

Pepper spray (OC) is essentially irrelevant once you're in close. If someone
wants to kill you, and you pepper spray him, not only will it also affect you,
but he can continue the attack. (I've been pepper sprayed during classes a few
times, and it really sucks, and continues to suck for a long time, but I was
able to unholster and fire into a body-sized target at 3 meters with all shots
on target).

Tasers are ineffective if someone is wearing heavy clothing. They're also
single-shot -- if someone runs at you, and you miss with the taser, you're
kind of screwed. They're probably the closest, though.

Contact stun guns are pretty horrible because they require you to be in close.
Essentially, if I can win a fight with someone to the point where I can use a
stun gun on him, I'd just skip the stun gun and stomp him. They're really
useful in psych wards or other environments like that to control people who
you could actually control otherwise, while doing less damage to them. Pretty
irrelevant for self defense.

Knives and sticks are potentially quite lethal, and are ineffective unless
you're highly trained or substantially overmatch your opponent in
strength/skill/size.

Flashlights (the 100+ lumen combat type) are probably the best in that they
have low downsides, and are fairly effective in defense, and can be used to
identify threats. I'd never carry a pistol without a flashlight in my pocket,
and all my home-defense guns have mounted lights.

Sound is an interesting idea (infrasound, in the sub 10hz range). There's
stuff like the LRAD. Unfortunately it is the size of a truck.

~~~
GFischer
I learned something today :)

[http://artofmanliness.com/2012/11/07/how-to-use-a-
tactical-f...](http://artofmanliness.com/2012/11/07/how-to-use-a-tactical-
flashlight/)

I might buy a high-powered flashlight soon, then :)

~~~
rdl
The Fenix lights are about the cheapest good ones. My favorites are Surefire
(on weapons) and Novatac (handheld). I have fenixes to leave at the desk, car,
etc. though, since they're $20 on sale vs. $100-800.

------
marcuspovey
I'm sure it must have been remarked that "gun safety" is somewhat a
contradiction in terms. Also, that gun crime is by and large an economic
problem rather than a technical one; remove the incentive and the vast
majority of it (should) go away.

Also/Alternatively this: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9Fc9ONu8yU>

------
JungleGymSam
"You can't solve an administrative problem with a technical solution." (Or
something like that.)

The premise of this post is very misguided and ignorant.

------
mark_l_watson
I think gun safety is more of a political problem that anything that new
technologies will much improve.

I have a few guns and enjoy the shooting range and from my perspective the
safety situation would be improved by: stricter background checks, making
assault rifle (type) weapons illegal, and the toughest problem: "de-fanging"
the NRA.

~~~
fnfs2000
You may own guns, but your statement is ignorant of the facts. Assault Rifles
are machine guns, civilians in the US have been prohibited from buying any
newly manufactured ones since 1986.

~~~
Spooky23
There isn't a consensus definition of "assault rifle".

Some laws or proposed laws say a pistol grip and box magazine == "assault
rifle". Most gun people would call a rifle that looks like an M-16, AK-47 or
FN an assault rifle.

No private citizen can buy a machine gun today.

The dirty secret of the whole gun control thing is that most of the issues
associated with people stockpiling weapons and smuggling pistols were dealt
with in 1934 via an excise tax.

Basically, any short rifle and some pistols were subject to a $200 tax ($3400
today). Instead of blanket bans, the law defined classes of weapons and taxed
them out of the market.

~~~
oldcigarette
> No private citizen can buy a machine gun today.

You can not buy a _new_ machine gun. The ones already registered are just like
any other NFA item and can be transferred to anyone willing to pay the $200
tax.

Private citizens can import/manufacture machine guns provided they are
properly licensed. These can't be sold to other private citizens however.

~~~
rdl
Subject to state law. Private citizens (i.e. not businesses in the trade)
can't own them in WA or essentially in CA.

Seriously considering getting an FFL(07) for our company/office or a related
entity once we have an office in a place like NV. Unclear if we want to just
make suppressors (and keep post-1986 NFA items around for compatibility
testing) or manufacture a range of NFA.

Mainly because now that crypto isn't so much an ITAR thing, I want a reason to
register with ITAR again.

------
JensRantil
So, I have this great technical solution to make all guns safe. It's kind of a
hacker solution, actually. Also, it will also prevent anyone that hasn't been
fiddling with their gun to shoot other people.

The solution is simple. Put an infrared camera on the front of the gun. If
there's anything warm in front of the gun it simply wont fire. That will make
it impossible to shoot other people and only limitting it to cans etc.
Possibly you could also use a real camera and do some image analysis to keep
the gun from shooting other sensitive objects, such as gas containers etc.
Obviously, the firing of the gun will be locked if you take the camera(s) off.

Okay, I admit it. I'm not being serious. A gun is a weapon. The fact that guns
are weapons is the problem. There's no technical solution for that.

The only technical solution that will make a gun safe is one that destroys
that weapon.

------
impendia
Require guns sold in the US to be outfitted with some kind of biometric
scanner, so that they can only be fired by their legal, registered owner.

Sounds kind of like sci-fi to me, except that I read in the newspapers after
Newtown that this kind of technology is being developed and is close to
becoming feasible.

~~~
dmix
The USA is surrounded by massive borders. Illegal firearms can't be stopped
nearly as much as drugs can't.

Combined with the fact that the vast majority of gun crime doesn't happen with
legal weapons.

One quote I was able to find:

> "More than 95 percent of all gun related crimes in the Rochester area are
> committed with illegal guns. That’s what District Attorney Mike Green told
> NEWS 10NBC Tuesday.

Is this really worth the capital investment?

Not even factoring in the fact that we can hardly keep banks or voting
machines free from security flaws... let alone the lack of real-world research
on the effectiveness of biometric scanners in wide scale deployments.

~~~
dangero
Ignoring the biometric accuracy conversation for a second...

I think the benefit of a gun like this would be that responsible people could
own them for self defense. Statistics say that guns in the home increase the
chance of violent death. I live in Los Angeles where home invasion robberies
are pretty common and I would like to be able to defend myself and my family
against an armed intruder, but playing the odds says that I would be putting
my family in more danger by bringing the gun into my home than I would be
protecting them. This creates a catch-22 and the outcome is that a responsible
party does not have a weapon while the criminals all do. I highly doubt a
criminal would want to use an advanced biometric gun to commit a crime because
it would ID the shooter and create evidence against them while I would prefer
that knowing that nobody else could use the gun to cause a violent act in my
home.

------
strlen
Certain numbers of accidents happen during firearms training with military,
police, and civilians.

It is very common for flight simulators to be used as training tools for those
about to pilot an airplane, so perhaps building very realistic non-violent
shooting simulator (complete with felt recoil) would be a good approach:
experiment with using them in several police academies or military training
centers -- require recruits to gain a certain proficiency before live firearm
training, then observe if there's perceptible change in accidents during live
round training afterwards.

To pre-empt an obvious question, blanks aren't very useful: they will not
cycle a semi-automatic, don't provide realistic recoil, but they're still
capable of causing very serious injury (or death) to someone on the other end.

~~~
cullenking
This already exists. You can even rent time in them as a civilian, and they
are pretty interesting. Not only do you get to work on mechanics, but they put
you in situations (there's a live operator determining outcome) where you have
to think "should I fire or not", rather than just working on the movements.

------
adrr
Technology isn't there yet to do much. In the future the gun could be smart,
sensors could figure out the situation and make "judgements". Examples:
Accelerometers could determine if user was charging or attempting to flee,
they could also detect if your shooting from a moving car. Image recognition
could determine if your shooting a fleeing person or an actual threat. Gyros
sensors along with proximity sensors could determine if you are attempting to
shoot yourself. Enough sensors and cpu power, guns could make decisions much
like a human being. These won't help much because the bad guys will just have
non smart guns but thats another issue.

------
kephra
Require people who want to buy a gun to have a gun license.

You can own a gun in US without license, but drive a car without. The license
should require a short theoretical, practical and legal test. License owners
should be 21 (legal for drinking age), must not have a criminal record, must
show that they are able to handle and clean a gun without shooting them self
in their foot or eye, and must file a simple theoretical test, to check that
they know the basic safety requirements like "always store the ammunition in a
safe".

~~~
nthj
> You can own a gun in US without license, but drive a car without.

Man, if I had a dollar for every time I heard this argument.

I can park an Aston Martin in my back yard and not have a license for
anything. I can be 3 years old or have 25 DUIs or be as mentally ill as all
get out. I might have to pay property taxes in some states. But other than
that I'm home free.

I need a license to DRIVE the car on PUBLICLY owned roads.

You're suggesting a license to park a gun in my backyard.

I don't really want to argue over whether or not we should do what you
suggested. I just want people to stop using drivers licences as examples. It's
not a 1-1.

------
tmsh
How about pulse sonar of some sort that is so detail-oriented it can detect
gun shapes and alert authorities.

So in a school, every half hour -- or even based on motion detection -- some
sort of pulse goes out to detect gun shapes.

Could technology for that be developed? Is that even possible? Just an idea..

If I were to guess, SONAR is currently very imprecise for something as small
as a gun. But what if you had hundreds of SONAR pulses from different
locations? Or what if you had many thousands of different analyses run on it?

~~~
Cyranix
I think airport body scanners and abuse of webcams by school personnel are
memories too fresh in the public's mind for this idea to gain traction.

------
newman314
I'm sorry but I don't think this is something to be solved (primarily) with
technology.

Until as a society, we stop utilizing guns as a cultural norm (by this I mean
the use of arms for all purposes not just ownership by private citizens), all
tech is going to do is at best slow down the use of weapons, to the point
where they are effectively useless or make it such that only criminals have
easy access to weapons.

I strongly believe in guns don't kill people, bad people with guns kill
people.

------
Fizzadar
Remove/ban them entirely from public use in-line with most of the civilised
world. Regular people don't need guns.

------
jyf1987
1, freedom is not free 2, you might pay in cash or human life 3, if you like
gun control, why not went to china?

------
markessien
Have an electronic device in the gun locker on the clip that holds the gun.
Whenever the gun is taken out of this locker, an email/push notification is
sent to the owner and other responsible family members indicating that the gun
is out of rack. It repeats every 10 minutes till the gun is returned.

------
nspattak
Guns are absolutely safe. When was the last time one of them went of by
accident?

Your question has no grounds. I guess you are asking how to improve safety in
the US and the answer is easy but not acceptable by Americans. hint the days
of the far west are gone, no one should walk around with a gun in his pocket.

------
thomasd
I have only an idea for gun owners of a certain type. Some gun owners reason
for owning a gun is for hunting. For owners like that, location detection can
be implemented. Outside of hunting locations, the guns will be "locked" and
will only be enabled once they're within the hunting location.

------
littlegiantcap
The best thing the tech industry can do for gun safety is to provide better
education through the internet.

------
rokhayakebe
"Increase bullet cost." Significantly.

~~~
caw
I thought ammo cost was already going up because of demand.

Wouldn't that just transition people to making their own bullets? It's my
understanding that it isn't super difficult if you have the tools, and can
significantly reduce the cost of shooting.

~~~
rdl
I assume OP means the Chris Rock argument for 10000x increase, not the 2-3x
increase we've seen. After all, a "good" gun owner who goes to the range and
uses ~1000 rounds in practice in a week isn't as much of a problem as a "bad"
guy who has 7 rounds in his crappy Hi Point pistol and ends up killing 2
people and throwing away the gun.

Primers are ultimately the hardest to produce part (although power/propellant
is also hard); brass can be recycled, and bullets can be milled (at the high
end) or cast.

------
powatom
I for one would be interested in seeing what would happen if guns were
marketed as 'sissy' weapons. Take the power out of the thing - make people
think that you have to be some kind of wuss to rely on a gun to fight your
battles for you.

------
frm1001xplrr
If all guns were fired before sale...

([http://www.reddit.com/r/answers/comments/175ibg/if_all_guns_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/answers/comments/175ibg/if_all_guns_were_fired_before_sale_and_the_shell/))

------
radley
Mandatory electronics. Outlaw mechanical pins, only electric pins can be used.
Similarly a battery is required.

\- Safety light: red armed / green safe.

\- 5 second delay w/ blinking red after switching between safe and armed.

~~~
rdl
I'm not sure what the benefit is here, and there's substantial cost.

Most legal self defense shootings are probably over within 5 seconds from
touching the holster to firing the weapon. Depending on clothing, a trained
shooter is at 1-2 seconds (in crazy competition, it can be as low as 0.5
seconds).

An attacker can close 21 feet in a second or two. Then either stab or grapple
the weapon. If someone is >21 feet from you, he's probably not a threat in the
first place.

~~~
radley
Cost - whatever.

Safety delay time can also be worked out. Maybe there can be a Rambo setting
for people who need it to work instantly. It could include a "black box" chip
to keep track of when Rambo is turned on and when Rambo is turned off (to keep
track if the user is diligent about safety or not).

------
noknockers
I've always thought guns need keys, just like an automobile. You have to turn
them on before use. The gun is useless without it.

------
gadders
I think they'd be better off focussing on (in addition) better mental health
care.

------
samstave
I am just going to think out loud here - please let me know if any sound
plausible. Note: these are NOT taking _cost_ into consideration. Additionally,
anything that increases 'safety' in certain ways (like the ones I describe
below, also decrease the immediate availability of the weapon to some
legitimate urgent needs (unexpected intrusions, etc)

(I'd like to get RDL's opinion on this as well)

First, I am sure it goes without saying, that guns are mechanically very
simple devices, so any attempt to make them more technologically
advanced/complex in an effort to make them 'safer' is an uphill and easily
circumvented road (i.e. - making simple guns is not difficult)

1\. Ammunition: Develop a system for (signed|registered|tracked|authorized)
ammunition validation in the (civilian version) of the weapon.

Create a method and apparatus for the weapon t read the ID of the ammunition
loaded into it (via barcode scanner/RFID/smart-chip/whatever) where the weapon
will get a list of authorized ammunition it will fire via an external app.
Basically you would have a cataloging system where you purchase ammunition,
log it into your app then authorize the ammunition to a particular weapon with
some form of two factor auth. A ring + plus a list of the valid ammo. When you
load the ammo into the weapon, it is scanned as it is chambered, the gun
receives either a list of the ammo that can be used, or it checks it at time
of chambering and only fires if BOTH the ring and the list are green.

This means that if your weapon and ring are stolen/picked up by a child -
without pre-auth of a list of ammo the gun wont fire.

2\. Add RTLS + camera systems to weapons. Add wifi beacons throughout a space
that talk to a tag built into the grip of the gun. It tracks the location of
the weapon and must be deactivated via a smart app in the same manner as the
ammo scenario above. If the weapon moves around/leaves the geo-fence/whatever
other rules get violated - it will remain in a locked state.

3\. add a physical combo device with a pin which locks the action/slide of the
weapon physically.

4\. Decouple the actual trigger from the weapon and turn the authorization
ring into the physical trigger. Meaning that even fully loaded and accessible
- one could not just pick up the weapon and fire it.

5\. (more about accountability) - Require ALL LEO weapons to be tied to a go-
pro style cam either on chest or on the weapons themselves - and every trigger
pull shoots a burst of video/pics - bonus - have any unholstered weapon begin
filming and streaming of the down-sights images. Stream to either the soldiers
pack, the LEOs vehicle or a 4g network.

6\. 'Gunalytics' - in relation to #5 - we need a 'fit-bit for guns. A sensor
heavy device (even if only used in a temporary, data gathering duration) which
can be mounted to a weapon (grips/rail/whatever) which will capture all manner
of use data. This device could have environmental parameters entered into it
to track variance against. It could use the accelerometer to detect certain
events (and sound - like the shot counters do) - but this device could be used
to gather data for better gun safety training.

E.G.: you could have these at ranges - you mount the device to the weapons of
all users and it can determine any variance in the aim of the gun, so as to
determine if a weapon was pointed in any direction other than down range.
Gather the average duration between trigger pulls on all weapons - use anon
user data as well (male, 38, 200#s, claims proficiency level X) etc...

get big data on how people are self-training/using firearms at ranges.

Gamify this - have competitions around this data. Make some weapons specific
for this purpose etc... This can go in a lot of different directions. The goal
being that better training, based on better, actual and actionable data is the
best thing we can do for gun safety.

\---

So, with that said - this is looking forward and pretty much only at the
weapons themselves. The millions upon millions of existing weapons that will
never have any Smart features will always be an issue - thus item (6) seems a
good approach to making gun safety/education an increased focus...

I'd love to see real data behind the claims that communities that require all
houses to have a firearm have reduced crime. You'll never have any of the
above address the crazies.

~~~
rdl
Aside from cost, for defensive weapons, there's the risk of a lock on the
critical firing path breaking (false negative) vs. the risk of someone
unauthorized using the weapon (false positive).

For open-carry weapons (like police), some kind of biometric keying might make
sense. They have a high weapon-retention risk (since they get close to
suspects to handcuff them, etc.), so false positives > false negatives.

For concealed carry personal weapons, it's a lot less likely for someone to
get your gun without authorization, so false negative > false positive.

I do really like the "gun cam" idea. Self defense training is "imagine there's
a little lawyer attached to every bullet". The police unions are the ones
against police logging, for privacy reasons..of the officers. They were
against car cams, too. I'm in favor of full recording with the only
information potentially sensitive being operational details (codes, etc., for
a short term) and the identity of suspects; a suspect should always be able to
get all the information which led to his arrest, including police cam footage.

I would love a gun cam integrated on my weapons for range use. Not sure if
it's practical for self defense use yet, but it's going to be so eventually,
and at that point I'd support it. I was trying to hack up a picatinny rail
mount for a Contour+ or Hero Black at one point.

If I were ever in a SD/HD shooting, I'd love to have video available to play
in court.

As you point out, the huge installed base of ~200 million weapons is a big
issue.

~~~
samstave
I think it would be fairly easy to design a small unit using the same cams we
have in cell phones... this would make a great kickstarter.

If I had any HW design chops....

~~~
Zak
Cameras that mount on the accessory rails found on most pistols and defense-
oriented long guns already exist: <http://www.guncam.com/pistols.html>

~~~
rdl
None of them are either so small as to be something you'd keep on your gun for
normal use, or high resolution/big sensor like the Black Hero to shoot great
video, though :(

------
wedtm
Require mental health screenings for gun owners which are required to be
renewed at some medically relevant and adequate frequency.

If we require basic health checks to operate heavy machinery, or drive a car.
Why don't we require them for owning a gun?

