July 17, 2013 – By Peter B. Counter
Though the media coverage is not as omnipresent as it was in February when President Obama announced 23 executive actions to curb gun control, the American firearms debate continues to rage on in Washington. Background checks, banning and loophole are the buzzwords that are thrown around most in this discourse, but a new option has found biometric solutions on the table thanks to companies like Safe gun Technology Inc, and Sportsman Steel.
Safe Gun Technology is a Georgia based company comprised of doctors, lawyers and law enforcement officials who have a solution to, the the very least, an individual citizen’s control of their weapon of choice: a fingerprint scanner that must authenticate the user’s identity before allowing the gun to fire. The device provides an instant scan, so there is no delay between activation of the reader and desired discharge of the weapon.
“We have some pretty unique features in our design, so that if the person attempts to remove the device from the weapon, it will literally destroy [it],” said Charlie Miller, a business attorney on Safe Gun Technology’s board of directors, going on to outline plans to build the technology into guns as opposed to having the scanner mounted on the outside as it is now.
Other players in the biometric gun safety game see fingerprint scanning aiding in secure firearm storage. Sportsman Steel is offering gun safes with biometric locks. This is motivated by fears that conventional safes are too easily broken into, and a shared need on all sides of the debate to keep guns from the un-enrolled fingers of children.
The biometric solutions presented are consumer technologies that, although in early stages, promise safety options that don’t place restrictions on the owner. As Charlie Miller puts it, “What we’re simply trying to do is make firearms safer. We want this to be an option for people.”
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