The False Hope of the "Smart" Gun

The concept behind the "smart" or "personalized" gun is to design and market a firearm which prevents anyone but an "authorized user" from firing it. Proponents of personalized guns, also called "safe" guns or "childproof" guns, argue that such technology would prevent the misuse of firearms by children and teens while rendering stolen weapons useless. The most zealous devotees of the smart gun idea present it as a virtual panacea for many categories of gun injury and death in America.

How are personalized guns supposed to work?

The very existence and feasibility of the smart gun is speculative at best. The Violence Policy Center is aware of no working, reliable model of a personalized gun such as its advocates envision. Certainly, none is actually in everyday use today.

There are as many ideas for potential personalization technology as there are people promoting the smart gun. Colt's Manufacturing Company is researching a radio transponder worn by the authorized user to activate the gun. Colt has previously announced its intention to have an early prototype of this smart gun ready for testing in the fall of 1998. Even with this timetable, it would be years before a manufacturer could make such technology available to the general public�if they ever can.

Other personalization concepts being promoted by smart gun advocates include weapons that would recognize the fingerprint or hand size of an authorized user.

How would personalization technology apply to the guns Americans already own?

Americans now own 192 million firearms, including 65 million handguns. None, of course, are personalized. One of the shortcomings of smart gun technology is that it has no impact on firearms already in circulation. Advocates of the smart gun often make claims about its potential benefits as if all guns would be personalized as soon as any were personalized.

In fact, we can expect that smart gun owners would almost always own non-personalized firearms as well. According to survey data from Guns in America: Results of a Comprehensive National Survey on Firearms Ownership and Use, published in 1997 by the Police Foundation, only one quarter of American adults owns a gun. Nearly three quarters of these gun owners have two or more guns, however, and over two thirds of handgun owners also own at least one rifle. In other words, most households that have guns in them would have non-personalized guns in them, unless typical gun owners disposed of all of their other firearms.

Even if gun owners did exchange all their currently owned handguns for personalized guns, they might simply be trading one lethal problem for another. The Guns in America survey finds that more than three quarters of handguns now possessed by private individuals hold fewer than 10 rounds of ammunition�reflecting the fact that most of these handguns are revolvers. Handguns produced today are primarily pistols with 10-round magazines. Gun owners who "trade up" to smart guns would generally get a pistol of higher caliber and capacity. Therefore, the introduction of personalized guns could greatly increase the lethality of the country's privately held gun stock.

What effect would personalized guns have on suicide?

Suicide is the leading cause of firearm-related death in America (18,503 incidents in 1995). Gun owners can, of course, commit suicide using their own firearms, whether they are personalized or not. Perhaps for this reason, smart gun advocates focus particularly on teenage suicide, often using numbers suggesting that personalized guns would thwart every firearm suicide death of an American age 19 or under. This optimistic assertion fails to take into account the reality of gun use and possession by teenagers and young adults.

Many young people own guns themselves or have access to guns with parental permission. A 1998 New York Times national poll of 13- to 17-year-olds found that 15 percent owned their own gun. Obviously these teenagers are "authorized" gun users�as are many more who are granted access to their parents' guns�and personalized guns would make no difference if they attempted suicide. Older teenagers, who are most likely to have access to guns with parental approval, also account for the vast majority of teen suicides; 87 percent of suicides in the under-19 age group are committed by those between 15 and 19 years old.

What effect would personalized guns have on homicides?

It would be a fairly unusual murder that is committed by a perpetrator using someone else's gun. Homicides occur most frequently between people who know one another�often spouses, intimate acquaintances, or other family members�typically as the result of an argument. Particularly in these scenarios, there is no reason to assume that assailants would not be using their own guns, personalized or not.

What effect would personalized guns have on fatal unintentional injuries?

Smart gun advocates commonly claim the technology could stop virtually all fatalities stemming from unintentional injuries. They particularly focus on deaths of children, although they are a small portion of overall fatalities in this category. Of the 1,225 fatal cases in 1995, 181 were deaths of children under the age of 15�which could be more effectively prevented by the use of existing technology.

As for the adult deaths, a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association ("Unintentional, Nonfatal Firearm-Related Injuries: A Preventable Public Health Burden," June 12, 1996) found that the most common activity associated with unintentional discharges is the cleaning of a gun, and the second most common circumstance is hunting. In both of these activities, the "authorized user" would be in control of the firearm. Obviously, personalization would make no difference in such situations.

What effect would personalization have on the criminal black market for guns?

Many advocates claim that personalized guns would strike a serious blow to the criminal black market for guns. This promise fails to take into account the way smart gun technology would work in practice. Manufacturers, including Colt, repeatedly emphasize that personalization technology would allow for multiple users or a series of users. This means the technology would do nothing whatsoever to stop "straw purchases" of guns�sales to a front man who then transfers the weapons on the black market to criminals or others banned from firearm possession. The straw purchaser would, of course, know the procedures necessary to "authorize" these illegal users or any other purchaser.

What effect would personalization have on the theft of firearms?

While a personalized gun may be less likely to be stolen, it is highly optimistic to assume that thieves will stop attempting to steal any of the millions of guns already owned by Americans on the off-chance they may come across a personalized gun. This is especially true since Colt promises that its personalized gun "will look like any other handgun."

Why are some in the gun industry promoting personalized guns?

The market for firearms�and especially handguns�is saturated. This presents a serious challenge to the gun industry, and some companies see personalization technology as part of the response. The advent of personalization technology would likely spur some current gun owners to purchase new smart guns�turning them into gun store customers once again.

Even more significant, making smart guns available would increase the chances of selling guns to Americans who currently do not own them. A March 1997 survey conducted by the National Opinion Research Center and the Johns Hopkins Center on Gun Policy and Research found that, of respondents who were "unlikely to buy a gun in the future," 35 percent would "consider buying a handgun that would only fire for the owner of the gun." Packaged with a strong sales pitch, the technology could penetrate new markets for the gun industry, putting more families at risk from guns that they wrongly believe are "safe" or "smart."

Is there a better way to help prevent deaths and injuries from firearms?

Any safety device, no matter how high-tech, can address only a small percentage of the annual toll taken by firearms. Yet there are less complicated, less expensive safety mechanisms that exist today and could be integrated easily into every new gun. Adjusting the trigger pull on some handguns that currently require very little strength to fire the weapon could help prevent unintentional shootings, especially by children. Any type of "positive safety" device would also decrease the frequency of unintentional discharges. Incidents when guns are fired because people thought they were not loaded could be reduced by adding load indicators and magazine disconnects. High-quality trigger locking devices can deter suicide and unintentional injuries if they are used properly.

Firearms are currently exempt from the health and safety laws that apply to every other consumer product in America, from toasters to teddy bears. Applying those same standards to guns is the real key to reducing firearm death and injury in America. Under these standards, handguns would be banned because of their high risk and low utility. Personalization, in contrast, addresses only one aspect of a handgun's many design characteristics that make the product hazardous to users and bystanders. Incorporating new technology into guns can be a part of regulation, but not a substitute for it.

What is the view of the Violence Policy Center on personalized guns?

Personalized gun technology may prevent a very small percentage of gun-related death and injury. It could perhaps prove valuable for law enforcement officers, since a significant percentage of officers killed or wounded in the line of duty are shot with their own or their partner's service weapon.

In general, however, the smart gun falls far short of the sweeping benefits its proponents claim. Any benefits would likely be outweighed by an increase in gun-owning households. Overstating the value of personalized guns will ultimately result in public cynicism regarding policy efforts to reduce gun death and injury, and delay the implementation of truly effective solutions.