Smart Shooter

[welsh]

Just saw this at Popular Science-

I say creating a gun in which any wrongful holder gets a very painful electric shock is a good thing.

A Smart Shooter?
Scientists debut a computerized pistol engineered to recognize the grip of its owner

By Patrick Di Justo

Armed with $2 million in federal grants, researchers at the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) are close to perfecting the first commercially viable "smart gun." The prototype pistol, unveiled last month, is designed to recognize specific people's grips. When seized by an unauthorized hand—say, that of a child or a criminal—the gun locks its shooting mechanism.
The gun relies on Dynamic Grip Recognition, a biometric technology embedded in its handle. Sensors and microprocessors analyze the complex interplay of bones and muscles involved in pulling the trigger, all in a fraction of a second. "The way you hold a gun, curl your fingers, contract your hand muscles as you pull the trigger—all of those measurements are unique," says Donald Sebastian, vice president for research and development at NJIT.

Gun-safety advocates hail the device as a way to significantly reduce the estimated 29,000 firearm deaths in the U.S. each year, although some gun-rights advocates worry that the technology could prove more error-prone than traditional guns. Sebastian says the NJIT prototype currently has a failure rate of 1 in 100 trigger pulls, but his team aims to improve that rate to 1 in 10,000—the Pentagon's standard for military weapons—by increasing the number of grip sensors from 32 to "hundreds" and further refining the pattern-recognition software. If all goes well, Sebastian expects a commercial version by 2008.

Educating the Smart Gun
Users will probably Program the NJIT gun at a local police station's firing range. During the registration process, the owner will test-fire the weapon 10 times. Each trigger pull will activate the pressure sensors embedded in the gun's handle. Microprocessors will analyze the data and create a permanent profile of the user's grip.

 

[frissy]

Then all you need is a psycho cop that goes on a killing spree and nobody else can stop him other than the police. Ggrreaat. He comes after you, he somehow drop his weapon and you pick it up to use as self-defence. ZAP! Now he can kick your head in without problems.
________
Nevada medical marijuana

 

[citizenkhan]

Sounds like a good idea... albeit a very expensive one.

 

[Antti]

Then all you need is a psycho cop that goes on a killing spree and nobody else can stop him other than the police. Ggrreaat. He comes after you, he somehow drop his weapon and you pick it up to use as self-defence. ZAP! Now he can kick your head in without problems.

I hope you are just trying to be funny...

 

[The Commissar]

Riddick quickly found a way to overcome this obstacle during his escape from Butcher Bay.

Probably worth it for other, Non Riddick inhabited, Triple Max Penal Colonies though.

 

[DirtyDreamDesigner]

Cool. Only in Croatia a good portion of gun related murders are commited by cops or ex cops.

BTW, Riddick: EFBB is a great game, comrade.

 

[Brother None]

Then all you need is a psycho cop that goes on a killing spree and nobody else can stop him other than the police. Ggrreaat. He comes after you, he somehow drop his weapon and you pick it up to use as self-defence. ZAP! Now he can kick your head in without problems.

That's such a ridiculously unlikely scenario that I do not think it really needs considering. Not when compared to the number of deaths caused by bad guys with stolen guns.

 

[DirtyDreamDesigner]

Cool. Only in Croatia a good portion of gun related murders are commited by cops or ex cops.

That's such a ridiculously unlikely scenario that I do not think it really needs considering. Not when compared to the number of deaths caused by bad guys with stolen guns.

Teh phunney.

 

[Ratty Sr.]

That's such a ridiculously unlikely scenario that I do not think it really needs considering. Not when compared to the number of deaths caused by bad guys with stolen guns.

In normal countries maybe. As in, not Croatia and not Soviet Russia.

 

[quietfanatic]

Could be good if it was really cheap.

But this sort of thing sounds like it would be prohibitively expensive for a long time, with so many sensors, it would probably only end up getting used by government agents, which eliminates the purpose of the exercise. Even if the cost was just a bit higher, few home owners would buy them if many are unwilling to even secure weapons properly today, and those who do might decide that they don't need more safety. Cost problems would put pressure on the government to heavily subsidise the industry. I doubt that asking for more money would go down well with liberals who want super-strict gun control or military people who probably prefer that the money to be spent to protect soldiers in combat rather than civilians at home.

Electric shocks might be amusing, but would cause more technical trouble. The advantage of a shock function would be that individuals could not threaten people or be 'shot in self-defense', but that rare legal situation would be even more unlikely than a kid getting hold of dad's handgun.

Multiple profiles would probably be necessary which could expose the guns to the risk of being 'hacked' into. Lastly, putting microprocessors in guns could make them vulnerable to electronic warfare. If the military did not take interest in this technology, we could see confused 'armed' people getting shot up by tech-savvy crooks.

 

[frissy]

Then all you need is a psycho cop that goes on a killing spree and nobody else can stop him other than the police. Ggrreaat. He comes after you, he somehow drop his weapon and you pick it up to use as self-defence. ZAP! Now he can kick your head in without problems.

I hope you are just trying to be funny...

No, because I think further than the box we live in (I assume you live in Finland also). Like Croatia etc.

There are countries where the police is definetly NOT your friend. They are theoretically the police, but mostly militia who don't like people unless they support the cause of their dictators etc.

Something like the SS were the "cops" in Germany.
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TRICHOME

 

[DirtyDreamDesigner]

frissy, the police in Croatia are not the SS. There's just so many of them who have fought in the war and have PTSD and so they happen to shoot their wife and their wifes two best friends.

 

[frissy]

frissy, the police in Croatia are not the SS. There's just so many of them who have fought in the war and have PTSD and so they happen to shoot their wife and their wifes two best friends.

Ok, so they are just a bit stirred, but there are countries where cops/militia is a force to be scared of.
________
War Risk Insurance (Aviation) Advice

 

[octotron]

I thought they had something like this in Logan's Run for the Sandmen. I don't remember it being in the film though.

 

[Brother None]

In normal countries maybe. As in, not Croatia and not Soviet Russia.

Then don't use the gun in your arse-backwards countries.

Gee? Was that so hard?

Yeeesh, I have to hold your hands the whole way? Bunch of idiots.

Also, frissy's rather unlikely scenario was "What if a cop goes on a rampage, drops his gun, you manage to pick it up but can't shoot him?" Even within your wrecked excuse for a nation this'd be fairly uncommon.

Now let's ignore those countries where people will die from getting shot anyway, because we really don't care about them do we, and turn to what's important; the USA. A lot of crimes there occur when guns from cops or other registered, legal guns get stolen and used for illegal purposes. This device would remove a lot of that. Don't want it? Don't implement it in your nation. But it'd be damned useful for the States.

 

[Ashmo]

At least it won't explode and tear your hand off if your DNA don't match.

But somehow I don't believe this is going to work -- what if you, as a cop, need to use a different hand (for example after getting shot in the strong arm)?
The biometric patterns of the weak hand wouldn't match that stored in the gun and you would zap yourself?

At least it might reduce the amount of future cop killers -- just shoot the cop in the strong arm to down them, no need to kill anymore.
Well, except for them radio'ing HQ for reinforcements.

 

[Roshambo]

It is conceivable that that the grips will be tuned to both hands, as almost every cop I know of who has been in a firefight has had to shoot off-arm due to cover. It would be quite possible, in turn, to allow the police to use each other's guns if they have a database used a la CoR: EFBB, or allow a gun to be programmed with all of the squad's individual profile.

I can't find an online source, butI have seen a bit of development towards accelerated nonlethal projectiles in the use of handheld coilguns with beanbags or similar ammo. And really, what would be the purpose to break into that database to add your prints in a hardware-encoded bank of verified signatures with ammo like that?

This pressure system is neat, but I prefer the thumbprint to the side of the grip sensor to unlock the firing pin, used a few seconds in advance and active as long as there is body heat applied to the grip. It seems a bit more logical to use in the future, as there can be many reasons why someone's grip is not normal. The thumbprinter is also on the left side of the grip usually, so it's part of holding the gun, but it can be reversed for lefties and also store left and right handed prints. These systems are at a projected $1-2k apiece to add to some makes. They can also be EMP shorted or remotely turned off with the right signal, making them a logical addition to controlling gun rampages in the future, and therefore should be added as a part of logical gun control - illegals will be obvious. I honestly see those against guns give way to the NRA and say they can keep their guns, if they were allowed to print lock their rifles and outfit them, if to just keep them safe and secure. I know many NRA already for this, because they ARE vets with children, but have the hardware locked up. Unfortunately, the little ones could be like myself and the vets themselves as kids - pretty good at lockpicking.

Some also talk about the biometric trigger sensors that read from your finger across a sensor inside the trigger itself. Which, apart from a Vernism, seems to be likely to be more widespread in the future.

 

[Ashmo]

Actually the US police seems to be in dire need of non-lethal or at least less-than-lethal force.

I don't mind cops having guns -- god knows they need them -- but there are many situations where a policeman is forced to keep their distance but resorting to firearms would be total overkill; and I'm not talking about special "riot" scenarios here.

If tazers or similar ranged non-lethal weapons are already widely deployed then I'm wondering how there are still cops managing to make headlines by shooting people armed with knives (without hostages) from a safe distance when there is no imminent threat to anyone.
Lack of proper training I guess -- you need to tell people *how* and *when* to use the new equipment rather than just handing it over and telling them to use it.

Anyway.

There was a key/lock system doing the same thing as the biometric one explained in the article. I guess the big drawback with that one would have been that anyone could use the gun if they had the lock (an RFID chip or something similar to that concept), which would probably have been easily replicatable.

I guess any such system would have to provide for the gun user to be able to fire his gun under less-than-perfect circumstances while still restricting access to a small number of people.

The real problem will be to find a balance between access control and noise tolerance -- and that might take a lot of testing to figure out.

 

[frissy]

Did it ever cross your mind that telling a joke about a Finnish-Rap-band might not be understood? (almost all of those words cause a "?" and even more when they are combined)

I would guess that a minimal amount of Finnish people have heard of Notkea Rotta. Something like telling a inside joke of Fallout to someone who has never even been close to a computer. He'll look at you funny. A bit like Alec. He truly never does understand he's evil.

Ps. I love your avatar. Explains so much.
________
Mr50

 

[SuAside]

FN Herstal had a simular, but less hightech project about 5 years ago. it involved an implanted chip or a special arm/wrist-band that identified the owner (or owners) to the gun.

basically all cops/soldiers/whatever from the same district/squad/batallion/whatever could use the pistols or only one particular cop, depending on the settings.

either way, it was simple, light & rather cheap. they worked on more expensive variants too, but those were bulky, unpractical & expensive.

anyhow, in the end the whole project got canned because no one expressed interest to buy it, so it never got past the concept/prototype phase. i REALLY doubt there is a market for overly expensive sensing toys that will lock out the gun controls if the unlucky sob has the bad luck of bashing or scraping his hand on something (and thereby altering the way he holds his gun / the pressure by muscles)...