[Vision2020] Saving Children From Guns

[Art Deco]

  [image: The New York Times] <http://www.nytimes.com/>

------------------------------
March 22, 2013
Saving Children From Guns By JOE NOCERA

For nearly two months, my assistant, Jennifer
Mascia<http://www.jennifermascia.com/>,
and I have been publishing a daily
blog<http://nocera.blogs.nytimes.com/category/gun-report/>in which we
aggregate articles about shootings from the previous day. Of
all the stories we link to, the ones I find hardest to read are those about
young children who accidentally shoot themselves or another child. They
just break my heart. Yet Jennifer and I find new examples almost every
day<https://www.google.com/search?q=child+shoots&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a#q=child+shoots&hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&hs=xgX&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&source=lnms&tbm=nws&sa=X&psj=1&ei=m-xMUYWkAdSp4AOFzYDYCg&ved=0CA0Q_AUoBA&fp=1&biw=1730&bih=774&bav=on.2,or.r_qf.&cad=b&sei=KPZMUeOdKafE4APM9IHgCw>.


Partly, I react by thinking, “How can anyone be so stupid as to leave a
loaded gun within reach of a small child?” But I also have another
reaction. In 1970, Congress passed a law that resulted in childproofing
medicine bottles. The Consumer Product Safety Commission regulates the
paint used in children’s toys. State laws mandate that young children be
required to use car seats.

So why can’t we childproof guns? In an age of technological wizardry — not
to mention a time of deep sensitivity to the welfare of children — why
can’t we come up with a technology that would keep a gun from going off
when it is being held by a child? Or, for that matter, by a thief using a
stolen gun? Or an angry teenager who is plotting to use his parents’
arsenal to wreak havoc in a mall?

It turns out — why is this not a surprise? — that such technologies already
exist. A German company, Armartix, will soon be marketing a pistol that
uses radio frequencies<http://www.gizmag.com/armatrix-wristwatch-safety-system-for-handguns/14044/>that
prevent a gun from being used by anyone except its owner. At the New
Jersey Institute of Technology, the senior vice president for research and
development, Donald Sebastian, has long spearheaded an effort to develop
biometrics for “gun personalization,” as it’s called. Guns employing this
technology fire only when they recognize the hand of the owner. There are
others who have invented similar technologies.

Why aren’t these lifesaving
technologies<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-shuster/smart-gun-technology_b_2324978.html>in
widespread use? No surprise here, either: The usual irrational
opposition from the National Rifle Association and gun absolutists, who
claim, absurdly, that a gun that only can be fired by its owner somehow
violates the Second Amendment. Pro-gun bloggers were furious when they saw
James Bond, in “Skyfall,” proudly showing off his new biometrically
protected weapon<http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2012/11/skyfall_someone_should_make_james_bond_s_biometric_walther_ppk_s_gun.html>.
They were convinced it was a Hollywood plot to undermine their rights.

Yet there is reason for at least some hope that the day when these
technologies are in widespread use will soon be here. Last week, there were
two important meetings about gun personalization technology. On March 13,
in Washington, Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. met with several dozen
advocates, including Sebastian and Stephen Teret, the co-director of the
Center for Law and the Public Health at Johns Hopkins University. The
purpose of the meeting was to get Holder up to speed on the technologies so
he could make recommendations to President Obama.

The following day, in San Francisco, Sandy Hook
Promise<http://www.sandyhookpromise.org/>,
an organization founded by citizens of Newtown, Conn., publicly
launched<http://newtownbee.com/news/news/0001/11/30/sandy-hook-promise-launches-innovation-initiative/10397>its
“innovation initiative” in collaboration with some Silicon Valley
venture capitalists and entrepreneurs. One of the leaders in the effort is
the venture capitalist Ron Conway, who coincidentally threw a Christmas
party on the day of the Newtown massacre. Gabrielle Giffords was among
those who attended. Like so many others, Conway decided he had to do
something about guns after Newtown.

The innovation initiative, which will make grants, and even award prize
money for good ideas, includes an emphasis on gun personalization
technology. A member of the group, Alan
Boinus<http://www.lagunabeachindependent.com/2012/07/26/guest-column-mirror-america/>,
who applied for a patent on a biometric technology back in 1994, has
founded a company, Allied Biometrics, that is devoted to commercializing
biometric gun technology. He has already begun a collaboration with
Sebastian in New Jersey.

In classic Silicon Valley fashion, Boinus told me that the government has
been hopeless, and that innovation and the market itself would solve the
problem. “The market will prove this out,” he said. “People want to be
responsible. People want safety.”

I agree with him that Congress has been hopeless and then some, unable to
even work up the
courage<http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/03/19/feinstein-assault-weapons-ban-reid-senate-bill/2000119/>to
vote on an assault weapons ban for fear of offending gun owners. But
I’m
not convinced that the market alone can create mass acceptance of this
technology. It took years, after all, for Congress to overcome the car
industry’s resistance to air bags, ultimately requiring a law that made air
bags mandatory.

Thousands of lives<http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/crime/2012/12/gun_death_tally_every_american_gun_death_since_newtown_sandy_hook_shooting.html>could
be saved each year if gun personalization technology became the law
of the land. In mid-April, Representative John Tierney, a Massachusetts
Democrat, plans to introduce a House bill requiring that all guns include
personalization technology within two years.

Congress once cared enough about the safety of its citizens to pass laws
about air bags and childproof bottles. We’ll soon find out if it still
cares enough about the safety of its constituents to make childproofing
guns the law of the land. It should.


-- 
Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
art.deco.studios at gmail.com
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