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.
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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.
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.
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 :(
Yeah, Ron Conway is one of our investors, and I'm planning to participate in the gun policy review technical stuff. (I hate the term "gun safety" since that refers to protection from accidents; which is a subset. We do have a problem with gun violence, primarily handguns. We have a much more minor problem with gun safety -- the number of accidental shootings is quite low. Resources should be devoted to reducing violence, and a lot of that is gun violence, and should be addressed by reducing availability of guns to those who are violent, and reducing the harm done when they do violence with guns. Reducing accidental shootings is great and all, but I pretty much trust industry/owner self-regulation on that front.)
Any proposal that requires a battery pack probably isn't very reasonable. If the gun still works without the on-board computers, then it's too easy to circumvent. If the gun doesn't work without the computers, then you run the risk of it not firing when you need it too.
(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.