Posted on 09/16/2008 2:21:39 PM PDT by neverdem
Contact: Sheryl Weinstein sheryl.m.weinstein@njit.edu 973-596-3436 New Jersey Institute of Technology
The Department of Justice has awarded NJIT $254,889 to continue developing childproof child-safe gun technology. US Senators Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ) and Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and US Rep. Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-NJ-08) earmarked the grant in last year's annual Congressional appropriation bill.
"The money will help NJIT improve its patented dynamic grip recognition technology and move child-safe handgun technology closer to commercial consideration," said NJIT Senior Vice President of Research and Development Donald H. Sebastian. Our researchers look forward to using this new grant to solve the challenge of adding firing control to produce a complete prototype weapon that fully validates the biometric authorization concept."
The gun currently tests with an accuracy of 95 percent with 32 electronic sensors embedded in the hand grip. Researchers have been evaluating the system using law enforcement professionals as test subjects to demonstrate that the technology works with a wide range of users, firing postures, under stressful conditions and even while wearing gloves.
The next step is to use the authentication signal from the biometrics to enable or disable the firing mechanism. While this was not part of the original NJIT research plan, it is deemed to be a necessary step to secure private sector investment and commercialization of the technology.
Since 2000, NJIT has spearheaded efforts to develop a personalized handgun that can recognize, instantly and reliably, one or more pre-programmed authorized users.
In December of 2002, New Jersey became the first state to pass legislation specifying that three years after it is determined that personalized handguns are available for retail sale, dealers and manufacturers will not be able to sell, assign or transfer any handgun legally unless it is personalized.
"Too often, this program is perceived as a gun control issue, and it is not. This is about improved gun safety, and when the technology is perfected it will provide important benefits to every class of owner. It is clearly designed to safeguard unattended weapons in the home from unauthorized use by minors – with tragic consequences – but will also reduce the utility of stolen weapons, and offer safety benefits to sportsmen, law enforcement professionals and the military," Sebastian said.
NJIT, New Jersey's science and technology university, at the edge in knowledge, enrolls more than 8,000 students in bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees in 92 degree programs offered by six colleges: Newark College of Engineering, New Jersey School of Architecture, College of Science and Liberal Arts, School of Management, Albert Dorman Honors College and College of Computing Sciences. NJIT is renowned for expertise in architecture, applied mathematics, wireless communications and networking, solar physics, advanced engineered particulate materials, nanotechnology, neural engineering and e-learning. In 2009, Princeton Review named NJIT among the nation's top 25 campuses for technology and among the top 150 for best value. U.S. News & World Report's 2008 Annual Guide to America's Best Colleges ranked NJIT in the top tier of national research universities.
Yep! When perfected it means my wife can't protect me with MY gun!
More RAT Pork to shore up their voting base.
stooopid bastids (sp)
I could have shortened the list by just saying "criminals".
Stick your technology up your ass, Mr. Sebastian. Under no circumstances will I ever allow your ‘technology’ on any of my guns.
Why is the DOJ is fronting the money for this?
“We need safer bullets.”
~ Dr. Joycelyn Elders
HELL NO. Buy a gun with this crap on it and you are one EMP bomb away from being disarmed.
Fixed it. A 95% success rate is abysmal. Anyone whose gun failed 5% of the time would be getting it repaired immediately. And I assume there's nothing like "tap-rack-bang" if this system fails - I'd guess your backup is throwing the gun at your attacker and asking him real nice not to rob/beat/murder you.
Even if a 100% success rate were achieved, which it won't be, the concept is still worse than useless. It has to be programmed to the gun's owner. Presumably not just anyone can program it, or it wouldn't stop criminals from stealing and reprogramming them. No doubt only FFLs would be permitted to program the guns, which means every private sale would have to go through an FFL and onto a 4473 - de facto registration of every gun. Plus, criminal gangs will have illegal reprogramming devices before half the FFLs have had time to buy one legally. The only "common sense" part of this gun control ploy is the total lack of it.
I am ashamed to say that I graduated from NJIT, class of 1979.
“The gun currently tests with an accuracy of 95 percent with 32 electronic sensors embedded in the hand grip.”
Hey that sounds like it could be reliable. (S)
A handgun should cost about $10,000 with this crap on it.
...which is why police forces in N.J. were explicitly exempted from the smart-gun law.
/sarc
Yep, I got off subject, and was looking at the technology.
The appropriation was unconstitutional, as you say, and most "gun control" laws and regs are also unconstitutional, period.
“The gun currently tests with an accuracy of 95 percent with 32 electronic sensors embedded in the hand grip.”
My guns test with 100% accuracy if I keep them clean. This is the dumbest idea ever dreamed up.
Is there any situation for which a “smart gun” would be useful, for which a “smart holster” would not be better? A smart holster might be of some use to cops who might lose their carry piece in a massed attack (if three people were to approach a cop discretely and then pounce, they’d have a reasonable shot of disarming him); a smart holster might make their job somewhat more difficult.
Would cops want a smart holster that only malfunctioned 5% of the time?
A smart holster wouldn't be subject to the mechanical stresses of a firearm, and could use a variety of means to improve reliability, depending upon the wearer's "nuisance tolerance". For example, if the person didn't mind wearing special boots, the holster release could be enabled by, among other options, flexing of the toes. A maneuver that an attacker would have a hard time either forcing or preventing.
More significantly, by the time a gun fails to fire, it will likely be too late to adapt any backup plan. If the holster fails, there will more likely be time to draw a backup weapon.
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