National Academy ‘Smart Guns’ Assessment Gets Little Attention
August 20, 2005

by Joseph P. Tartaro
Executive Editor

Some people call them “smart guns,” a brief but misleading popular term.

Others use longer terminologies, but the basic dream of politicians and policy makers for restricting commercial firearms sales to high-tech guns that can be fired only by an authorized user or owner has been around for years.

It has stirred the fancy of many in the news business and in New Jersey at least, legislation has been enacted into law that would limit future handgun sales only to those types of high-tech guns beginning three years after they become commercially available.

Research, development and preliminary testing by many of the gun companies and institutions working to produce a workable and affordable user-authorized handgun (UAHG) has stirred the fancy of major newspapers and TV networks for years. Every new development or press event has excited reporters and editors with the promise that UAHGs would significantly reduce the number of accidental firearms-related injuries and deaths, discourage the theft of pistols and revolvers, and prevent the misuse by unauthorized third parties of stolen police sidearms and the guns people own for defense and sport.

However, when the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), a component of the National Academy of Sciences, published on Aug. 1 the authoritative technology readiness assessment on user-authorized handguns prepared by a balanced and knowledgeable committee, news of the their conclusions was largely missing from the general media. Apparently, the report was not encouraging for advocates of UAHGs.

Cecile Gonzalez, a media spokesperson for NAE, told Gun Week 10 days after the report was released that an advance media advisory had been issued to the general media and gun publications announcing the publication of the report. She said that close to two dozen journalists had expressed significant interest in the report, but that she was not aware of any noticeable media coverage.

Prospects Dim
Perhaps the reason for that is that the report concludes that none of the primary technologies which have been undergoing research and study offers any immediate hope that a UAHG, or “smart gun,” will be available in the immediate future.

In fact, the NAE assessment concludes that it would take at least another 10 years of research and development plus an additional $30 million in grants to get to the point where a technologically feasible and workable UAHG sample could be field tested. That may not have been the kind of conclusion that policy makers and anti-gun activists had been hoping for.

It would appear that another pie-in-the-sky anti-gun panacea has tumbled to earth. However, that is unlikely to deter the anti-gun advocates. The engineers engaged in UAHG research, and the gun companies that have demonstrated an interest in such a new product, may have to wait quite a while before so-called smart guns become a reality. The NAE study also quotes the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), a primary funding source for the research that has been done to date, as saying there were not further funding grants for the UAHG on the immediate horizon.

The NAE study was supported in part by grants from the National Academy of Sciences and The David and Lucile Packard Foundation. It is the product of the NAE’s Committee on User-Authorized Handguns, a balanced group of experts on diverse subjects, whose names and affiliations are included in the published report. The committee’s charge in undertaking the study assignment included examining “the state of the art of technologies that might be used in the design of a reliable UAHG and estimating the costs and time required to achieve that goal.” The study is an extension of the 2002 NAE workshop that touched on the technical and non-technical issues associated with the development of such a user-authorized or recognition handgun.

Two Groups
The committee focused its analysis on two groups of users: those in law enforcement and those who store and intend to use their firearms at home, because of the different levels of environmental and occupational stresses that might be put on the handgun. For purposes of the study, the committee considered target shooters and individuals who legally carry concealed in the same category as police officers.

The committee examined all of the currently known available technologies that have been explored by firearms manufacturers such as Smith & Wesson, FN and others, and such independent organizations as the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) and Sandia National Laboratories. Sandia was the first to identify the possibility of applying merging technologies to the concept of a handgun that would allow only a recognized, pre-programmed user to discharge it in 1996. The first Sandia labs report helped propel the interest in such firearms, particularly among policy and lawmaking officials.

The NAE committee report found after examining the state of development of all the currently available technologies, including the S&W skin-spectoscopy, the NJIT’s handgrip pressure technology and the radio-frequency identification tags (RFID), that none had reached the level of discrimination required for the law enforcement community (including CCW and target shooters) or homeowners. It noted that only one token-based technology (based on radio-frequency identification) is in development for a UAHG at the present time, involving work by FN, but concluded that the use of RFID tags would not be appropriate unless embedded tags were used for user identification.

The report clarified that for a UAHG to function reliably two different types of technology are required: first, a reliable authentication system, second the technology in the handgun that permits or prevents firing. It also noted that any system that is to be incorporated into the basic handgun design must not diminish or detract from the essential design and function integrity of the gun.

In its assessment, the NAE committee studied not only the technologies that are available or under consideration, but how they would be used in the real world. The committee’s study placed the highest priority on three vital categories—reliability, failure mode, and authentication.

Time and Money
It found that none of the systems presently under consideration could be successfully developed without spending a lot more time and money. The report noted that except for the $1 million grant for researched voted by the New Jersey legislature to the NJIT, most of the approximately $12 million spent to date has come in the form of NIJ grants. As stated previously, unless someone in Congress gets fired up on the issue and provides the NIJ with more money to dispense, further research and development on UAHGs is likely to falter.

Many gunowners will probably be very pleased with the findings of the NAE study committee. Gun manufacturers may view the committee’s conclusions as a mixed blessing. Some in the industry see the possibility of the advent of UAHGs as stimulating firearms simply because of possible consumer interest in a shooting product that suddenly opens the window on a whole new product vista.

“New” is still the most important marketing word after “Free.” That’s one of the many new reasons for new cartridge calibers and new guns chambered for those calibers. When Smith & Wesson introduced the 500 S&W Magnum a couple of years ago, many old-timers were skeptical. But the 500 has been selling like gang busters and new variants are in the works. Ditto the 204 Ruger and the .17-caliber rimfires.

There’s a lot more in the NAE assessment of UAHG readiness, information that activists and legislators will find very useful.

The 70-page report can be read on-line or downloaded free in PDF format at the National Academy Press website: www.nap.edu, or it can be purchased in print form from the National Academy Press, 500 Fifth St., NW, Washington, DC 20055; phone: 800-624-6242 (or 202-334-3313 in the Washington metropolitan area).
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