Are You Smarter Than A Gun?

Or is the gun smarter than you?

The so-called “smart-gun” is making the rounds again. If it were simply up to the free market to decide whether the technology catches on or not, I wouldn’t even bother writing about it. But for some reason, the gun control crowd absolutely looooves these things, so it bears some examination.

Your first clue that smart guns are problematic ought to be the fact that gun controllers are huge fans of them. When the people who never met a gun they didn’t want to ban actually insists that this is the gun that everybody ought to have, we call that a clue. Remember, every single thing they do is in some way meant to impede your ability to own guns which are actually useful, and this is no different.

Tech concerns aside, this is a polymer-framed, striker-fired 9mm pistol which retails for $1500 and must be pre-ordered for later production. I searched an online firearms retailer’s website for 9mm pistols with a maximum price of $503 (I couldn’t get their slider to land exactly on $500)…and got 550 results…and these were in-stock, right now. That’s 550 equivalent guns available right now, and you can get three of them for the price of a single smart gun…or one gun and $1000 worth of ammo, accessories, and training.

Then there’s the question of the technology. While the Biofire website assures us that the biometrics work with gloves, in the dark, etc., the one bit of information they do not offer is the failure rate. While it may be excellent, I guarantee you that it does in fact, have a failure rate. There is some number of unlock attempts which can be reached at which point the unlock will fail. It might be one in a million, or one in a hundred thousand, or one in one thousand…you get the idea.

Now, to be fair, all mechanical devices…including dumb guns…will eventually fail. There is also a number of uses at which your Glock perfection will shit the bed, even without a biometric interface. But that’s exactly the point. We are already dealing with a machine that can fail, even without adding layers of complexity which can only increase the inherent likelihood of a failure. More moving parts equals more opportunities to fail. It comes down to how much risk you are willing to accept in a lifesaving tool.

So here’s a fun little thought experiment to help you assess that risk: You just won a giveaway and are getting the brand-new, state-of-the-art iPhone 86. The iPhone 86 comes with the strongest biometric security ever! If an unauthorized person attempts to unlock your phone, it detonates a small explosive charge and blows their finger off (make sure and enroll all your family members in the biometrics!). The biometrics only fail one time in 100,000 unlock attempts. Would you risk using the phone (it has an amazing camera!)…or are you going to sell it on eBay?

Postscript: It should also be noted that Biofire states on their website that they do not support smart gun mandates. They also state that there are currently no holster options available, and that until holsters do become available, the gun would only be suitable for home defense. (I’m sure police agencies are bummed that they won’t be able to equip their officers with a $1500 pistol.)

Although I may be skeptical of this gun as suitable for real-world defense, I am willing to keep an open mind. In the interest of fairness, I did reach out to the company to request a T&E gun. I received an email in reply stating that they had recorded my contact info and added me to the list, but that there were no guarantees of availability or a timeline. Should I receive a T&E sample, I will write up my findings here.