Gun Safety Technology and Consumer Choice
The decision to purchase smart guns should be a matter of choice, not a mandate. But in order for consumers to make that choice, products featuring gun safety technology need to be available on the market. Consumers should have the option to purchase personalized firearms, both to safeguard their families against unintentional injury and to provide certainty that their guns will be rendered unusable if stolen.
- There are personalized guns in development for a number of different uses, including hunting, personal protection, and law enforcement.
- There is not a one-size-fits-all solution to gun safety—different technology meets different owner needs. Each type of technology offers benefits depending on user preference.
- None of the gun safety technologies currently in development have any surveillance or tracking capacity built into the design.
While technological breakthroughs in other industries have helped save lives across America, from artificial hearts to anti-lock brakes, we have seen little innovation in firearm safety. Yet there is significant demand and market potential for gun safety technologies:
- 6 in 10 Americans say they would consider buying a smart gun (American Journal of Public Health).
- Firearms represent an $11 billion per year industry (Dun and Bradstreet).
- An estimated 15 million new guns were sold in America in 2015 (National Review).
- 500,000 firearms are stolen each year. Gun safety technology could render these weapons unusable, benefitting law enforcement and discouraging theft.
- Off-duty officers often take their firearms home or store them in their cars, which can lead to accidents or misuse that gun safety technology would help prevent.
- The Department of Justice released standards for smart guns to help guide R&D and smart gun manufacturing and has planned funding for law enforcement agencies to purchase smart guns. As experts in gun safety, law enforcement is the ideal community to inform standards for smart gun technology.
Other potential markets include:
- Private security officers
- Air marshals
- Courtroom officers
- University police and school resource officers