Early in January, President Barack Obama choked back tears remembering the 2012 Newtown mass-shooting as he announced a series of initiatives aimed at counteracting what he termed the “scourge of gun violence” in America.

Among them: ramping up investment in smart guns, which require codes, thumbprints or other measures to make firearms operable. He gave the Defense Department, the Justice Department and the Homeland Security Department 90 days to come up with “a research-and-development strategy designed to expedite the real-world deployment of such technology.”