Read the full article from Mother Jones here.

Written by Josh Harkinson.

Jonathan Mossberg wanted to be the Steve Jobs of firearms.

In 1999, a few years before the invention of the iPod, Mossberg began to build the iGun, a computer-chip-equipped “smart gun” that could only be fired by its owner. (The “i” stands for intelligence.) He saw the technology as a commonsense way to prevent gun violence—a no-brainer safety device like seatbelts or air bags. The iGun is a shotgun equipped with a radio frequency identification (RFID) sensor that only allows it to be fired by someone wearing a special ring. By 2000, a fully functional version had endured a grueling round of military-grade testing and was ready to hit the market. “When I filed my patents, my patent attorney said, ‘You’ve got the next dot-com,'” Mossberg recalls. “He was blown away.”

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