After reading about another tragic shooting death because one party thought the other was attempting to grab his gun, it's occurred to me that if you could build a handgun that could not be fired by an unauthorized party, it would be much safer to have.
So I propose the following mechansim :
The firearm user would have one of these implanted in their palm. It's safe and removable and can be inserted by a tattoo artist. The more advanced tags support encryption, so someone cannot clone your tag.
The weapon would have a grip safety switch similar to that on a glock. Upon closing the switch, this would power up the electronics, which would be powered by a long shelf life, non-rechargeable, Lion battery similar to that used in pacemakers. The electronics would use a custom chip that would be able to start, interrogate the encrypted tag, and verify identity within 50 milliseconds.
A servo motor would retract a safety pin, and the weapon would be ready to fire. The battery charge level would be monitored. In the event that the battery is below a certain level of charge, the safety pin would be retracted permanently until the battery is replaced - basically, a depleted battery should result in the weapon able to fire regardless of user.
If the electronics are of similar grade to those used in pacemakers, the odds are very high they'll work. The servo could be designed with parallel windings and parallel motor drivers and other techniques to minimize the chance that it fails to work.
Finally, in a modern glock handgun, aren't there already a bunch of small mechanical parts that need to function correctly or the weapon will fail? Despite the complexity, the glocks are considered reliable enough to use. Some high quality electronics and a well designed servo shouldn't cause a significant increase in the chance of failure, should it?
Would you ever consider such a firearm if it were proven to be highly reliable?
So I propose the following mechansim :
The firearm user would have one of these implanted in their palm. It's safe and removable and can be inserted by a tattoo artist. The more advanced tags support encryption, so someone cannot clone your tag.
The weapon would have a grip safety switch similar to that on a glock. Upon closing the switch, this would power up the electronics, which would be powered by a long shelf life, non-rechargeable, Lion battery similar to that used in pacemakers. The electronics would use a custom chip that would be able to start, interrogate the encrypted tag, and verify identity within 50 milliseconds.
A servo motor would retract a safety pin, and the weapon would be ready to fire. The battery charge level would be monitored. In the event that the battery is below a certain level of charge, the safety pin would be retracted permanently until the battery is replaced - basically, a depleted battery should result in the weapon able to fire regardless of user.
If the electronics are of similar grade to those used in pacemakers, the odds are very high they'll work. The servo could be designed with parallel windings and parallel motor drivers and other techniques to minimize the chance that it fails to work.
Finally, in a modern glock handgun, aren't there already a bunch of small mechanical parts that need to function correctly or the weapon will fail? Despite the complexity, the glocks are considered reliable enough to use. Some high quality electronics and a well designed servo shouldn't cause a significant increase in the chance of failure, should it?
Would you ever consider such a firearm if it were proven to be highly reliable?
