Smith and Wesson's "smart" gun.

[G36-UK]

I agree with the statements above. I doubt that S&W have made a fully "reliable" system, maybe a few prototypes. About the only "good" one I saw was the Metal Storm one, and that's a good few years off being practical.

This has probably been said before, but IMHO, the only good "smart gun" comes on a Steadicam Harness.

 

[saddenedcitizen]

As for EMP ....

Lightning produces EMP ( the closer to the 'bolt' the stronger the EMP) and yes, I have had SEVERAL things, um, disabled due to the EMP discharges in thunderstorms.
Depending on the shielding, this things could be totally lobotmized by a variety of natural or man-made causes rendering them entirely useles, except perhaps as an elaborate rock !!!
This is another 'gee, I wonder if we could use microprocessors in these ??'.
Ranks right up there with the microprocessor
controlled coatrack !!!
Anyone here remember 'digital levels' ?
Another case of taking something REAL simple and complicating the h*** out of it for no good reason.

 

[nadeem]

if you ask me smart guns just are just another thing to go wrong or change the battteries for. the trick is keep the gun locked to your wrist forever

 

[mrmeval]

HERF, RFI etc

Lightning, HERF devices, RFI

HERF High Energy Radio Frequency, a device made out of a microwave can temporarily render electronics useless. I've seen no credible reports of permanent damage but not getting that daily dose of BLAM while one is pointed at you would be disturbing.

Radio Frequency Interference a strong enough radio source including the one above can do the same and lightning can also be a source of RFI but it can do worse as you said.

Heck you could even work the electronics so the gun can be remotely disabled. It will, of course, be hacked 76ms after someone steals one and used to turn all of them off at the next riot. Have a nice day.

It's hard to jam or interfere with a brainless, inanimate object.
I mean the gun not the cops dangit.

I'm what you'd call a technophile and *I* dislike the idea of these. On bigger guns with a crew to keep it maintained, yea. Not on something small that won't get that constant maintainence and that an individuals life is dependant on. Even a mil-spec with a biomedical add on for reliability would not convice me. In 50 years maybe, but not now.

 

[benEzra]

I'm not really worried about having my "smart gun" disabled by EMP. Given the sources of EMP, if my gun is disabled in such a fashion I'll more likely be concerned with the outbreak of nuclear war and the lethal exposure of radiation I'm taking.

Actually, it doesn't take a nuclear weapon to cause an electronics-disabling ESD. I fried the electronics in an LED flashlight once, while pouring the styrofoam peanuts out of a beanbag chair into a plastic garbage bag in the garage, while holding said flashlight in the same hand holding the plastic bag. The humidity was low enough that the styrofoam built up quite a static charge, and it was enough to fry something inside the flashlight. I've also seen a photographic lightmeter disabled by a static discharge.

The last thing you want is a gun that you can permanently disable simply by picking it up after walking across the floor in wool socks...

 

[geekWithA.45]

In a word, vaporware.

Actually, the word is vaporGEAR.

If you poke around the archive, you'll find my analysis of the academy of engineering's assessment of the technology.

Summary:
----------

It's a long way off.

Interesting Dark Twist:
-----------------------

They acknowledge that there are two standards of reliability, based on how to bias failures. "Fail deadly" (ie, "go bang") is for police & military, "fail safe" (ie, "go click") is for civilians.

 

[Owen]

The National Institute of Justice is throwing around a pile of money on this stuff. AFAIK, the big grant winners have been FNM and S&W.

Most of the guns produced have been demonstraters. FN has produced about 4 different technologies for implementation. I haven't checked on the S&W technologies in 4 or 5 years.

The guns I seen at FN seem to work fairly well, but they haven't really been abused yet.

 

[mrmeval]

White LED

The white LED in those flashlights is VERY sensitive to "ESD" electrostatic discharge. In the cheap ones there's maybe a diode on the really good ones there is a current limiter for the LED which can fry. Sealed aluminum tubes work better.

There is a company that has a wonderful device that uses a similar system but it's all grown up and discharges enough power to kill an IED.

For every layer of protection from all these ills the cost goes up and taxpayers still have some say about costs.