First Smart Gun With Fingerprint Unlocking Hits The Market

Authored by Emily Miller via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The first so-called “smart gun” that uses biometrics to unlock for shooting will hit the market at the end of the year.

Biofire Technologies announced this month that it is taking pre-orders for its home defense gun that is intended to prevent unwanted access to children and criminals. This is either a big step forward in gun safety or a gimmick with unreliable technology, depending on who you ask.

Futuristic Gun

Smart guns, otherwise known as personalized handguns, have been in development for many years. The CEO and Founder of Biofire Technologies, Kai Kloepfer, told The Epoch Times in an interview that this is the first “major innovation in how a handgun has been designed or manufactured in 50 years.”

Kloepfer, 26, has been working on designing a smart gun since he was a teenager. “This is a new option for gun owners to give them peace of mind that their children or criminals won’t get their hands on it.”

The Biofire Smart Gun is a handgun that can be stored with fingerprints and 3D facial recognition to unlock it to shoot. The company says unlocking works in the dark. The data is stored in the gun in encrypted form. The gun can have biometrics for up to five total authorized users.

The Biofire gun has integrated infrared sensors in the grip to keep it armed while the user is holding it. As soon as the grip is released, the gun locks. It is powered by a rechargeable lithium-ion battery that Biofire says lasts several months with average use and can fire continuously for several hours. The firearm only comes in 9mm caliber, but buyers are given multiple choices for color and style and left- or right-handed.

Kloepfer, who said he owns a lot of regular guns, said his product gives people an option for a “new and better choice.”

Reliable Technology?

Gun rights groups have been leery that biometrics can function perfectly in self-defense scenarios. The National Shootings Sports Foundation (NSSF) represents gun manufacturers. Biofire is a member.

“Firearms are tools that individuals rely upon to save their lives and the lives of their loved ones. That necessitates a firearm to work, as designed, each and every time,” Mark Oliva, NSSF’s director of public affairs, told The Epoch Times. “Additional points of failure, including authorized-user technology, are concerns for gun owners. If that technology fails, that could be catastrophic for an individual depending upon it to save his or her life.”

The National Rifle Association (NRA) warns the stress of real life is different than product testing.

Read more here…