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THE us police is developing a 'safe gun'that will fire only when held by its rightful owner. Several police and army personnel who are killed on duty, are oftenaccidentally killed by their own gun orby one belonging to a partner. Twoyears ago the us department of justiceasked a government laboratory in NewMexico to investigate the possibilities ofa new technology to help reduce thenumber of such deaths by devising a gunthat recognises its sole user.
The gun would not fire if it is held byanother person - in essence, it is thetype of futuristic gun used by cartooncharacters! A consultation with policeofficers threw up a number of requirements the researchers had to meet. Inparticular, it required that the gun couldbe fired by either hand, so that roundcorners could be negotiated withoutexposing too much of the body. Also, apoliceperson with an injured handwould want to shoot with the other.
The Sandia National Laboratory inNew Mexico has recently made five prototype guns capable of recognising thetouch or sound of their users. The firstdesign requires an officer to wear a ringwhich, when touched against a readeron the gun's handle, allows it to fire.
However, the problem is that a ringcould easily be lost, stolen orworn by a criminal. Besides, itwould also have to be in perfectcontact with the reader everytime the gun is fired.
A variation of this is a ringor badge that contains a radiotransmitter to enable the gun tocheck its user before firing. Thebenefit is that an officer wouldbe able to fire with either handwithout wearing two rings andwould not need to make physical contact between the tag andthe gun while firing.
A third idea makes use of aspeech- recognition technologythat only allows a gun to shootwhen a key word is spoken by itst owner. The problem with voicerecognition is that one cannot tell if thegun would hear the shooter over thebackground noise. Also, a voice canchange under threat and anxiety. Thiscould affect the gun's reliability.
. The laboratory has also tried a fingerprint reader incorporated into a gunbarrel. This ensures that a gun wouldfire only if it recognises the user's fingeror palm prints. Current technology toachieve this requires a processor andbattery pack, too large to be assimilatedinto a handgun. A big problem withfingerprint recognition is that policeofficers often wear gloves when it iscold, or if they are frisking suspects theyavoid touching. Cuts and grazes onfingers would add to the problems ofrecognition.
The New Mexico researchers havealso worked on a simple remote controlthat turns the gun on and off like anautomatic garage door. The idea is: thepolice officer would turn a gun on whenit is drawn, and turn it off when placedin the holster.
The prototype guns have beenhanded over to the us department ofjustice, which is displaying the five technologies to police forces all over the us.The authorities want to ascertain thebenefits and drawbacks of these guns as and when they are used by serving officers in the. streets. The researchers expect that once the 'safe gun' design is decided upon and approved of, the upgraded version could be made available to police, fire, prison and security officers in the country. The department of justice is slated to report later this year on the progress and performance of the safe gun. Based on these inputs, the findings will be covered in the magazine Biometric: Technology Today.