- PALM BEACH, Florida
(AP) -- A new computer chip promises to keep police guns from firing if
they fall into the wrong hands.
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- The tiny chip would be implanted in a police officer's
hand and would match up with a scanning device inside a handgun. If the
officer and gun match, a digital signal unlocks the trigger so it can be
fired. But if a child or criminal would get hold of the gun, it would be
useless.
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- The technology is the latest attempt to create a so-called
"smart gun" and could be marketed to law enforcement agencies
within a year, according to Verichip, which has created the microchip.
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- Verichip president Keith Bolton said the technology could
also improve safety for the military and individual gun owners.
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- "If you let your mind wander to other potential
uses, you can imagine the lives that could be saved," he said.
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- Verichip, which has marketed similar microchips for security
and medical purposes, announced Tuesday a partnership with gun maker FN
Manufacturing to produce the smart weapons. The companies have developed
a prototype and are working to refine its accuracy, Bolton said.
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- Similar developments are under way at other gun manufacturers
and research firms. The New Jersey Institute of Technology and Australian
gun maker Metal Storm Ltd. are working on a prototype smart gun that would
recognize its owner's individual grip.
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- "We're at an interesting age where all sorts of
science fiction is becoming real technology," said Donald Sebastian,
NJIT vice president for research and development and director of the project.
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- The technology could also eventually have an even bigger
impact on the illegal gun trade, Sebastian said.
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- The FBI estimated that 67 percent of the 16,204 murders
in 2002 were committed with firearms.
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- "You have a long-term benefit of making it much
more difficult for a handgun to have any value to anyone other than the
original owner," Sebastian said.
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- But until the smart-gun technology is repeatedly proved
to be reliable, some law enforcement authorities remain leery.
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- The scanning device could malfunction, the officer's
hand with the computer chip could be smashed during a fight or an officer
might need to use a partner's gun, West Palm Beach police training Sgt.
William Sandman said.
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- "We have power outages, computers crash. Would you
risk your life knowing all those things that could go wrong?" Sandman
said.
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- Verichip's Bolton said those concerns already are being
addressed. He said the guns can be designed to work for an officer, his
partner and a supervisor. Departments could set routines where the scanning
devices in guns could be checked before every shift.
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- The chip needs no battery or power source. It works much
like those that have been implanted in pets over the past decade so they
can be identified if they get lost. Verichip, a subsidiary of Applied Digital
Solutions, developed a "more intelligent" version two years ago
for humans and estimates that about 900 people worldwide have been implanted
with them.
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- The chips can be used instead of security key cards at
office buildings or to use global positioning satellites to keep track
of a relative who might suffer from Alzheimer's. It can store medical information
that emergency rooms could read or financial and identification information
to prevent fraud.
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- The chip, about the size of a grain of rice, is inserted
into an arm or hand with a syringe, much like a shot is given.
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- Bolton said the company has seen no medical complications
and that the technology will only improve with time.
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- Once the technology is accepted, legislation could follow
to encourage the use of smart guns. New Jersey already has passed legislation
that will require smart-gun technology on all handguns sold -- three years
after the state attorney general certifies that smart guns are available
in the marketplace.
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- The National Rifle Association opposes the legislation
because of potential problems with smart-gun technology, but gun safety
advocates argue that the technology could encourage gun ownership with
the newfound sense of security.
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- "It seems that guns are the only product that haven't
followed a path of development that leads to greater safety for the user.
The only real change we've seen is to make them more lethal and smaller
so they can be more easily concealed," said Rob Wilcox, a spokesman
for the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence. "This is one of the
steps that hasn't been taken, and we think this debate is one that needs
to take place."
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