Vice President Joe Biden said on Friday that “smart gun” technology might have been able to stop the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre.
“Vice President Joe Biden says he’s interested in technology that would keep a gun from being fired by anyone other than the person who bought it,” The Associated Press reported Friday.
“He says evidence shows such technology may have curtailed what happened last month in Connecticut when 20 youngsters and six teachers were gunned down inside their elementary school,” the AP said.
A gun with the “smart” technology would sense the gun owner’s biometrics and grip pattern, allowing only the registered gun owner to operate the weapon. Similar devices, such as RFID chips and magnetic rings, are both available and under development.
However, Nick Bilton, technology reporter for The New York Times’ technology blog “Bits,” wrote Wednesday that weapons featuring the biometric technology are hard to find in stores, because demand is low.
“No one thinks a smart gun will stop a determined killer,” Bilton said.
“But I thought Smith & Wesson and Remington, for instance, would want to discuss how technology might help reduce accidental shootings, which killed 600 people and injured more than 14,000 in the United States in 2010,” he said. “The gunmakers did not respond, and neither did the NRA.”
The NRA even criticized “smart guns” in 2002, noting that any malfunction of the technology in a life-threatening situation could put the person under attack in danger.
Representatives from the NRA did not immediately respond to The Daily Caller’s request for comment.