The Department of Justice, alongside Homeland Security, has issued guidelines covering the features of smart guns. One of them includes linking the weapon to the user’s smartwatch.

According to the DOJ, the smart gun should not fire if it’s located at least 10 meters away from its parent smartwatch. In an effort to lower the unauthorized use of guns, the guidelines also cover battery specifications and government-specific standards. In a related issue, the NRA spoke up against the decision, even when the guidelines have been labeled as “voluntary.”

Smart Guns
Armatix iP1 semi-automatic pistol. Image credit: Fortune.

Smart guns for smart people?

The decision comes from a January ruling by President Obama to try and develop more advanced gun safety. The National Institute of Justice started developing these guidelines sponsored by the DOJ and Homeland Security, where it is proposed that smart guns should not be any less efficient than regular guns. This goes specifically for the reloading, firing, drawing, and holstering.

Smart guns are also expected to be in a default “firing” mode if a technical malfunction were to occur. They would also feature personalized grip and fingerprint recognition, creating a whole new layer of difficulty for firing the weapon.

Having a gun that can only be fired under specific circumstances can solve several potential dangers about owning a deadly firearm. The main issue is that the gun market in the U.S. will remain as a multibillion-dollar industry, where the annual revenue of gun and ammunition manufacturing industry stands at $13.5 billion.

There are at least 300 million guns in the U.S., almost one for every person. Judges cannot touch the constitutional right to carry firearms, which in earlier times may have been rightfully-minded, seeing that the U.S. could always fear oppression from a foreign state. But now, when the government has the power to keep people reasonably safe, it seems ill-advised that anyone can buy a gun without much trouble. According to the CDC, over 30,000 people die on  yearly basis in the U.S. due to firearms, which represents one of the highest rates of gun-related deaths in developed countries.

Over half of Americans argue that owning a gun makes them feel safe. Although this may be debatable, it is true that a thoughtful gun owner is able to stop an irrational one by shooting him down. This is the stance held by the NRA, who criticized Obama’s ruling by stating that it does not have a clear purpose in what it tries to accomplish. The NRA argues that the ruling was to be presented as a victory for the president’s last days in office.

Gun control was one of Hillary Clinton’s strong points, as she proposed stricter background checks for gun sales and the removal of gun shows that serve as loopholes for illicit gun trafficking. But now that Trump has won the presidency, any type of gun regulation will have to wait a long time to be implemented, seeing that the Republican candidate, who has even distanced himself from the GOP, has a pretty disruptive order of priorities.

Source: DOJ