Skip to content

Biofire: The First Worthwhile “Smart Gun”?

https://utreon.com/c/forgottenweapons/
http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons
http://www.floatplane.com/channel/ForgottenWeapons

Cool Forgotten Weapons merch! http://shop.forgottenweapons.com

Note: The New Jersey law that would ban sale of regular guns once “smart guns” were deemed commercially viable is no longer on the books.

0:00 – Introduction
4:12 – Electronic elements
6:50 – User “presence” system
8:30 – Mechanical gun elements
11:11 – User enrollment/setup
15:29 – On the Range
18:14 – Security standards
20:59 – Conclusions

Biofire is a Colorado company that has spent the last 5 years or so developing a biometrically authenticated pistol, using both fingerprint and facial recognition systems. The gun is currently in the prototype/pre-production phase, and they are planning to have production models available around the end of the year.

Obviously, there is a wide skepticism about this sort of technology in firearms, and I shared this skepticism when I first spoke with Biofire. The situations in which biometric ID systems could become a liability seem too numerous to count. What convinced me to give the pistol a closer look was Biofire’s explicit focus on a particular target market where the technology fills a very real gap in current options: home defense for those with children or other people regularly in the household. For that situation, one must choose between an array of flawed options – trigger locks, rapid access (hopefully) safes, or keeping a gun separated from its ammunition. The idea of having a gun which can be left loaded and immediately accessible but only usable by a few specific individuals is an appealing one.

Contact:
Forgotten Weapons
6281 N. Oracle 36270
Tucson, AZ 85740

Leave a Reply