Hoplophobia Trumps Obama’s Smart Guns Wishes at Consumer Electronics Show

By David Codrea

IDENTILOCK inventor Omer Kiyani
IDENTILOCK inventor Omer Kiyani discovered a “progressive” paradox hampering the advancement of the “smart guns” they demand.
AmmoLand Gun News
AmmoLand Gun News

USA –  -(Ammoland.com)- Visitors to the Consumer Electronics Show 2016 in Las Vegas had to do without a full demonstration of Sentinl’s IDENTILOCK fingerprint-scanning “smart gun lock,” inventor Omer Kiyani told AmmoLand News. Bringing a gun into the hall violated security rules.

“I never did expect that an industry defining exhibit like the consumer electronics show would not allow us to demo our product with a gun, or worse even with an imitation gun,” Kiyani remarked. “It’s like preventing Google from demoing its Self-Driving Car.”

The irony is, Senitnl was attempting to show “forward thinking” with administration goals. It had even made an announcement titled “IDENTILOCK Smart Gun Lock Answers President Obama’s Call for a Smart Gun.”

“If a child can’t open a bottle of aspirin, we should make sure that they can’t pull a trigger on a gun,” Obama said Tuesday to press conference applause (and that in itself is a phenomenon worth noting). “Right?”

As an aside, I was going to watch his speech but my remote control didn’t work, and when I went to go buy new batteries, wouldn’t you know it, the garage door opener couldn’t have picked a worse time to go on the fritz. But back to the president’s enthusiastically-received bright idea…

“As Harvard’s Kip Viscusi has detailed, federal laws requiring ‘childproof’ safety caps appear to have led to a documented increase in child poisonings,” author, attorney and gun rights advocate Dave Kopel has noted.

“Lulled by the presence of the federally-approved safety device on medicine bottles, many adults have been leaving dangerous medicines within easy reach of children.”

Gun owners have known about the inherent flaws in competing “smart gun” technologies for a long time now.  We know the concept originated as a means of preventing ‘takeaway” incidents, where police officers were being killed with their own service weapons.  And we know that greedy anti-gunners are themselves to blame for all the adamant opposition, when they showed their hand by exempting police and enacting laws requiring the technology be imposed on the “civilian” market when they deem it is ripe.

Between that and the potential for police operated locator/shutoff  switches, and all the reliability issues whenever you make a mechanism unnecessarily complex and introduce additional potential for failure, well, sorry, no. Not interested.

Add to that the cost of a device many of us don’t need or want. And does anyone think for a moment the people committing the lion’s share of the “gun violence” in this country will have any use for such gadgets — aside maybe from stealing and then selling them?

Still, as long as everything is voluntary, there is a place for IDENTILOCK and the Armatix and whatever else the Smart Tech Foundation wants to promote — as long as using such products is always voluntary. I can accept that some people will choose to own guns and not put the time into training to trust themselves without relying on devices.  I think that’s wrong, but I’ll not force my opinion on someone else. Which is a fundamental difference between gun rights advocates and the gun-grabbers, and what is most responsible for “smart guns” remaining an unachievable diktat.

What hampered Mr. Kiyani’s advancing of Obama’s stated goals, and what prevented demonstrating the full potential of his product, was anti-gun sentiment. Perversely, that’s the same sentiment that wants to mandate “smart guns.”

Absurdly, the premier consumer electronics technology forum in the country has allowed institutional hoplophobia to hamper the advancement of a technology “common sense gun safety advocates” say they want. As we regularly see, with “progressives,” every day is Opposite Day.

David Codrea in his natural habitat.

About David Codrea:

David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating / defending the RKBA and a long-time gun rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament.

He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” and also posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.

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Mr Evilwrench

I was one of the children that the childproof caps were tested on way back, 68 or 69 I think it was. They were not really a challenge to me. I grew up to be an electrical engineer, and have always been into leading edge technologies. As a result of all I’ve learned, all of my safes, gun or otherwise, have purely mechanical dials. I don’t accept one of these between my finger and “bang”, even if it does work.

Henry

Blinded by the staggering potential for profit in marketing to the “irrational Americans” segment, Omar Kiyani failed to compensate for the unique overhead costs. Or, as Murphy put it, “Never go to bed with anybody crazier than you.”

Boz

This 3 min. video covers it all perfectly –

SuperG

Most who have tables at CES are disarmed liberal Californians who are scared of guns. They are inculcated that defending yourself in public is bad, and that guns have minds of their own and can jump up and start shooting at any moment. And all the criminals in California back them 100%.

Woody

I had a biometric safe, it was so poor at reliably reading fingerprints that I gave it away (to be used as a key safe). I was not going to tolerate the safe sometimes working quickly.

Dennis Rymon

I looked at buying a bio-metric gun safe. It looked pretty cool at first glance. I forget how many fingerprints you could program into it. I lost interest after reading more deeply into the owners manual that I downloaded before actually buying one. The reason so many prints can be programmed is because of variations in how the sensor gets touched. A slight variation in the angle you touch it will invalidate access so you have to teach it your print from all angles. Although your grip on your firearm will be more consistent than trying to access it from… Read more »

Eric

Firearm lock , electronic and water hmm…. Some of us actually carry firearms in wet conditions

trumped

Hilarious! Congress should pass a law mandating Secret Service and all federal law enforcement are required to use these guns for a full year prior to being available on the commercial market.

MrNotsure

I’ve been an embedded software engineer since 1990. I’ve spent that time developing software for anti-lock brakes, airbag controllers, telematics, engine controllers, powertrain controls and body electronics. Much of the the last 15 years has been spent working closely with offshore developers on software that is safety critical or has safety critical elements.
To make a long story short, you don’t want those guys anywhere near the software that unlocks or enables your firearm. Fifteen years of offshore disaster after offshore disaster, I have learned the lesson, even if upper management hasn’t.