News/Commentary

First ever ‘smart gun’ with personalized unlocking features to hit the market for big bucks

May 5, 2023 | | Print Article

A company called Biofire in Colorado has come up with a working Glock-style “smart gun” that requires facial recognition and fingerprint technology to fire and it is about to hit the market with a hefty price tag of $1,500.

(Video Credit: Bloomberg Originals)

Note that the video above is produced by Bloomberg Originals. Bloomberg is extremely pro-gun-control.

You can quickly register in the system in order to use the gun and you can add and delete users. Critics contend that it is a great way to track gun owners and has the potential to allow authorities to lock you out of using your gun. Not to mention the matter of selling your weapon which appears to be next to impossible with this technology. In other words, it’s a leftist dream come true for gun control and could work directly against Second Amendment rights.

The gun is available for pre-order and the company claims there is only 7% of the weapon left in stock. The guns are set to be shipped in 2024. Biofire requires a $149 deposit to hold a place for a gun order. Although the Daily Mail is calling it a “Smart Glock,” that is a brand name and incorrect. Glock does not make the 9mm handgun.

The weapon uses two forms of biometric ID. An optical fingerprint sensor and 3D infrared facial recognition. The selling point is that both must be verified to ensure that only the gun’s true owner can activate the firearm. Biofire claims it will cut down on accidents and the use of stolen weapons. The company that manufactures the weapon hopes it will reduce gun violence.

Biofire’s marketing statements claim its gun could avert two-thirds of gun deaths attributed to suicide in the US each year. Critics accuse the company of inflating its estimate. That would have allegedly amounted to 22,000 deaths in 2018, according to the Daily Mail.

Engineering & Technology (E&T), which is the in-house publication for the not-for-profit Institution of Engineering and Technology in the UK, estimates that the gun could potentially prevent about 6,109 annual gun deaths. Even that number seems doubtful considering all the ways that someone can commit suicide if they so desire. E&T based its findings on US Center for Disease Control data and other research reports which have, as of late, been less than reliable.

All of that is dependent on whether the guns make it to market on time as claimed.

“Our goal is not just to start collecting orders, but to get this into full production and produce as many of these as people want to buy because it’s a great concept and one that I think is going to be a good thing for the world,” Biofire’s 26-year-old founder and CEO Kai Kloepfer told the Denver Business Journal in an interview. “It has the ability to have an incremental, immediate impact that sidesteps a lot of the gridlock politically.”

“Right now it seems like the entire country is always processing a new tragedy involving children and guns,” he told the New York Post. “We are offering a real solution, at a time when solutions seem very hard to come by.”

“We’re not claiming that the Biofire Smart Gun is going to prevent every instance of firearm misuse. But we do believe this tool can help prevent some firearm suicides, accidents, and injuries from occurring,” Kloepfer claimed. “If our work saves even one child’s life, it will be worth it.”

“This Smart Gun was designed specifically for real gun owners who want a quality home-defense firearm that cannot be used by children or criminals,” Mike Corbett, a BioFire advisor and former member of SEAL Team 6, remarked to the New York Post. “In a few years, I believe that the head of every household in America who wants a home-defense firearm is going to choose this Smart Gun.”

Kloepfer began toying with his concept when he was in high school in 2012 after the Aurora shooting. His concept for a biometric lock system that could make firearms safer from abuse, accidents, and theft went from being presented at a school science fair to a business venture. He then wound up on Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list.

Libertarian venture capitalist Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund took note of the young entrepreneur and helped him raise over $30 million for the start-up.

There are other competitors in the “smart gun” space such as LodeStar and SmartGunz. Those companies have bragged for years that their products are almost ready to go to market but their launch dates never seem to materialize.

The senior vice president of the firearms industry trade association the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), Lawrence Keane, is very skeptical of the “smart gun” promises.

“If I had a nickel for every time in my career I heard somebody say they’re about to bring us a so-called smart gun on the market,” Keane asserted, “I’d probably be retired now.”

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