High School Student Builds Gun That Unlocks With Your Fingerprint

An anonymous reader writes: Kai Kloepfer is a 17-year-old high school student from Colorado who just won the Smart Tech for Firearms Challenge. Kloepfer designed and built a smart gun that will only unlock and fire for users who supply the proper fingerprints. "The gun works by creating a user ID and locking in the fingerprint of each user allowed to use the gun. The gun will only unlock with the unique fingerprint of those who have already permission to access the gun. ... According to him, all user data is kept right on the gun and nothing is uploaded anywhere else so it would be pretty hard to hack." The gun can have up to 999 authorized users, and its accuracy at detecting fingerprints is 99.99%. For winning the challenge, he won $50,000 in funding to continue developing the smart gun. Some of the fund have already gone toward 3-D printing portions of the prototype.

Comments

Great one more fail

[Maznafein]

Just what I need in a firearm. One more area that can fail epically. Also yet another battery to carry and eventually run out of.

Call me crazy but none of my firearms accidentally go off.

Re:Great one more fail

[Anonymous Coward]

Agree. Besides most of firearm incidents in the US are done by the actual owner of the gun. Statistically the only problem the "smart gun" solves can is already taken care of by responsible gun owners with a safe.

Re:Great one more fail

[BringsApples]

I think that one important thing that this will help end is children, showing each other their dad's cool gun(s), accidentally shooting each other. Or worse, taking the gun to school. I'm all about some guns, I own many. But I also have kids. I keep my guns in a place that keeps my kids safe, but will cost me a few extra seconds to retrieve, in the event of a break-in or something. This would allow me to keep those guns in a "faster" location.

Re:Great one more fail

[cellocgw]

Call me crazy but none of my firearms accidentally go off.

Standard answers apply here:

1) Yet
2) You're not everyone
3) Many policemen would far prefer that their gun not be useable if someone takes it away from them.

Re: Great one more fail

[Anonymous Coward]

When you NEED a gun, waiting on a good fingerprint read could be life threatening. Apply the same tech to a fire extinguisher and see what people think.

Re:Great one more fail

[CrimsonAvenger]

Yet Another Responsible Gun Owner Shoots His Own Penis
At least five American men have shot off their penises since 2010.

Note that this new "smart" gun won't save you from doing this.

Note also that an average of one such accident per year in a land of 300+ million makes it less common than being struck by lightning. So when we get that lightning problem under control, I can turn my attention to the "shooting my own penis off" problem....

Re:Great one more fail

[Ol Olsoc]

Agree. Besides most of firearm incidents in the US are done by the actual owner of the gun. Statistically the only problem the "smart gun" solves can is already taken care of by responsible gun owners with a safe.

There is a keyword in there.

Responsible

How many people are "responsible",p> Many gun affectionados I know think your idea of storing guns in a safe is the start of the guvernment taking them away. Same for a trigger lock. All of those things slow them down if some thug comes into their house.

Last thing they want is that.

The problem is that responsibility thing. Google boy shoots sister, or girl shoots brother - or other similar keywords, and you'll be treated to a litany.

Far too many people just let loaded guns sit around their house like decorations. In one case a few years ago, a young boy shot and killed his sister. When the police investigated, they found rifles leaned up in the corners of every room in the house - but these piles also had the boy's and girl's toy rifles in the same pile.The photos were disturbing.

So the parents were tried and convicted. Their defense? You got it. Second amendment, their right to stack their real and loaded rifles and their children's rifles in the same place. Their one kid is dead, and the other is living with the fact that he gut shot her and killed her.

My own personal experience with this sort of madness was when my son was in second grade, a child a few houses up from us comes to hte bus stop with a loaded rifle and darn near made a major adjustment to the youth population in the neighborhood. Fortunately a cool headed mother managed to get the rifle off the lad.

Police found the same situation. Rifles and handguns laying around the house. And upon their removal, the father (his wife had wisely left him some time before, was all up in arms about his second amendment rights being violated.

Responsibility. Children have not yet learned it.

Sadly, neither have many of their parents. The recent killing of a range instructor by a little girl with an auto pistol showed all of that. It's s simple matter of physics that a positive feedback loop might occur in a small person not used to such a device. You want a little kid to learn how to use firearms? Use a .22 caliber rifle and have them learn from the prone position. Safest way to keep them unharmed while they learn.

Responsibility. It should be the second half of a right. Sad to say, asking people to take responsibility brings out the knives, as the person who thinks it is a good idea is mercilessly attacked for trying to take their guns away.

This kid who invented this locking/unlocking technology will be eviscerated by the fringe that is controlling the gun discussion today.

Just watch the response to what I wrote. You might be surprised that I own and enjoy using multiple firearms myself.

Re:Great one more fail

[PopeRatzo]

Note also that an average of one such accident per year

One? Are you joking? According to CDC’s WISQARS, there are about 14,000-19,000 nonfatal injuries stemming from accidental shootings per year in the U.S. That's in addition to ~500-600 unintentional deaths per year. Gun "enthusiasts" like to cite statistics on gun deaths since the rise of conceal/carry (which truly have a lot more to do with better trauma medicine), but they never want to talk about the number of shootings. If you really want to understand the extent of the damage of America's gun fetish, count the number of people who get hit by bullets.
http://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/...

Of these about 20% are under the age of 25 and 10% under the age of 12.

Where do you get "an average of one such accident per year" unless you are focused strictly on injuries to your penis? Although I guess there is some evidence that gun owners have issues in that regard.

But yours is a common mistake people make when talking about guns, because they just don't know (or care) about the actual numbers. Much of the misdirected focus comes from the faulty research of the only "gun expert" that ever seems to appear in the media, the dishonest gun industry lobbyist and "researcher", John Lott whose book, "More Guns Less Crime" has been completely debunked.

[Full disclosure: I have been a gun owner for more than 4 decades. I've qualified 3 times as an expert marksman and twice as a sharpshooter, which is the second highest marksmanship designation (not counting the pro-marksman, etc. I support legal gun ownership and very strict gun control laws.]

Re:Great one more fail

[knightghost]

Don't forget the 2.5m crimes avoided through firearm self defense each year.

Gotta have both sides to make an accurate measurement.

Besides, a tool is a tool. Car, kitchen knife, chainsaw... each is a great tool but also constant injury and death.

Re:Great one more fail

[PopeRatzo]

The real number is closer to 12,000, with only about 200 cases of "justifiable homicide" with a gun. That's fewer than the number of accidental shootings.

The "2.5m" number includes anecdotal reports of someone who believes they were not the victim of a crime because supposedly the perpetrator "thought" he "might" have a gun. It is a number which you will only find on Second Amendment "advocacy" sites.

About three times that number of crimes were prevented by household pets, and ten times that number were prevented by dead-bolt locks and mean looks.

Re:Great one more fail

[LynnwoodRooster]

Would you accept a report by the anti-gun Violence Policy Center that concludes there are 67,000 valid defensive uses of a firearm each year, making it slightly more likely that a firearm will be used for defense rather than for committing a crime? Reality probably lives somewhere between the points (VPC and NRA), but in either case - it's more than the criminal use of firearms.

Re:Great one more fail

[Mr. Slippery]

According to CDC's WISQARS, there are about 14,000-19,000 nonfatal injuries stemming from accidental shootings per year in the U.S.

And according to that same source, for 2012, there were 8,974,762 non-fatal accidental injuries from falls. Floors are dangerous. 2,145,927 from cutting or piercing objects, 972,923 from poisoning, 423,138 from fire, 357,629 from dog bites...

Heck, there were 58,363 from "nature/environment", which includes "exposure to adverse natural and environmental conditions (such as severe heat, severe cold, lightning, sunstroke, large storms, and natural disasters) as well as lack of food or water." Nature will hurt you with more probability than guns will.

But yours is a common mistake people make when talking about guns, because they just don't know (or care) about the actual numbers.

Pot. Kettle. Black. Numbers are meaningless without context for comparison. By any rational comparison with other things that can hurt you, firearms accidents are rare.

Re:Great one more fail

[hsthompson69]

Cite, or it didn't happen. John Lott may be annoying, and there's certainly room to question his statistics, but he's done a far better job than all the anti-gun "researchers" out there in actually doing the due diligence of getting as much data as possible and explaining both his analytical methods and any potential weaknesses they might have.

If you haven't actually read his book, you might want to give it a try, so you can actually argue intelligently against his work, rather than just parrot anti-gun talking points about him.

Re:Great one more fail

[Mr. Slippery]

If gun ownership were more tightly controlled, those 14000-19000 nonfatal injuries and the hundreds of fatal injuries from accidental shootings would be reduced by at least an order of magnitude - lives would be saved.

The number of firearms accidents is statistical noise. Anyone making a great hue and cry about them is clearly not actually concerned with gun accidents, but is trying to use them to veil a prohibitionist agenda.

If gun ownership were more tightly controlled, the 60,000 to 2,500,000 annual incidents of firearms self-defense (yes, huge error bars) would be reduced -- more people would be murdered, raped, and robbed from. Lives would be lost.

Also, of course, enforcing a prohibition law ipso facto means locking people in cages for acts that do not credibly threaten the rights of others. Liberty would be lost.

Here in the civilised world...murder rates and prison populations are proportionally tiny compared to the USA.

Folks in Mexico, Philippines, and Brazil might take exception to being called "uncivilized".

Yes, we have more violence than other wealthy nations. We also have more of a problem with an unaddressed legacy of slavery and segregation, ongoing racism, ongoing economic injustice, and lack of access to useful mental health care than those nations do. Those factors have far more to do with our violence problem than access to firearms does.

999

[Anonymous Coward]

> The gun can have up to 999 authorized users
This really bothers me. What current memory hardware stores stuff in base 10? Just either use a byte or the wordsize of the device and be done with it!

Re: 999

[ameoba]

If you're using a 3-digit LED display, yes.

Re:But what about...

[amosh]

Because that incredibly small number of theoretical deaths is miniscule compared to the large number of REAL deaths caused by accidental/unauthorized use of guns.

Re:When you abolutely, positively need a gun now!

[Jay Maynard]

All what accidental deaths? The number is tiny - less than 100 a year. That number is also dropping monotonically every year, and has done so since the 1930s.

If you want to end kids' accidental deaths, get rid of bathtubs and swimming pools. They kill far more.

If You are Too Incompetent

[wisnoskij]

If you are too incompetent to control the use of your own gun, then you should not have one. Period. Take the money you were going to spend on this smart gun and take a basic gun safety class.

Re:If You are Too Incompetent

[NormalVisual]

Take the money you were going to spend on this smart gun and take a basic gun safety class.

If it's priced like the existing smart guns (Armatix, etc.), you'll likely be able to buy a week at Gunsite or similar training program, where you'll also learn important stuff like identifying/using cover, off-hand shooting, clearing malfunctions, retention, and tons of other skills that will be far more useful than an electronic lock.

Been there, done that

[JaredOfEuropa]

This is certainly not the first time someone came up with this idea, nor the first time an actual implementation was made. This article and the award sounds like a publicity stunt, and it has all the usual elements: young wunderkind, technical gadgetry to solve some social or politically charged issue.

And other posters here are right: the last thing you need is a weapon that fails when you need it most. If you want a weapon that's safe at rest, get a gun safe with a fingerprint scanner so you can get at it quickly when needed. And if you really want a gun that is disabled when it's taken away from you, I'd go with a simple mechanical solution like a pin on a lanyard that will lock the gun when removed. But in reality, if you've pulled out your weapon with intent to use it, you want nothing to stand in the way of a shot being fired when you pull that trigger.

99.99% accuracy

[ArcadeMan]

Its accuracy at detecting fingerprints is 99.99%.

Forget guns, sell the technology to Samsung.

Re:When you abolutely, positively need a gun now!

[bmajik]

The appropriate product is called the "GunVault". It can be opened in a second or so, in the dark, entirely by touch.

They make them in different shapes and sizes for different mounting/storage situations.

Left unmentioned about smart guns

[MikeRT]

Is that none of the politicians demanding them, most of whom are big city liberal politicians, are saying "well if we had smart guns, of course we'd let all law-abiding citizens carry in public." It's just a measure intended to further lock down legal gun ownership disguised as a way to keep criminals from using stolen weapons. Even though theoretically smart guns should make it easier for police to account for gun crime, the people pushing this aren't going to let up because their goal isn't even really to balance freedom and security.

The other question that needs to be asked

[pla]

Was that 99.99% test done on a fire arm that has been used much?

If you check out the pics in TFA, you'll see that not only didn't they test fire this the hundreds of thousands of times it would take to come up with that claim of accuracy - This "proof of concept" wouldn't ever work in a real gun.

Apparently, this genius 17YO knows so little about the functioning of an actual gun that he simply filled the receiver with electronics (because nothing important goes in all that empty space) and produced what amounts a gun-shaped fingerprint reader. Because, y'know, who needs all those silly little things like springs or hammers or firing pins or magazines to also fit inside a working gun?

Re:Not comparable

[Zeek40]

There are an average of ~4,400 construction workers were killed per year on the job in the US and there are about 3 million construction workers in the US. There are an average of 500-600 accidental deaths per year caused by firearms, and about 100 million gun owners in the US. It seems like guns are actually safer than most other tools ;)