{"id":1362,"date":"2013-01-11T18:44:25","date_gmt":"2013-01-11T18:44:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ncjolt.org\/?p=1362"},"modified":"2020-06-04T20:54:04","modified_gmt":"2020-06-04T20:54:04","slug":"can-smart-guns-prevent-massacres-like-newtown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/blogs\/can-smart-guns-prevent-massacres-like-newtown\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Smart Guns Prevent Massacres Like Newtown?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Friday, January 11, 2013, by Collier Johnson II
\nOn December 14, 2012, a gunman entered Sandy Hook Elementary School<\/a> in Newtown, Connecticut and opened fire on students and teachers killing twenty students and six adults.\u00a0 Unfortunately, school shootings have become all too familiar in America.\u00a0 In 1999<\/a>, fifteen people were killed in a school shooting at Colorado\u2019s Columbine High School.\u00a0 In 2007<\/a>, thirty-three people were killed by a gunman at Virginia Tech.\u00a0 After the latest school shooting in Newtown, legislators have contemplated ways to prevent such massacres.\u00a0 Some people have suggested that we should constantly check the mental state of gun owners<\/a>, but a workable standard has not been developed.\u00a0 Others have called for the renewal of the Assault Weapons Ban<\/a>, but political support for such legislation will be difficult to gain. Absent from the debate is how technology can play a role in preventing massacres like Newtown.<\/p>\n

We believe we could have helped prevent the Newtown Massacre<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

New York Times columnist Nick Bilton explains how \u201cSmart Guns\u201d can make guns safer and possibly help prevent unfortunate massacres.\u00a0 A smart gun contains technology that can \u201csense the registered owner of a gun and allow only that person to fire it<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0 The technology already exists but it is simply not used in the manufacture of guns by the most popular companies.\u00a0 One example of a smart gun is the iGun, manufactured by the Mossberg Group.\u00a0 The iGun cannot be fired \u201cunless its owner is wearing a ring with a chip that activates the gun<\/a>.\u201d
\nThis would prevent individuals like the gunman in Newtown, who used his mother\u2019s guns<\/a>, from using weapons that did not belong to him.\u00a0 However, it would not prevent individuals like the gunman in Aurora, Colorado, who opened fire in a crowded theater last year, who lawfully owned all of the guns he used<\/a>.\u00a0 Perhaps most promising is technology developed by TriggerSmart, an Irish Company that has patented a childproof smart-gun<\/a>.\u00a0 This technology allows the gun maker to designate specific areas that the TriggerSmart<\/a> guns cannot be used in, like schools and other crowded places, and all guns that enter those areas will be disabled.\u00a0 Robert McNamara, the founder of the company, believes that TriggerSmart\u2019s technology could be used to help prevent school shootings.\u00a0 He told the New York Times that \u201cwe believe we could have helped prevent the Newtown Massacre.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Friday, January 11, 2013, by Collier Johnson II On December 14, 2012, a gunman entered Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut and opened fire on students and teachers killing twenty students and six adults.\u00a0 Unfortunately, school shootings have become all too familiar in America.\u00a0 In 1999, fifteen people were killed in a school shooting …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[51],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1362"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1362"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1362\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7646,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1362\/revisions\/7646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}