One way to prevent gun-related massacres like the Newtown shooting would be to require “smart” technology that can prevent stolen firearms from being used.

But the industry and its supporters in Congress are not interested in this solution.

“Smart guns” can come equipped with biometrics and grip pattern detection that allow only the registered owner of a gun to fire it. The iGun, made by Mossberg Group, requires the owner to wear a special chip-implanted ring that activates the gun.

Another company, TriggerSmart in Ireland, makes a childproof smart-gun that can’t be fired near schools that have the requisite technology installed on campus.

Some smart gun technology does allow multiple users to share a firearm, such as members of a police department or the military.

Such solutions aren’t likely to be adopted by Congress anytime soon, according to Robert J. Spitzer, a professor of political science at SUNY Cortland and the author of four books on gun policy.

“The gun industry has no interest in making smart-guns,” Spitzer told The New York Times. “There is no incentive for them.…There is also no appetite by the government to press ahead with any kind of regulation requiring smart-guns.”

About 600 people a year are killed in the United States because of accidental shootings alone.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

To Learn More:

Disruptions: Smart Guns Can’t Kill in the Wrong Hands (by Nick Bilton, New York Times)

Smart Gun Technology Could Have Blocked Adam Lanza (by David Shuster, Huffington Post)