Is America Finally Ready for Smart Guns?
"Gun safety advocates have pushed for commercially available smart, personalized guns that could only be fired by a specific person through radio frequency chips, fingerprint scans or other technology, for more than three decades. They argue that the technology could make guns safer by reducing accidental shootings and suicides, and by rendering stolen guns inoperable by crooks — if they were widely available and became more commonplace.

Now, there are signs that a commercial market for smart guns maybe has arrived. The federal government is quietly encouraging gunmakers to submit smart weapons for military-grade testing. New Jersey lawmakers are seeking to revise a law that has kept manufacturers and retailers from selling the guns for over a decade. And federal appeals court judges in the West are deciding whether states can require gunmakers to manufacture weapons with specific safety features."

The Report to the President Outlining a Strategy to Expedite Deployment of Gun Safety Technology

Michigan Man Accidentally Kills Himself While Demonstrating Gun’s Safety

On Sunday evening, a 36-year-old was showing his girlfriend how safe his guns were by holding them to his head and pulling the trigger, when one of them fired, according to reports by the girlfriend to police. The victim, whose name was not released, was pronounced dead at the scene in his Oakland County, Mich., home. The girlfriend said the victim had been drinking most of the day, according to CBS Detroit.

Accidental gun deaths are alarmingly common. But they sometimes occur even while in pursuit of gun safety. Just last week, a Florida man accidentally shot himself in the leg just after leaving a gun safety class. He said he had been inspecting the new gun and had been “manipulating the slide,” according to the Palm Beach Post. Last year in Ohio, a gun safety instructor accidentally shot a student during class. And in 2012, a Virginia man accidentally shot himself and his wife during a gun safety class.

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At Least 4 People Were Accidentally Shot By Toddlers Since Last Weekend

All week, official Washington is fixated on the question of whether the 14 senators who’ve promised to filibuster any gun safety legislation will succeed in their efforts to maintain the status quo. Meanwhile, gun violence continues unabated in the rest of the nation. In a particularly tragic chapter in our nation’s struggle with such violence, at least four people — including two children — were seriously injured or killed since last weekend in accidental shootings where toddlers obtained loaded weapons:

• A Tennessee woman was shot in the stomach by her 2-year-old child on Sunday. Rekia Kid was sleeping with the toddler and her three-week-old baby when the toddler discovered a Glock 9 mm stored underneath her pillow and discharged the weapon. Kid managed to get out of the house and crawl to a neighbor’s porch where she was found by the neighbor, who told local news “[s]he just kept screaming that she didn’t think she was going to make it, she didn’t think she was going to make it and to please please take care of my children.”

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