GunsSmart-gun design met with suspicion by gun rights advocates
Ernst Mauch, a mainstay of the weapons industry and a long-term gunmaker at Heckler & Koch, has recently upset gun rights advocates, who used to praise his work, with his new computer-assisted smart gun design. The new gun incorporates twenty-first century computing and intelligence features to eliminate the potential for danger in the wrong hands: it will only operate if the owner is wearing a special wrist watch.
Ernst Mauch, a mainstay of the weapons industry and a long-term gunmaker at Heckler & Koch, has recently upset gun rights advocates, who used to praise his work, with his new computer-assisted smart gun design.
As theWashington Post reports, Mauch has worked with Munich start up Armatix to create a handgun called the iP1 which will only operate if the owner is wearing a special wrist watch. The new weapon, created partially to help resolve Mauch’s own guilt over having created weapons that have been involved in accidental, criminal, and needless deaths, incorporates twenty-first century computing and intelligence features to eliminate the potential for danger in the wrong hands.
The iP1, however, has not been the success that Mauch expected it to be. Second Amendment advocates, who fear that the technology will eventually be mandated, protested this year against stores in Maryland and California that had tried to sell the product. The National Rifle Association (NRA) has reacted against the design as well, in part because of a mandate in New Jersey which required that smart guns be the only ones sold in the state within three years.
Once a highly lauded figure in the industry, Mauch is now seeing himself viewed with suspicion.
“This is the beginning of a new generation of weapons, which makes people think I am crazy. Anyone can make a gun or a pistol. But if the potential is here to make it safer, we have to do it. We absolutely must,” he said.
There may be a light at the end of the barrel, however, as the Metro Industrial Areas Foundation (MIAF), an organization which works with gun manufacturers to increase safety, has met with Mauch and is planning to bring him to the United States to consult with police chiefs around the country.
Their logic: If the technology is suitable for police officers, it should be good enough for the public. In response, Armatix is working on a prototype 9mm smart gun for the law enforcement market.
Rabbi Joel Mosbacher, a member of MIAF, said “The idea of a smart-gun maker who has lots of experience making guns is intriguing because he’s not just some fly-by-night guy trying to do this. Law enforcement officials have been quietly saying that if he comes over, they’d be willing to meet with him.”
Mauch is expected to visit the United States in September.
