Implementation of a Biometric Gun Control Technology
Implementation of a Biometric Gun Control Technology
Organization Background
Keystone Sporting Arms (KSA), LLC is a gun manufacturer company located in Pennsylvania, United States. It was founded by Bill and Steve McNeal who were firearm auctioneers. The two were fascinated by a Chipmunk .22 caliber rifle that was presented to them by a gentleman in 1994 during one of the auctioning days ("Keystone Sporting Arms, LLC", n.d.). The duo contacted the manufacturer who offered to sell the company but once the deal didn’t materialize, they took upon themselves to start manufacturing of riffles. With support from design engineers, trademarks experts, and consultation from established gun manufacturers, they created and secured rights to My First riffle, Davey Crickett, and Crickett riffles.
Large scale commercial production of the riffles by Keystone Sporting Arms LLC started in 1996. That year, they managed to produce 4,000 riffles that led to continuous annual growth in the following years. By the year 2007, according to a US industrial report, the company was ranked number 12 for long gun manufacturers ("Keystone Sporting Arms, LLC", n.d.). This can be attributed to the purchase of two rival firms. First, it was the acquisition of Oregon based and manufacturer of Chipmunk riffle, the Rogue Riffle Company. This was followed with the buying of Revolution Stocks located in New York. The company production and sales of Chipmunk and Crickette riffles soared which saw it ranked number 8 in the following year. The company boasts of the state of the art modern equipment that gives it the capability to make large scale production of riffles. The outstanding brands of KSA are the Chipmunk and Crickette riffles. The target markets for the products are mostly the youth shooters. According to KSA, its goal is to promote gun safety and encourage the youthful shooters to gain knowledge and respect required in shooting and hunting activities.
Biometrics is of two type namely physical and behavioral biometrics (Gobinet et al., 2013). In physical biometric, a user is recognized after an analysis of the unique features like iris patterns, DNA, facial features, or fingerprints. On the other hand, behavioral biometrics analyses unique properties related to an individual’s behavior, for example voice recognition or how one signs own name. Guns equipped with biometric technologies will require a shooter to prove they are authorized to use the guns. The gun will only fire after the user has been authenticated through voice recognition, hand-shape/grip, fingerprints, or other personal characteristics of an individual. All biometric gun designs require battery power for the sensors to work effectively.
Why the need for Biometric Gun Control Technology
Gun control is one of the divisive debate in the United Sate as gun related violence continue to be witnessed in the country. Mass shootings, homicides, suicides, and accidental shooting are some of the incidents which have increased the concern of the public and politicians to find a solution to these problems. The possibility of use of biometric technology to create personalized firearms has been forwarded as one way of addressing these issues.
A 2000 report by the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control had recorded a high number of deliberate and accidental non-fatal gun-related injuries. According to Gobinet et al. (2013), the Firearm and Injury Center in 2011 reported that there were two deaths in every five non-fatal injuries as a result of accidental shootings at homes. These are cases that highlight the need to have technology that can guarantee safety in use of the firearms. In some of the gun related suicides and homicides, the shooters are unauthorized gun users. This is the same with recorded workplace, public, and school shootings that can be avoided with creation of personalized guns. According to Langton (2012), the US Bureau of Justice Statistics had documented an average of 232,400 riffles stolen from residents each year from 2005 to 2010. With the adoption of biometric technology, use of such firearms can be prevented. Convicted felons have also been known to use intermediaries in acquiring firearms illegally. However, with a personalized gun, it will be difficult for such individuals with criminal intend to get hold of guns. Furthermore, statistics by the Federal Bureau of Investigations in 2012 had shown that dozens of police officers are killed each year and their guns stolen by criminals (Gobinet et al., 2013). The guns used in 40% of these cases belonged to the officers. A biometric gun can reduce these cases as it limits the use of the stolen firearms to only the original owner.
Even though the pro-gun lobbyists and the National Riffles Association (NRA) have continued to oppose the introduction of the smart guns, according to Levin (2006), there is no denial that smart guns can help minimize reports of suicides, homicides, accidental shootings or mass shootings.
The Impact of Biometric Gun Control Technology
Gun manufacturers like Keystone Sporting Arms can adopt the biometric technology. However, this will impact the organization and customers in one way or another. First of all, the idea of smart guns has been widely condemned by the pro-gun activists and NRA despite the safety that comes with it. The resistance by gun lobby groups will likely impact on the sales and consequential revenues. As reported by Stuart (2014), manufactures and sellers of the smart guns have received boycott and violence respectively by lobby groups who fear that the technology would violate their rights to bear arms. An example in case is the partnership between Smith & Wesson in 2000 with the Clinton administration to develop personalized riffles. The NRA led a campaign to boycott the company that almost paralyzed it.
At a personal level, the technology comes with the improved safety that reduces the risks of accidental gun firing. The fingerprint, and grip recognition will only allow the gun to fire when the hand is on the grip and the finger to be on the trigger. According to Gobinet et al. (2013), unauthorized use of guns in homes will also decrease with the use of biometric technology in guns. The guns can only unlock or fire when the actual owner is authenticated. Stolen guns will also become ineffective without the activation by the owner.
Impact of History and Evolution of Biometric Gun Technology
According to Richninick (2014), the idea of incorporating technology in gun manufacturing started in the early years of 1990. With the goal of finding a solution to killing of officers using their own firearms at homes and by assailants, a study was sanctioned by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ). The use of radio-frequency identification in firearms was recommended in 1995. In the late 1990s, the US government provided federal funding to facilitate the research and development of safe and secured personalized riffles. Even though manufacturers tried to implement the biometric technology, there was no commercial production (Richninick, 2014). At the start of 1999, Beretta being one of the leading manufacturers of firearms in the world presented a statement that the smart gun technology was not feasible.
At the turn of 21st century, gun makers like Smith & Wesson were sued by the local, states, and US governments for failure to keep firearms away from criminal hands and designing safe guns (Gobinet et al., 2013). This prompted the Smith & Wesson to partner with the government in designing personalized guns. However this was met with seclusion by other manufacturers and NRA resulting to devastating boycott of its products and severe loss of revenues. This incident is one major factor that has slowed down the adoption of biometric technologies by gun manufacturers in the US.
In 2002, New Jersey passed a legislative that would only allow the distribution and production of personalized firearms once commercial sale of such products is rolled out. Gobinet et al. (2013) points out that such legislation had raised concerns of financial hardships on manufacturers of traditional guns who felt that their production lines at the time would become obsolete thus loss of revenues. As a result most manufacturers shied away from using the new technologies. In general, the rate at which manufacturers are adopting the biometric technology has been slowed down by the fear of punishment by pro gun lobbyists and boycott of products. There is also concern that the government may make mandatory the production of only personalized guns.
Social and Ethical Ramifications of the Technology
Ethics are principles that guide an individual in making decisions as to whether a particular action constitutes to a wrong or right. When it comes to information technology, any technology implementation and use is supposed to uphold the social and ethical behaviors in society. Information technology has brought much debate about enforcement of ethical practices as it has led to social change in habits. It threatens the existing distribution of rights, obligations, money, and power. Despite its benefits, it can also be used to commit crimes disrupting the social services. However, biometric gun control technology will help in upholding the social and ethical requirements in the society. Incidences such as homicides, mass shootings, and robberies resulting from unauthorized use of guns will reduce. It will also be possible for the officers to trace and identify the owners of guns used to commit criminal activities. This helps in upholding accountability for any undesirable behaviors as a result of gun misuse.
Implementation Considerations
As gun control continues to be a contentious issue in the USA, there are several factors that Keystone Sporting Arms has to consider for successful implementation of the biometric technology in its production. First of all, one major factor is the acceptability of the new technology by key stakeholders made up of the high number of gun users, NRA, pro gun, and antigun activists as well as the government. As a concern for any business firm, this will greatly influence the consumption of KSA products. The new technology will require additional costs of production and designing of the personalized riffles. This is because the biometric guns would require additional features like sensors and batteries required in powering the electronics and the sensor features of the gun. The cost of the gun could go high making it unaffordable to most users (Gobinet et al., 2013). Therefore, the cost of productions in line with return of investments has to be greatly considered beside acceptability.
Furthermore, concerns have been raised of the possibilities of failures of guns using biometrics. The major complain is the possibility of battery failure or power loss that could lock a gun. Aside from that, the electronic components of the gun may fail in hostile environments such as high temperatures or storms. Fingerprinting and grip recognition pattern has also been questioned in emergency cases. Opponents of the technology cite that such guns cannot work with gloves and in high-stress state in emergencies as the grip patterns may differ rendering the gun inoperable (Gobinet et al., 2013). These design issues have to be looked at as it can impact on reliability of the gun especially in regard to self-defense.
Change Management
A change management program can impact on the effectiveness of the new technology to meet its initial objectives. According to Shackleford (2013), the first step of a good change management program is the submission of the request and approval of a new technology to an evaluating committee. The committee set up by the organization should constitute of members with technical knowledge of the new technology. This will help ensure that the technology meets the organization requirements. The team can also include members from the legal, business, and administrative departments. KSA should also include representatives from the RFA, pro-gun, anti-gun, and political circles to get their input and address their concerns.
Once an agreement has been reached by all stakeholders, the next phase should be planning and testing. The committees do an in-depth scrutiny of the recommended technology to assess the impact on the organization’s operations. Furthermore, the team develops an implementation as well as back-up plans in case the new technology fails. The technology is also tested for functionality and risk assessment. All measures taken should ensure that the policies of the organization and input of all stakeholders are followed. Shackleford (2013) suggests the team to spearhead the change should be formed in this phase. The third phase is concerned with scheduling and defining communication channels from where a timeline is developed for all activities that will lead to effective implementation of the new technology. All organization personnel and departments should be informed of the impending changes that could interfere with the production and daily operations. Finally, once the new technology has been rolled out, all changes should be documented to maintain an audit trail. Besides, the documentation can help troubleshoot any failure, and formulate incidence reporting procedures. Follow-up should also be done to ascertain if the intended objectives of the technology has been attained.
Recommendation
For effective implementation of the biometric technology, KSA should first organize meetings with all opposing sides on the issue of biometric gun control. This will help in addressing the concerns raised by all parties and gain support that will preventive financial loss as witnessed with the Smith & Wesson Company. Secondly, once a consensus has been reached by all parties, KSA should do a risk analysis of the new technology and outline the advantages and disadvantages of the new technologies and how it will impact on its operations. This could be in form of a feasibility study before the technology is rolled out. KSA should then conduct an analysis of the existing biometric technologies and address the weakness in the designs. All designs must be presented to all stakeholders for testing and improvement thereby ensuring that the new products will be acceptable by all. Finally, since the initial cost of production is always high, KSA can seek partnership with companies that already have made great strides in biometric technologies for knowledge and cost sharing. Above all, local authorities, states, and national governments should be sought for formulation of policies that could see the rise in use of personalized firearms.
References
Gobinet, P., Hefner, M., Giebel, K., Schönbohm, J., Teret, S., & Recce, M. (2013). Personalized Firearms and Electronic Safety Devices Perspectives. In ’ (pp. 25 - 43). Geneva, Switzerland: The Small Arms Survey. Retrieved from http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/fileadmin/docs/L-External-publications/2013/SAS2013- Personalized-Firearms-Perspectives-Conference-Paper.pdf
Keystone Sporting Arms, LLC. Chipmunkrifles.com. Retrieved 25 May 2016, from http://chipmunkrifles.com/chipmunk_aboutus.php
Langton, L. (2012). Firearms Stolen during Household Burglaries and Other Property Crimes, 2005–2010 (1st ed., p. 1). Bureau of Justice Statistics. Retrieved from http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/fshbopc0510.pdf
Levin, S. (2016). Smart guns: could fingerprint technology solve America's shooting deaths?. the Guardian. Retrieved 25 May 2016, from https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/feb/24/personalized-smart-guns- biometric-access-fingerprints-gun-control
Richinick, M. (2014). Could technology be the gun control of 2014?. MSNBC. Retrieved 25 May 2016, from http://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/could-technology-be-the-gun-control- 2014
Shackleford, D. (2013). Virtualization security: Protecting Virtualized Environment (p. 231). Indianapolis, Ind.: Wiley.
Stuart, H. (2014). How The Gun Lobby And A Dumb Law Are Keeping Us From Safer Guns. The Huffington Post. Retrieved 25 May 2016, from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/16/safer-guns_n_5570670.html
