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I found the following article in OMNI magazine, February 1995 issue, page 31.

 It is in the section called CONTINUUM.  I didn't see the story on Day One,

or whatever the "news" broadcast was, but thought this article made some

"interesting" statements.  It talks about more than just the "smart guns",

but it was easier just to include the entire article rather than just parts

of it.  Authors name is at the bottom.





OMNI Magazine  February 1995, page 31.



CONTINUUM

Future Firearms:  New weapons take law enforcement into the

twenty-first century.  Plus, a push for smaller people, and the

invasion of the fire ants.



"Police officers are still equipped much as Wyatt Earp was in the

nineteenth century," says David Boyd, director of the Science and

Technology Division of the National Institute of Justice (NIJ). 

As head of NIJ's Less-Than-Lethal (LTL) technology program, Boyd

is equipping police officers for the twenty-first century by

designing Robocop-like tools and weapons with an eye to both

safety and effectiveness.



Though it sounds a bit like a Hollywood comic device for chase

scenes, sticky foam may prove to be a valuable  addition to the

arsenals of real world crimefighters.  "Sticky foam stops a

suspect because everything it touches becomes stuck to it,

immobilizing the subject's legs and arms like contact cement,"

says Tom Goolsby, senior member of the technical staff of the

Access Delay Technology Department at Sandia National

Laboratories.  The foam is stored as a pressurized liquid

containing Freon, rubbers, resins, oils, and stabilizers which,

when exposed to atmospheric pressure, turns into foam.  The

process expands the 1 1/2 liters of sticky, rubbery materials

into more than 10 gallons of foam with a density of cotton balls.



Goolsby says one potential use of the device might be in dealing

with difficult prisoners.  Presently, prison guards use body

armor and riot shields to protect themselves from violent and

reluctant prisoners during transport from cell to cell or prison

to prison.  With sticky foam, the foam can be shot through the

food slot with no injury to the guards.  Other possible uses

might include riot control and added protection for high-security

areas.  Sticky foam might help to capture intruders by blocking

exits with large bags filled with the substance through which an

intruder would have to pass in order to escape.  In so doing, the

suspect would have to break the bag.  The sticky foam inside

would do the rest.  So far, the two major challenges to this

technology seem to be environmental and medical.  Researchers

must find a way to effectively clean up the mess that sticky foam

makes and determine if the compound poses any serious health

risks to both users and targets.



Another promising idea for law enforcement is the development of

smart guns which would employ user-recognizing devices to

eliminate the possibility of an unauthorized user getting control

of a police officer's firearm.  "In the next two years, we will

develop a list of as many technologies as possible to choose

from, prioritize them with a ranking scheme, and build working

models of at least two," says Douglas R. Weiss, project manager

at Sandia, under contract for the NIJ.



One model, for instance, uses a capacitive proximity sensor

embedded in the gun.  As the hand is wrapped around it, an

electric field discriminates between a large and a small hand. 

Other biometric (the study of unique attributes of the body)

devices, like voice recognition, retinal scans, and finger and

palm prints, may also be developed.  The advantage of such

devices is obvious:  Sensors ensure that the person who fires the

weapon is the person authorized to use it.



Smart gun technologies are based on the simple premise that the

more the gun can "know", the more effective it is as a weapon. 

Electronic tags similar to bar codes on library books or the

ubiquitous plastic tags in clothing stores, for example, could be

worn by undercover police who would be otherwise unrecognizable. 

"If an officer wears a tag on the body in a ring, watch, uniform

button, or belt buckle, a reader in the firearm can scan the tag

for the identity either using magnetics, electronics, or radio

frequency," says Weiss.  It might just be enough to save

undercover agents from the dangers of friendly fire.



Weiss stresses that close attention is being paid to

surety--reliability, safety, security, and use control of the

smart gun.  It must work when officers want it to, and not work

when they don't want it to.  He likens the seriousness of this

task to the nearly identical design problems inherent in nuclear

weapons:  They have to be reliable, but must also be absolutely

safe until ready for use.



After safety, cost is a big concern.  Because this technology is

so expensive to develop, Boyd is planning to expand into the

civilian market.  But there are better reasons for targeting

civilian firearms owners.  Smart guns might, for example, greatly

reduce the number of in-home firearm thefts.  More importantly,

many domestic homicides, suicides, and accidental shootings could

be prevented with a smart gun.  Whatever the technologies are,

Weiss plans to design retrofitable devices and to make them

easily affordable by all firearm owners.  New technologies may

not be the solution to increased violence and crime, but safer

weapons is a good place to start. - CAROL SILVERMAN SAUNDERS

 

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