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Obama Puts His Weight Behind Smart Gun Technology Obama Puts His Weight Behind Smart-Gun Technology
(about 7 hours later)
WASHINGTON — President Obama will use the power of his office to push for adoption of so-called smart gun technology that could eventually limit the use of a firearm to its owner, the White House announced Friday morning. WASHINGTON — President Obama will use the power of his office to try to jump-start long-stalled “smart-gun” technology that could eventually allow only the owner of a firearm to use it, the White House announced Friday.
The move is intended to allow Mr. Obama to confront firearms violence in the face of fierce opposition to broader gun control measures. But critics of smart gun technology, including some police officials, are expected to fight a proposal that they see as unproven and an unwarranted restriction on the freedom to use firearms. Over the opposition of gun rights groups, he also vowed to push ahead with a new federal policy giving the F.B.I. access to more mental health records of some Social Security recipients to better flag people who might be banned from buying a gun.
The initiative was unveiled on the White House website, along with a report from the administration’s law enforcement agencies concluding that the government should do more to spur development of the technologies. To that end, the Defense and Justice Departments will develop criteria for gun manufacturers who want to sell smart guns to federal, state and local law enforcement agencies. The dual moves expand on a series of steps that a tearful Mr. Obama pledged to take in January to confront gun violence with or without Congress, which has offered stiff opposition to broader gun control measures.
The administration will also offer cash prizes and grants to gun manufacturers to spur development of the technology, which is intended to make a gun useless if someone other than the owner tries to fire it. But the steps announced Friday generated objections not only from usual opponents like the National Rifle Association, but also from some police groups, which raised safety concerns about officers’ using untested smart guns in real-life situations.
The administration stopped short of mandating the use of smart guns by federal agencies but said it saw promise in committing more federal money and attention to a technology that has evolved in fits and starts over more than two decades.
The idea behind the smart-gun technology is to limit the use of a firearm to its owner, through personalized identifiers like a biometric sensor on the gun grip, a ring sensor worn by the owner or a digital pass code entered on a wristband.
Advocates see the technology as a way of stopping criminals from using stolen guns — or children from accidentally shooting themselves or others. Just this month, the nation saw nine accidental shootings in one week involving children as young as 2 years old.
But despite millions of dollars in federal grant money awarded to gun manufacturers and researchers, no commercially viable smart gun has emerged, officials said.
In New Jersey, lawmakers passed a 2002 law requiring that guns be “smart” once they have been available on the market for three years. That three-year countdown has never been started in part because of pressure from gun rights activists on manufacturers not to develop the technology. Earlier this year, Gov. Chris Christie vetoed a new smart-gun measure.
The latest push was introduced on the White House website Friday, along with a report from the administration’s law enforcement agencies on the viability and effectiveness of smart-gun technology. It concluded that the federal government could do more — by making it cheaper for gun manufacturers to bring smart guns to the market and by using the federal government’s enormous purchasing power to encourage development.
To that end, the Justice and Homeland Security Departments will develop criteria for gun manufacturers that want to sell smart guns to federal, state and local law enforcement agencies.
The administration will also offer millions more in cash awards and grants to gun manufacturers to encourage development of the technology.
In a post on his Facebook page, Mr. Obama wrote that “as long as we’ve got the technology to prevent a criminal from stealing and using your smartphone, then we should be able to prevent the wrong person from pulling a trigger on a gun.”In a post on his Facebook page, Mr. Obama wrote that “as long as we’ve got the technology to prevent a criminal from stealing and using your smartphone, then we should be able to prevent the wrong person from pulling a trigger on a gun.”
Mr. Obama has been frustrated in his efforts to enact broad gun control measures after mass shootings and a spike in shooting deaths in some major American cities. In 2013, he failed to convince Congress to pass a universal background check requirement after the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. James O. Pasco Jr., executive director of the National Fraternal Order of Police, which has more than 330,000 members, said in a telephone interview that he was glad to see that the plan announced by the White House did not mandate the testing of smart-gun technology by law enforcement agencies.
But in January, Mr. Obama announced a series of executive actions that expanded background checks for some gun purchases, while improving the tracking of stolen weapons and the reporting of mental health information. But he said he remained concerned by a renewed push.
On Friday, Mr. Obama also announced a new federal rule designed to make sure that federal mental health records are included in the background check system. “They’ve been talking about smart guns for 25 years,” he said. “But we don’t want unproven technology to be tried out on law enforcement officers, who are most likely to be in the line of fire when they need their weapons to work. This is fine if the concept works, but we don’t want people going helter-skelter to embrace the latest shiny object.”
The rule, which is subject to public comment and hearings, would ensure that the Social Security Administration provide information about mental health issues to the background check system, to prevent mentally ill people from being able to buy a gun. The Obama administration also posted online Friday a proposed regulation from the Social Security Administration that officials believe could help keep guns out of the hands of people who are not allowed to own a firearm because of mental illness.
“As long as I’m your president, I will do everything in my power to make our communities safer and keep guns out of the wrong hands,” Mr. Obama wrote in the Facebook post. A summary of the draft proposal said the Social Security Administration would identify people who receive disability payments because of mental impairment or because they are not competent to handle their own affairs, and would provide information on them to the Justice Department four times a year to include in the F.B.I.’s gun-purchase review system. The Social Security Administration would also notify those people — thought to total about 75,000 — that they are banned from buying or possessing a firearm under federal law.
Advocates for the mentally ill say that those with mental illnesses would be unfairly stigmatized even though they account for only about 4 percent of all incidents of gun violence.
The National Rifle Association, meanwhile, said that both the Social Security plan and the push for smart-gun technology were unwarranted “distractions” by an administration intent on imposing more restrictions on gun ownership.
“President Obama’s obsession with gun control knows no bounds,” said Jennifer Baker, a spokeswoman for the N.R.A.’s lobbying arm.
Mr. Obama signaled that he would take steps on the smart-gun technology and firearms purchases by Social Security recipients in January, when he announced a series of executive actions that also expanded background checks for some gun purchases and improved the tracking of stolen weapons.
The president said he was forced to act on his own authority out of frustration after Congress stymied him in trying to enact broader gun control measures. In 2013, he failed to convince Congress to pass a universal background check requirement even after the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn, and other mass shootings.