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Comment by paulsutter | Hacker News Reader

Yes. A friend of mine has a patent on a gun that fires only for one person. The gun has been extensively tested and works great. The fire/no-fire decision is based on the way the trigger is pulled.

Gun manufacturers hate it because it has scary gun control implications. But if/when it does become available New Jersey police will all use it.

Keystrokes should be way more distinctive than a trigger pull.

EDIT: Michael Recce is his name, http://www.njit.edu/news/2003/2003-125.php

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Screenplay for the opening scene of Bond 24 (Skyfall is already in post-production).

James Bond is chasing a villain. Draws his gun to aim for a long range shot. (Gun has a little green LED on the side) Out of the side lunges a henchman who engages Bond in hand to hand combat. The gun goes skidding away. Henchman wins combat over Bond and runs to the gun. It appears Bond is done for. Henchman draws gun. The LED is red, but the henchman doesn't notice.

<CLICK>

Henchman thinks the gun is out of bullets and flings it at Bond as a projectile and runs at him to reengage hand-to-hand combat. Bond deftly catches the gun. He draws it. The LED is green.

Cue gunbarrel sequence.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_XPjcAFuQY

That idea and even the scenario you describe has actually been used numerous times in action movies (though admittedly usually using a different principle like fingerprint reading), including the James Bond franchise. For example, in License To Kill Q invents a gun with a palm reader that can only be fired by the person programmed in. It has green lights on the grip.

The first example that comes to mind for me is a scene in the 2007 movie Shoot 'Em Up; the protagonist's workaround for using a dead henchman's thumbprint-verified firearm is to use their severed hand (of course).

That's fascinating. Can you share more detail? How do they key it to the individual? Do people really not pull the trigger differently in high-stress situations vs at the firing range?

I bet it works on a combination of force, centroid of pressure, time, and shake.

Could also be measuring the galvanic skin response and the like to try to further narrow it down. But I don't know how well that works for reliability since stress can change it i think.

And gloves. It seems likely that gloves may be involved with guns. Best not to rely on it.

If it's patented, you can just read the patent.

It does seem like even a very consistent shooter would be too different between slow, aimed shots and rapid firing. Perhaps one would be able to record a great number of pulling patterns in different stress levels, and still have the lockout be effective?

I would also be fascinated to learn more.

How do they overcome safety risks? What if in the heat of a gunfight, the user pulls the trigger in a different manner and gets locked out by the gun?

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Or, after some sort of injury, the operator pulls on it differently.

Couldn't this sort of thing be solved via some kind of very short range radio based lock? For instance, a transmitter build into a ring that can only "unlock" the matching gun.

A comparable but significantly lower tech solution is using a high-strength magnet integrated into a ring which manipulates some part of the trigger mechanism, unlocking it for use, eg: http://www.tarnhelm.com/magna-trigger/gun/safety/magna1.html

It's not keyed to a specific weapon, but it seems like it would help prevent the most common dangers of either a kid finding and using it accidentally, or in an actual combat situation, being disarmed and having it used against you.

The only major benefit to per-device keying would be (marginal) additional security, and increased auditability

Is it an active thing? Does it learn and adapt to your pull style as you grow as a marksman? A lot of my range time is spent trying to smooth out my trigger pull. As I get better, does the gun recognize this change in pull style?

Does it also detect the changes under duress?

Really fascinating stuff.

What would happen if I were stressed out? I'm quite I'd pull the trigger differently then.

We are getting very close to the Lawgiver gun from Judge Dredd. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawgiver_%28Judge_Dredd%29

I wonder what other 2000AD technologies might start cropping up soon. We already have riot foam, however from what I read it didn't work very well when first used. http://discovermagazine.com/1999/apr/warwithoutdeath1610

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