--- title: "New Gun Won’t Fire Without Checking Owner’s Fingerprint" description: "There's finally a smart gun on the market, but as some analysts note, it's hard to say whether firearm enthusiasts will actually buy it. " date: "2023-04-14" modified: "2023-04-14" authors: - name: "Noor Al-Sibai" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/new-smart-gun-fingerprint-facial-recognition" categories: - "Future Society" tags: - "gun violence" - "guns" - "smart gun" - "the digest" --- # New Gun Won’t Fire Without Checking Owner’s Fingerprint ![There's finally a smart gun on the market, but as some analysts note, it's hard to say whether firearm enthusiasts will actually buy it. ]() *\Image: Biofire\* ## Trigger Fingerprint There's finally a smart gun on the market — but analysts warn that it's hard to say whether firearm enthusiasts will actually buy it. As [*Bloomberg* reports](), the Biofire smart gun company's weapon, which only unlocks after scanning its owner's face or fingerprint, is hitting the market today after nearly a decade of research and development. At only 26, Biofire's Coloradan founder Kai Kloepfer has been working on making a safer firearm since he was 15, when the [mass shooting at a movie theater]() in the nearby town of Aurora, Colorado impressed upon him the need for gun violence solutions. "These people just died right down the street, at the movie theater that I often went to," Kloepfer told *Bloomberg*. "I easily could have been there. It was a major shift for me. I felt like there was something I could do." ## Elevated Weaponry By 2013, the engineering-minded youngster submitted a prototype to a national science competition and won $3,000, and by the next year, he was awarded a $50,000 grant to keep working on what would become his company's smart gun. While Kloepfer's $1,5000 smart gun indeed sounds ingenious, there remains one glaring issue: that many gun buyers, frankly, aren't looking for extra safety measures when purchasing firearms. "You have to convince me that the kind of person who leaves a loaded gun out in the house will be the same person that selects a smart gun instead of a Glock," Jon Stokes, one of the co-founders of the gun rights organization Open Source Defense, told *Bloomberg*. "This is hard for me to buy." All the same, Kloepfer's bet — and his backstory — make for a compelling argument for responsible firearm use, and he's hoping to be a test case. "We want to prove that this market exists," he told *Bloomberg*. "If we can save one life, I think that’s the right thing to do. I think we can save tens of thousands of lives." **More on violence:** [*Murdered Tech CEO May Have Been Stabbed to Death by Tech Exec He Knew*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've often been drawn to unpacking the narratives that underlie technological, scientific and medical progress, with a special interest in areas of conflict and ambiguity that end up setting agendas and steering the fates of both elites and the hoi polloi. I'm a committed generalist, but I often find myself returning to work involving NASA and the private space sector, the effects of AI on media and society, and the mechanics of the pharmaceutical industry, with a specific focus on the spread of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Prior to Futurism, I worked for publications ranging from Media Matters and Truthdig to Raw Story and Bustle. I'm also the author of "Myspace Scene Queens," a 2024 title in Instar Books' acclaimed "Remember the Internet" series. My work at Futurism has been cited by outlets including the New Yorker, Slate, Nieman Lab, the Verge, the MIT Technology Review, the Sunday Times, and the Daily Beast. I grew up in North Carolina, attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and now live in Brooklyn, New York. In my free time, I'm an avid reader and music fan; you can probably find me at a local poetry reading, concert, underground rave, or DJ set. I'm the proud parent of an ineffable orange cat named Mee-Mow. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()