Smart gunsDo Americans want to buy ‘smart’ guns?
“Smart gun” refers to firearms that include some sort of safety device designed to make sure that the gun can be fired only by an authorized user. These safety devices include fingerprint recognition, wearable “tags” that a gun can recognize and other similar features. Smart guns are not yet widely available on the market. But would Americans actually buy smart guns? We need more studies with larger, nationally representative samples and more detailed questions about smart guns. However, my study sheds light on how subgroups of Americans feel about the issue. Not all gun owners or nonowners feel the same way about smart guns. Support is not evenly divided by political party. American attitudes toward smart guns are complex and do not necessarily follow the patterns we might expect.
Recently legislators and special interest groups have pushed for greater availability of “smart” guns as a safety and crime-reduction tool. Then-President Barack Obama called for more research into “smart” gun technology in January 2016, and that April issued a memorandum calling for government-led research into smart guns as well as potential use by some federal agencies.
“Smart gun” refers to firearms that include some sort of safety device designed to make sure that the gun can be fired only by an authorized user. These safety devices include fingerprint recognition, wearable “tags” that a gun can recognize and other similar features. Smart guns are not yet widely available on the market.
They are not a new concept. In the 1970s, Magna-Trigger marketed a magnetic add-on feature for revolvers. This prevented the gun from firing unless the user was wearing a specially designed magnetic ring. Due to controversy and politics, however, smart guns have been very slow to come to market. Smart gun manufacturers and gun retailers have faced boycotts and protests in years past.
But would Americans actually buy smart guns?
My own research focuses heavily on gun purchasing and teen gun carrying. Previous research on Americans’ willingness to purchase smart guns has found mixed results. So I set out to try to better understand how Americans feel about smart guns and why they might feel that way.
Past research doesn’t tell much
There isn’t very much research about attitudes toward smart guns, and the limited research that does exist has drawn different conclusions.
For instance, one study in 2015 by Julia Wolfson at Johns Hopkins and colleagues at Harvard and Northeastern University asked respondents about their willingness to purchase a “childproof” gun. Results showed that most Americans were willing to buy this type of gun, with high interest from people self-identifying as liberals, people who do not currently own guns and those with children in the home.
Another study by the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) in 2013 asked respondents a similar question, but found that Americans were largely against purchasing smart firearms.
So why did these studies find such different results?
