BELLEVUE, WA – New legislation mandating so-called “authorized user” technology on handguns is nothing more than a re-packaged “smart gun” scheme, and it’s a stupid idea that should be dead-on-arrival on Capitol Hill, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.
The “Handgun Trigger Safety Act of 2015” was announced yesterday by Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY). It would require that within five years of passage, all handguns manufactured in the United States include “smart gun” technology that allows them to be used only by “authorized’ users.
“This is like listening to a broken jukebox, playing the same song over and over again,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “This is nothing more than backdoor handgun ban, but this time Maloney and Markey are dropping it on the front porch. They know that reliable technology doesn’t exist.”
Under this proposal, within ten years, private gun dealers would have to retrofit used handguns with this “smart gun” technology. The legislation provides for reimbursement on the cost of installing the technology. The measure also provides grant funding to “qualified entities” to develop this “personalized handgun” technology.
“They tried this in New Jersey and now even anti-gun state lawmakers are considering a repeal,” Gottlieb noted. “The current technology is a proven failure, but that doesn’t seem to impress anti-gunners who keep pushing this dumb idea.
“What we really need is a law mandating smart legislators,” he quipped. “It is ridiculous to propose a law requiring the use of technology that doesn’t work. It’s a measure with only one purpose, and that’s to sidestep the Second Amendment by eventually rendering all handguns as useless as the lawmakers who promote these goofy ideas.”