The US is the largest market for firearms, so the NRA can use the threat of boycotting a manufacturer within the states to prevent the technology gaining traction elsewhere.

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Antibabelic 12 hours ago | parent [-]

Aren't there manufacturers that only really target local markets that could profit from this technology, e.g. in China, ex-USSR or South America?

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anonymous908213 11 hours ago | parent | next [-]

To profit, they would first have to sell the goods. Who is actually in the market for a smart gun? Consumers aren't, surely. There is virtually no upside to your gun tracking you, at your own expense of buying a more complex piece of tech to boot. So that leaves something like (apparently) New Jersey where the government would compel purchases of smart guns because they were interested in the tracking. But eg. China simply don't allow citizens to purchase guns period. There may be some application to applying it to state-owned firearms to track military and police usage, but deploying that at Chinese scale would be an extremely expensive endeavour for what appears to be a solution in search of a problem. Not to mention the biometric lock concept, if implemented, is introducing an entire new axis of unreliability to a life-or-death tool.

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pabs3 11 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Gun owners in the US probably wouldn't want their gun to be used against them in a home invasion, or by their child at a school. Seems like that could be a large-ish market. Especially if you can lobby regulators in favor of making it a requirement for all or some people.

	▲	avidiax 9 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		You are right that gun owners wouldn't want those things, but they are unlikely to want a smart gun as a solution to those things. They want the gun to be available to them, and not be under duress to use a fingerprint reader or pin pad or RFID ring to do it. Responsible gun owners keep guns out of children's hands by locking them up or supervising them, and irresponsible ones aren't going to want to pay extra for smart features. I think there's a very narrow range of smart features, something like a gun that is unlocked when removed from a holster, but locks up if it is dropped or grabbed, that might be interesting. That makes having the gun taken from an officer less of a threat, which might have an institutional appeal. Give it a 10-hour maintenance mode so that it can be used as a "nightstand gun" while automatically being locked if left idle for longer, and it would basically meet the needs of police both on and off-duty.
	▲	derbOac 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		In my personal experience gun owners want mechanical foolproofness too. They want something that's not going to lock up or fail or discharge at the wrong time. Smart features just add a layer of complexity with fail possibilities to address a problem that many of them would prefer to be addressed differently anyway.
	▲	9 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		[deleted]

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skissane 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I think a country like Australia could be a good starting point for smart guns. Yes, not a very big market-around 8% of US population, with significantly lower rates of gun ownership-but culturally more open to gun control, with a much weaker gun rights lobby, and a marked political tendency towards surveillance and “nanny state” regulation

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numpad0 2 hours ago | parent [-]

IIRC Australia doesn't have legal frameworks for gun ownership for the purpose of self defense, and there's no great implementation of smart guns in the first place.

A smart gun is like an AWS authenticated motor twisting ballpoint pen. Just no one ever seriously pays for such a thing, and it has not even been seriously made if it ever was actually conceived. Making it a requirement is basically out of question.

	▲	skissane 41 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		> Making it a requirement is basically out of question Why? If there’s the political will, it is doable. There are Australian gun manufacturers (e.g. Lithgow Arms, owned by Thales)-and if none of them are willing to cooperate, the government can always start their own gun manufacturer. Indeed, Lithgow Arms was founded in 1912 as a government-owned arms manufacturer, and remained in public hands until the Australian federal government sold it to Thales in 2006.

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xixixao 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I could not locate credible evidence of a major firearm manufacturer that completely refrains from selling into the U.S. civilian market. (ChatGPT)

Glock, Koch, Taurus, even Czech Zbrojovka all sell to US.

Kalashnikov can’t atm, but also probably doesn’t share the safety concern.