
A Smarter Gun
Guns are one of the few consumer products that have not gone digital, and this film asks why. It follows the engineers and entrepreneurs trying to build a firearm that only fires for its approved user, using fingerprint scanners or radio-frequency chips embedded in a ring or watch. Colt and Smith & Wesson both experimented with similar ideas decades ago and dropped them after gun rights groups organized against the concept, worried that authentication technology could become a mandated first step toward broader restrictions. With an estimated 300 million guns already in circulation in the United States, the film treats the debate as much about culture as engineering: gun shop owners and manufacturers argue that adding electronics only introduces new ways for a weapon to fail at the worst possible moment, while developers and victims of gun violence keep pushing the technology forward anyway. Interviews run across the spectrum, from inventors demonstrating working prototypes to the lobbyists and owners who see the whole project as an attack on how firearms are supposed to work.