Some smart gun models including the Armatix iP1 rely on radio-frequency identification chips - frequently used on building security system key cards - which can be hacked and altered. If police electronic gun security information is stolen like Target’s customer credit card information was this year, he said, the results could be devastating. Hacking poses a particularly big threat in high-pressure situations, Johnson said. “We are going to save lives, law enforcement lives, and enable them to do their job better.” “We’re not in the space that a lot of other smart gun vendors are focusing on,” he said. Any system that could potentially cause a gun to deactivate due to physical conditions, hacking or lag time simply isn’t “good technology,” Stewart said. Granted, Yardarm is in an entirely different sector of the smart gun market - its product is an auxiliary wireless system, not a firearm - but it’s the unobtrusiveness that Stewart believes makes the technology promising. It’s something that’s good for everyone.”
“They’re protecting their lives, they’re protecting our lives.
“Wherever technology is useful for mission critical situations with our military and law enforcement, we ought to give them that tool,” Stewart said in a telephone interview. The company is in the process of consulting with gun manufacturers, and reactions from police organizations have been positive, Stewart said. The information is transmitted and stored along the way, keeping a record of gun activity for forensics and courtroom evidence. Yardarm’s add-on chip serves as an unobtrusive wireless GSM monitoring system specifically for law enforcement firearms, communicating information on movement, holstering and firing between officers and command centers. RELATED Maryland mall shooter had Columbine obsessionĪt an office building lodged between a Goodwill Industries shop and a Little Caesars in Capitola, Calif., Bob Stewart’s Yardarm Technologies thinks it can offer a better, less risky solution to the smart gun market.