The Firing Line Forums - View Single Post - What might be the next innovation in handguns?

labnoti · January 3, 2020, 06:54 PM

I think "locks" per se are too controversial, even if they were only intended for law enforcement. "Bio" might not be necessary. Instead, an RFID wrist strap could unlock the holster which would otherwise prevent someone unauthorized from drawing it. It's not clear to me how often perpetrators that shoot officers with the officer's gun actually retrieve it from the holster and how often it is wrestled from their hands.

Rather than "locks" I think we could see guns that integrate with "apps" similar to Mantis X. For a while now, I've been thinking that Axon should make a Glock-a-like with integrated RFID or Rubee and Mantis-X-like sensors (accelerometers) and tie it into their data-acquisition evidence-storage ecosystem. But the win for them is not the value-add features. It would be their margin on the guns under the kind of sole-source contracts they've been able to get with agencies all over the US.

The value-add for non-institutional users is marginal. I don't see a killer-app that would be likely to have even majority-adoption. If red dot sights don't get majority-adoption, I dount that access-control or motion-tracking (accounting) will be anything more than optional add-ons like lasers.

January 3, 2020, 06:54 PM	#77
labnoti Senior Member Join Date: April 2, 2018 Posts: 252	I think "locks" per se are too controversial, even if they were only intended for law enforcement. "Bio" might not be necessary. Instead, an RFID wrist strap could unlock the holster which would otherwise prevent someone unauthorized from drawing it. It's not clear to me how often perpetrators that shoot officers with the officer's gun actually retrieve it from the holster and how often it is wrestled from their hands. Rather than "locks" I think we could see guns that integrate with "apps" similar to Mantis X. For a while now, I've been thinking that Axon should make a Glock-a-like with integrated RFID or Rubee and Mantis-X-like sensors (accelerometers) and tie it into their data-acquisition evidence-storage ecosystem. But the win for them is not the value-add features. It would be their margin on the guns under the kind of sole-source contracts they've been able to get with agencies all over the US. The value-add for non-institutional users is marginal. I don't see a killer-app that would be likely to have even majority-adoption. If red dot sights don't get majority-adoption, I dount that access-control or motion-tracking (accounting) will be anything more than optional add-ons like lasers.