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Podcasts Take Two
Could smart gun technology hit the market soon?
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Jan 6, 2016
Listen • 8:32
Could smart gun technology hit the market soon?
Part of President Obama's plan to reduce gun violence involves developing high tech solutions that might provide better ways to track gun ownership and increase safety.
In this photo taken Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2014, Jim Schaff, vice president of marketing with Yardarm, demonstrates how a sensor fits into an Airsoft replica of a Glock 17 handgun in San Francisco. A California-based startup has designed new law enforcement technology that aims to automatically alert dispatch when an officer's gun is unholstered and fired. Yardarm can also track where an officer's gun is located and in which direction it's fired. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)
In this photo taken Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2014, Jim Schaff, vice president of marketing with Yardarm, demonstrates how a sensor fits into an Airsoft replica of a Glock 17 handgun in San Francisco. A California-based startup has designed new law enforcement technology that aims to automatically alert dispatch when an officer's gun is unholstered and fired. Yardarm can also track where an officer's gun is located and in which direction it's fired. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)
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Eric Risberg/AP
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Part of President Obama's plan to reduce gun violence involves developing high tech solutions that might provide better ways to track gun ownership and increase safety.

Part of President Obama's plan to reduce gun violence involves developing high tech solutions that might provide better ways to track gun ownership and increase safety.

The firearms, known as smart guns, could prevent anyone but the owner from firing them. And, not unlike many smart phones, they could be located if they were lost or stolen.

Some of this technology is available today - from fingerprint scans to microstamping. But even some proponents of gun control say moving to smart guns might just be trading one lethal weapon for another.

For more on all this, we're joined by Margot Hirsch, president of the Smart Tech Challenges Foundation, a Silicon-based foundation that fosters research into gun technology.