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.

The tech just isn't there; hand-held guns don't benefit from a computerized firing system at all. So any smart feature on human sized guns and less will be totally removable addons, and that completely defeats its purpose.

Many tanks and planes do have smart guns. Electronic firing control with additional software features that impede firing are beneficial and totally fine at that scale.

I see at least two problems with smart guns though:

1. Temper resistance is not temper impossibility 2. If a tag allows tracking, bad actors might track good actors?

I would imagine that any manufacturer being seen doing so, would face US consumer boycotts.

There are barely any civilian gun markets outside the US. US is really really unique in their relationship to guns.

The correct answer is - all the designs so far aren’t great.

The military would love a smart gun to cut down on accidental discharges. Cops would love it to stop weapons being used against cops.

The issue is that it has to have a very high reliability (you don’t want it to fail to fire while a suspect is shooting at you). And not much point if it only works “sometimes” with unauthorized users.

Because it’s just a bad idea.

Most of the world doesn’t need that whole setup because:

- Our cultural baseline around firearms is completely different. Countries like Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, Austria, and the Czech Republic have plenty of guns at home - and historically, a lot of them were actual assault rifles, not “looks-spicy” semiautos.

- We treat guns like weapons. They live in safes, not nightstands, and kids get taught safety early, the same way you’d teach them not to put a fork in a power supply.

smart guns is future dystopian