World’s first ‘Smart Glock’ with facial recognition and fingerprint unlock to launch for $1,500

Americans can now pre-order a ‘Smart Glock’ that needs facial recognition and fingerprint technology to fire.

Startup firearms manufacturer Biofire is selling the futuristic-looking 9mm pistol for $1,500 with orders to ship in 2024.

The smart gun scans two forms of biometric ID, an optical fingerprint sensor and 3D infrared facial recognition, to ensure that only the true owner of the gun can activate the firearm, preventing accidents and misuse of stolen guns.

The Broomfield, Colorado-based company hopes its gun will make a dent in the US cycle of gun violence.

More than 13,900 people have been killed by guns in the US alone in the first four months of 2023, according to the nonprofit Gun Violence Archive.

The total cost for the Smart Gun is currently $1499, although a $1899 Launch Edition and a $2499 Founder’s Edition are also available

Biofire’s marketing statements estimate that its smart smart weapon could prevent about two-thirds of gun deaths attributed to suicide each year, an estimate that would have amounted to 22,000 lives saved in 2018.

But Biofire’s estimate has been accused of being inflated.

An analysis by Engineering & Technology (E&T)the internal publication for the non-profit Institution of Engineering and Technology in the UK estimated that only about 6,109 annual firearm deaths would likely be prevented.

E&T based its findings on data from the US Center for Disease Control and other research reports.

In both cases, of course, this is only if the high-tech firearm reaches the market on time, as planned.

“Our goal is not just to start collecting orders, but to get this into full production and produce as much of it as people want to buy,” said 26-year-old Biofire founder and CEO Kai Kloepfer. told the Denver Business Journal“because it’s a great concept and I think it will be a good thing for the world.”

“It has the ability to have an incremental, immediate impact that bypasses much of the political gridlock,” Kloepfer believes.

As a high school student, Kloepfer lived about a half-hour drive from Aurora, a Denver suburb, in 2012 when a gunman killed 12 people and injured many more during a midnight screening of the Batman sequel. The dark knight rises.

The Gen Z entrepreneur immediately started toying with the idea of ​​a biometric lock system that could make firearms safer from misuse, accidents and theft.

Soon his concept for a fingerprint scanning gun went from a science fair project to a spot on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list.

He then caught the attention of libertarian VC Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, which helped him raise more than $30 million for the start-up.

Biofire’s smart gun uses two forms of ID to ensure the gun owner has a failsafe to activate the firearm in all situations. An optical fingerprint sensor (left) scans the owner’s middle finger as his index finger wraps around the trigger. And a 3D infrared facial recognition system (right) scans backward to verify their identity, as the owner aims the Smart Gun

Biofire’s young founder and CEO, 26-year-old Kai Kloepfer, spent years designing a gun with a fingerprint reader built into the handle and won the Smart Tech Challenges Foundation for the innovation in 2014, not long after starting the project for a high school science fair

Biofire, alongside its competitors in the “smart gun” space such as LodeStar Works and SmartGunz, has boasted for years that their products are nearly ready for market with launch dates still glistening on the horizon.

Last year, the senior vice president of the firearms industry association, the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), Lawrence Keane, expressed skepticism last year about these firms’ repeated promises.

“If I had a penny for every time in my career I heard someone say they’re about to bring us a so-called smart gun,” Keane said, “I’d probably be retired by now.” ‘

Nevertheless, U.S. customers ready to pre-order can pay a $149 deposit, about one-tenth of the smart weapon’s $1,499 price tag, to reserve their weapon via the Biofire website.