Frequently Asked Questions

No. As the owner, you will have full control over your own firearm.

The owner adds their fingerprint when they purchase the gun, becoming the “admin” user. They then have the option to add or remove anyone else that they choose, such as a spouse or trusted friend, just by authenticating with their fingerprint and following a simple process.

Owners also have the option to sell the firearm. Again, they authenticate with their fingerprint and follow a different process that wipes all the fingerprints from the gun, including the owner’s. This then allows them to transfer the gun, in any legal fashion, to someone else. The new owner then adds their fingerprint and the process starts over.

Currently, our Smart Gun unlocks in less than 1 second. Our goal is to make sure that the added smart technology doesn’t slow the user down when they need to use their firearm.

The gun locks instantly when the owner removes their hand from it. For example, if the gun is dropped, it will lock before it hits the ground.

Our Smart Gun uses advanced sensors in the grip to detect when a user is holding the gun. This means that the gun will remain unlocked for as long as the user is holding it, even if their finger slips off the fingerprint sensor after the Smart Gun is unlocked.

The moment that the user loses grip of the firearm, whether they put the gun down, holstered it, or had it taken out of their hands, the gun immediately locks.

The Smart Gun is designed to make fingerprint detection as reliable and intuitive as possible. As long as the user is gripping the firearm with proper grip, or a grip that is close to proper, the gun will function as expected.

Currently, our Smart Gun is only available to right-handed users. We expect to be launching left-handed and ambidextrous Smart Guns in the very near future.

Suicide by firearm is among the leading causes of death for young people. Many suicides are done using guns not owned by the victims. Smart guns cannot be used in these situations.

Suicides make up the bulk of gun deaths, with over 21,000 firearms suicides out of 33,000 firearm deaths in 2014.^[1] What’s more, suicide is the second leading cause of death among people aged 15-34 years old.^[2]

[1] Deaths Final Data, Table 18: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr65/nvsr65_04.pdf
[2] Suicide Datasheet: https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/suicide-datasheet-a.pdf

No. We are strongly opposed to any smart-gun-specific laws or regulations.

We believe that smart guns can provide an option to better secure firearms for some firearm owners. They are not a solution that equally applies to all types of gun owners and they shouldn’t be forced on gun owners.

All the design work and development that we have been doing over the past 4 years goes towards creating a product that can stand on its own in a free market. We are making a product that is reliable and easy to use so that the gun community will see it as a viable option. We don’t need mandates to sell our smart guns, we will do that on the merits of our product.

Our goal at Biofire is to create a safer firearm that doesn’t restrict the freedoms of the gun owner or limit how they can use it. Mandates oppose this goal.

The New Jersey mandate is a major roadblock to smart guns, and has been since it was passed 20 years ago. We are closely following the repeal process and were disappointed to see Chris Christie veto the repeal of this law that we view as restricting gun owners’ rights.

No. There are no communication devices of any sort in our smart gun. There is no smart phone app, no Bluetooth, no Wi-Fi. This means that there is no way that anyone can do anything to the gun remotely.

This also means that the gun has no way of “verifying” or “registering” the owner with any government program. You need to observe any laws relevant in your state towards purchasing firearms normally, but once the gun has been purchased, the only person who can control it is the owner. Smart guns do not introduce any additional purchasing requirements or background checks over a normal firearm.

If they have physical access, we are making it very hard. The USB port at the bottom is used only for charging, the data is not connected to anything. The images of the user’s fingerprints are never stored on the gun, only mathematical representations of them that cannot be converted back into the image. We are encrypting the fingerprint storage to make sure that fingerprints cannot be added without the owner’s action. Our final product will undergo a security audit by a third party, the gold standard for securing an electronic device. Plus, for any of this to even be a concern, a trained criminal must have broken into your house and spent quite a bit of time taking apart the smart gun.