The Company That Lets You Shoot Around a Corner Wants to Change the 'Very Liberal Usage of Smart Guns

When it comes to guns, does the word "smart" make you cringe?

Technology and guns don't mix for some firearms owners who are fearful they'll one day be forced to use a biometric or radio frequency ID-enabled locking gun, rather than their tried-and-true weapons. The concern is valid; at least one state already has a law on the books mandating that all gun dealers exclusively sell so-called smart guns within three years after the first one hits the market.

The SmartView is TrackingPoint's system that allows a shooter to connect the rifle's scope to a Wi-Fi connected device so they can shoot around a corner and stay under cover, whether engaging an enemy or taking aim at an eight-point buck. (Image source: Tracking Point)

Firearms technology company TrackingPoint wants to change that conversation.

"The gun control lobby doesn't own the word 'smart,'" Oren Schauble, TrackingPoint's director of marketing, told TheBlaze. "People and engineering companies in this industry are doing true 'smart' things, and we want to showcase that and give true pro-gun people something they can believe in for the future of firearms."

TrackingPoint's SmartView capability allows a shooter to employ wearable technology like Google Glass to shoot around a corner while maintaining cover from an enemy or just keeping out of sight from an eight-point buck. Connecting the gun's scope to a Wi-Fi enabled device is an example of the advanced technology the company wants to bring to the gun industry, but TrackingPoint has been frustrated with the political slant associated with smart technology.

"The very liberal usage of smart guns has been another frustrating point for us," Schauble said. "Just seeing how they played that biometric and fingerprint recognition technology, which we don't agree with at all, and they tried to play that and create this category, as if the only guns that can be smart or have technology in them have to be used for this gun control, that we are not supportive of."

Schauble said the "liberal media" has attempted to classify smart guns, or weapons that require some kind of biometric input or RFID sensor in order to get the gun to fire, as the only solution to safe gun use, a premise with which TrackingPoint strongly disagrees.

"That's been frustrating for us because we create intelligent systems with intelligent design, to have more capability not less capability," Schauble said. "That debate impacts us and impacts the way a lot of people think about technology and firearms, and that's something that -- personally -- gets to me a bit."

Check out TrackingPoint's video on their SmartView application, and their precision-guided firing options here:

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