“Smart guns” are finally here — does anyone want one?

Although nearly impossible to believe, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that guns are responsible for killing more American kids than any other cause. As disturbing as this is, Kai Kloepfer, a young man who grew up in Boulder County, has managed to produce one of the world’s first and most effective “smart guns” to help save lives.

The story of his smart gun begins when 15-year- old Kloepfer was on vacation from Fairview High School in 2012 and a homicidal manic walked into an Aurora movie theater not far from Kloepfer’s home and randomly shot and killed a dozen movie fans and left an additional 58 with lifethreatening wounds and life-long trauma. Kloepfer’s dream of making a smart gun was still just that because much work needed to be done before an actual “smart gun” would be produced.

Soon after the Aurora murders, Kloepfer pledged to do all he could to reduce or eliminate gun violence and death while numerous experimental attempts were being made by others to produce a “smart gun.” His goal was to help prevent young people from accidental shootings and especially from using a gun to commit suicide. Early attempts included experiments with fingertip sensors and other sensors. Kai spent more than 1,500 hours working on his ideas which led to developing a prototype model that he submitted to an International Science and Engineering Fair (now called Regeneron). Students from 70 countries around the world participated in that competition for cash prizes and the recognition and prestige winning such a prize would bring. Kloepfer won his prize in the electrical and mechanical engineering category, and the $3,000 prize money was used to continue developing and perfecting his “smart gun.”

The following year Kai received a $50,000 grant from the Smart Tech Challenges Foundation a nonprofit supported by Silicone Valley’s “angel investor” Ron Conway, who became interested in “smart gun” technology shortly after the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Connecticut. Then in 2019, Kloepfer applied for and won a $100,000 Peter Thiel Fellowship that allowed Kloepfer to go on leave from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Smart Tech Challenges Foundation granted $1 million to firearms safety technology projects. Any smart gun immediately would need to identify a registered gun owner simply and effectively. The issue turned out to be tremendously difficult engineering problems, and early attempts just added a sensor attached to an existing weapon. Kloepfer’s approach was much more involved because it would scan fingerprints and faces.

His hard work and promising outcomes led him to drop out of MIT early and actually begin work on putting together a viable business enterprise. He named his company “Biofire Technologies” and the firm soon raised $30 million of venture capital as well as private funding during this initial phase of becoming a real company.

Today it has a prototype “smart gun” to demonstrate its many capabilities and is now accepting orders.

It hopefully will be manufactured by year’s end with deliveries happening next year. In case you would like to be one of the first in your neighborhood to own one, Biofire is taking orders at smartgun.com. You will need to provide a $149 deposit, which enables you to shell out $1,350 more when there are inventories ready to ship next year.

(A more extensive report on Kloepfer’s smart gun can be found in the May 8 issue of Bloomberg Businessweek.)

The CDC reports that nearly 50,000 Americans die from gunshot wounds every year. More than half of these deaths are suicides, and about 40% are the result of murder. Interestingly, gun owners are four times more likely to become a victim of gun deaths than nonowners. Studies indicate that smart guns could provide up to 37% fewer accidental deaths and even more murders and suicides — especially among young people.