“Lawdog” is one who is in LE. He’s on www.thehighroad.org , a firearms discussion board. “lawdog” writes some pretty interesting stuff ………. below is one of his newest………. enjoy!

———————————
LawDog
Moderator

Registered: Dec 2002
Location:
Posts: 644
Paging the idiots pushing smartguns
My county uses the Identix LiveScan system for taking fingerprints from accused critters in our jail. Basically, it requires that all four fingers be placed on a scan pad and scanned into the system, then each finger is individually scanned and compared to the four-finger group.

If the two back-to-back scans match, the system allows you to print and/or transmit a set of fingerprints.

This is the idea behind fingerprint recognition smartgun systems. You match your prints to your prints already in the system, and the system allows you to fire the weapon.

Okay.

This system sits in a four-foot tall shockproof metal case, it has an entire harddrive dedicated to nothing but the scan program and we have ’round the clock technical support.

We can’t get the bloody thing to match the individual prints to the four-finger set anywhere from 50% to 80% of the time.

Today, for two hours before the start of my eight-hour shift, and all eight hours of my shift we had to re-boot the whole system before each critter was printed.

Print critter. Get next critter. Re-boot system. Wait five minutes for system to come back on-line. Print second critter. Get next critter. Re-boot system. Wait five minutes. Print third critter. Get fourth critter. Re-boot system…

As far as I know, the next shift is still having to do this.

This is the wonder technology that they want to stick in our firearms?

It doesn’t work sitting in a shock-proof metal case — how the hell is it going to work in a recoiling .45ACP?

The scan plates have to be meticulously cleaned with special lint-proof, non-abrasive, delicate, unobtanium pads, otherwise the plates get scratched and the machine can’t read the prints reliably — everday holster wear scrapes bluing off of guns, not to mention delicate scan pads.

It requires an entire hard-drive worth of space to hold the program — I don’t care how high-tech a Glock is, you ain’t gonna find room for a hard-drive in the grip.

The critters’ fingers damned near have to be surgeon-level clean, otherwise any oil, grease or other staining materials etch the scanning pad and confuses the machine on the next set of prints, meaning you have to pay through the sinuses for a new set of scanning pads — and if oil left on fingers from an oil change the previous day eats into the scan pad that badly, I don’t want to know what various gun care/cleaning products will do to them.

Critter is sweating — you know, like the sweaty palms you get in a shooting situation — forget it. System won’t reliably read the prints.

Critter is shaking and smearing the print — you know, like the shakes you get during an adrenaline dump — forget it. System won’t reliably read the prints.

Bloody fingers? Hah! Forget it. And clean those plates before the blood etches them!

When the fonging LiveScan goes into a sulk, we just swear and haul out the printers ink and the print cards. An 80% failure rate isn’t a big deal, it’s just inconvienent as all get out.

On a handgun, an 80% fail rate is a very big deal.

Why the hell does anyone think this sort of thing is a good idea on a handgun?

LawDog