In 2021, there were more than 44,900 deaths from gun violence alone, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which tracks these incidents. More than 20,000 of those deaths were categorized as homicides, murders or unintentional. The other 24,090 deaths were ruled suicides and about 1,550 of these deaths were children and teenagers.

A company named LodeStar is trying to fight this problem by creating the next generation of so-called “smart guns.” A smart gun is no different from a regular gun except that users have to be a verified user in order to shoot the gun. The gun has multiple features that let it know if you are a verified user. It has a fingerprint scanner that scans your finger in milliseconds, and for backup, they have a keypad. The keypad is just in case your hands are wet and the scanner has a problem figuring out who you are.

A couple of problems with implementing smart guns are that some people are a little worried about how trustworthy the technology is, and if it will actually help fight gun violence.

In my opinion, I think it would help fight gun violence a lot. You do not know how many times I read the news, and there is a new shooting and most of the time that shooting involves a child. Children should not have such easy access to guns because as you can see, they just are not ready for them, and they need to be properly trained. A con with these smart guns though, is that there is a possibility they can be hacked or tracked with help of the government, and some people do not like that.

At the end of the day, smart guns are not the only solution to helping fight gun violence. Make sure you are responsible if you bear arms, and always make sure you keep it out of reach of little ones and keep it out of sight of criminals until you have to defend yourself.

Also, it is important to check on your loved ones because as you see we have way too many suicides that occur in the United States. Stop being close-minded, and open your eyes to the idea of the smart gun.