A Smith & Wesson FAQ.

• Author: Olson, Walter

A gun deal with many losers

Q: So they pressured Smith & Wesson into accepting gun control in the form of a lawsuit settlement. We should be glad, right?

A: Sure, unless you're in the gun business or think you might need to defend yourself with a gun someday. Or unless you're someone who cares about the Constitution and the abuse of the legal system.

Q: You sound upset.

A: We all should be. Even if you don't care about the freedom and rule-of-law stuff, this deal could actually raise the number of people hurt because of gun malfunctions.

Q: That can't be. Seasoned firearms experts like Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Andrew Cuomo assure us that the next generation of "smart guns won t let the wrong person fire them, because they'll have little computers inside.

A: Probably technology like that will be worth a look at some point down the road. But very few handgun buyers are willing to be beta volunteers during the debugging period. Think of the many glitches and crashes you get with ordinary software that runs on a dry desktop and gets upgraded every year or two. Think how often your supermarket's checkout scanner fails to read a product code, forcing the cashier to swipe the item three or four times or punch the code in manually. Then think about miniaturizing those technologies into a product expected to last for decades amid dust, humidity, and temperature extremes.

Legitimate users may have more to worry about here than criminals do. If you're planning to use a handgun in a crime, you may be willing to fiddle with the controls until you get past the tiny "try again" error readout. If you're keeping it for emergency defensive use, this kind of General Protection Fault could be fatal.

Q: If that happened to me, do you think some trial lawyer would be willing to help my survivors sue the gun maker?

A: Probably. Ironic, isn't it? We're debating whether an industry should begin marketing a risky new technology before it's clear how and whether it will work. There's a paper trail of doubts from engineers who think the technology won't be reliable and that innocent people will get hurt, and at this point we lack even prototypes, let alone mass testing. Normally the trial lawyers yell for punitive damages if a company rushes that kind of new technology to market. Instead gun makers now face legal assault if they don't.

Q: Maybe we could try out smart gun technology for a while with sportsmen who don't expect to need their guns on an emergency basis.

A: Cuomo & Co. aren't planning to leave you that option. Their S&W deal contemplates withdrawing standard gun designs from the market after enough makers sign on. It's like the way...