Classic science fiction published in the early 1950's, say 65 years ago. The Weapons Shops sold fabuluous firearms, which among their other miraclous properties, would only fire when held by their rightful owner. That was science fiction.
Today we have Obama calling for the invention and production of such weapons. But would anyone buy them? Most people, myself included, want a firearm that will reliably go bang when the trigger is pressed. We don't even trust safeties, every shooter can remember the time he missed a shot because the safety was still on. Which accounts for the popularity of the Glock handgun, it has no safeties.
If we don't trust simple mechanical safeties, who is gonna trust some micro processor based system that has to recognize who is holding the gun and prevent it from firing if it is in the wrong hands? Not me.
I suppose such Weapons Shop magic might work off a finger print sensor on the grip or an RFID tag carried by the rightful owner. All of which stops working when the battery runs down. To say nothing of gloves foiling the fingerprint sensor, or the owner forgetting to have the RFID tag on his person, plus a bunch of other Murphy's law failures.
I'm surprised that a president of the US can call for science fiction devices and nobody laughs at him.
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