Several South Jersey gun shop owners will be happy to know New Jersey may not limit their handgun sales only to smart guns — those made only to be fired only by an authorized user.

State Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg told MSNBC on Friday that she and colleagues would change a 2002 law that would have made it illegal to sell any type of handgun except a smart gun. The restriction would kick in three years after the first such weapon was available for retail sale.

Law enforcement and military personnel would be exempt, as would antique handguns.

The law will be amended to reverse the restriction, Weinberg said, only if the National Rifle Association vows not to try to stop the free will manufacture or sale of smart guns.

In the roughly 12 years since the law was adopted, only one smart gun has made it to market — the iP1, manufactured by German company Armatix.

The gun’s makers say it can only be fired when close to a watch bought separately. The user wears the watch, which coordinates with an electronic chip in the gun, allowing the weapon to be discharged.

Butch Sacco, owner of Vineland store Butch's Gun World, is critical of the state law that may never go into effect. He said he doesn't even consider the iP1 a true smart gun.

“It doesn’t actually recognize the shooter,” Sacco said. “It’s just a transmitter you’re wearing.”

He worries that anyone who gets a hold of the transmitter can fire the gun. He’s also wary of constant advances in technology that might allow a villain to tap into a transmitter, interfering with its proper function.

Sacco added he doesn’t want to leave his trust in electronics for safety and reliability.

“I haven’t seen anything that’s computerized that hasn’t failed,” he argued. “Murphy’s Law states that when you need it, that’s when it fails. If something isn’t reliable, I’m not going to sell it. That’s not how I deal with my customers.”

Reliability is a key concern for Bob Viden, owner of Bob's Little Sport Shop in Glassboro.

Lawmakers aren’t so sure smart guns will perform well, and that’s why law enforcement and soldiers are exempt, Viden charged.

“It’s a very stupid law that was passed in haste by legislators who didn’t know what they were talking about when they passed it,” he said.

Viden argued that the law’s creators didn’t consider the array of uses, calibers and personalized features gun buyers seek.

“There are different guns for different purposes,” he explained. “There are guns for hunting, target shooting, defense weapons, police weapons.

“If a man or woman is involved in competitive shooting, how can he or she compete with this law (in effect)?

“What about a guy who goes out west to hunt and needs a .44 caliber revolver?” Viden continued. “Or someone who competes in Old West target shooting and uses a single-action handgun?

“I hope New Jersey will repeal the law,” he said.

Last week, before it was known Viden may get his wish, one of the original backers of the smart gun law argued its case.

Bryan Miller is a former executive director for Ceasefire NJ, a gun control advocacy group that he says was instrumental in writing the now-endangered law.

He’s now executive director of Heeding God’s Call, a religious group with the same mission as Ceasefire.

Miller prefers not to use the word “smart gun” for the weapons he would like to see mandated. In fact, it’s not even the term used in the actual 2002 law, which instead refers to the mandated weapons as “personalized handguns.”

Legislators in a summation of the law also used the term “childproof handguns.”

That’s the word Miller used, and it’s a major reason the law was drafted.

“The whole idea of the childproof gun is to force the irresponsible gun manufacturers to add safety features,” Miller said. “The gun industry is the only industry that makes products without safety features. And that is unconscionable.”

Miller and other supporters of the law cite numerous stories from across the country of children and adults accidentally firing guns with tragic results.

He contended the three-year period after a smart gun is on the market is meant to give manufacturers time to make such guns. And they will make them, he said — all types of guns for all types of uses.

“If the law (takes effect), you’ll see every model with these features,” Miller said.

Weinberg did not respond to a request for comment.

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Contact staff writer Joe Green at 856-845-3300 ext. 253 or jgreen@southjerseymedia.com