An alert reader emailed TTAG central with news that Armatix GmbH – makers of the iP1 “smart gun” – filed a patent application that included a remote kill switch for the firearm. Click here to view patent EP 1936572 A1, dated 2006. (Not a bug; a feature!) I’m not a patent attorney or an electrical engineer, but as far as I can tell this is the bit (translated from the original German) that indicates remote disabling . . .

Preferably, the inventive device is designed such that the device or the activated identification medium authenticated in response to a signal transmitted from a remote station to the device wake-up and request signal, whereupon the remote station a logical and / or physical access or access to one and allows or prevents a target device . . . Preferably, the apparatus of the invention can be controlled remotely, for example via satellite and can send information to a satellite.

This would be a good time to point out that TTAG’s been trying to get ahold of a iP1 for some time, so that hi-tech members of our Armed Intelligentsia could develop a jamming device. Thank goodness we didn’t! We could have been sued!

You may recall that New Jersey’s “smart gun” mandate goes into effect the moment a single example is offered for commercial sale anywhere in the United States. Three years later, The Garden State would ban the sale of non-“smart guns.”

Gun rights advocates fear that it’s a short step from a ban on the sale of “dumb guns” to a ban on their ownership. At that point, New Jersey gun owners would be at the mercy of criminals or government agents – who could possess “dumb guns” and “smart gun” jammers, such as the one described in the patent application.

If the New Jersey mandate spread to other states or went federal, well, that wouldn’t be good. For anyone. Save the aforementioned German gunmaker, criminals and tyrants.