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Photographer: Katherine Frey/The Washington Post via Getty Images Photographer: Katherine Frey/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Gun store owner Andy Raymond gained passing fame last year for posting an Internet video about his abortive attempt to sell so-called smart guns, a type of digitally equipped firearms designed to thwart unauthorized users. As punishment for offering smart guns, he explained in the video, some of his detractors threatened to kill him and burn down his store in Rockville, Md. "That's a great thing for gun rights, when you threaten to shoot somebody," Raymond said.

Many Second Amendment advocates view smart guns as a step toward draconian restrictions on firearm ownership. Raymond, a passionate gun advocate, wasn't willing to risk his life for a few sales and decided to strip his shelves of smart guns. Fearing similar pushback, if not necessarily death threats, other retailers have likewise steered clear of smart guns. No major U.S. arms manufacturers are offering the weapons.

The current smart-gun scarcity can be traced, in part, to the enactment 13 years ago of a New Jersey statute intended to promote high-tech handguns.

Gun control advocates have pushed smart guns since the mid-1990s as a way to reduce accidental shootings and suicides. One version of the innovative weapons will work only if activated by a radio frequency emitted by a device—bracelet, watch, or ring—worn by the authorized user. In 1997, gun control proponents encouraged New Jersey lawmaker Loretta Weinberg to introduce the Childproof Handgun Act, which said that three years after a "personalized" gun was offered for sale anywhere in the U.S., New Jersey firearm retailers would be required to sell only smart guns. Stephen Teret, director of the Center for Law & the Public's Health at Johns Hopkins University, helped draft the state law. He intended to create a financial incentive for development of a broader market in safer guns.

The statute had the opposite effect. The National Rifle Association and other gun-rights groups cited the New Jersey law as evidence that the real motive behind the smart gun idea was to ban all other kinds of firearms. Skeptics also questioned whether smart guns would be susceptible to malfunction, like a balky computer.

"Even if there were a perfectly reliable smart gun, the mandate is unacceptable," says Larry Keane, general counsel of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the main trade group representing the firearm industry. "We don't want the government forcing this down on consumers." The New Jersey law shows that smart guns aren't "about saving lives," says Robert Farago, publisher of the Truth About Guns blog. "It's about controlling gun owners to disarm them. People who want to disarm gun owners want to create a safer society ... but the road to hell is paved with good intentions."

Weinberg, now the majority leader of the New Jersey Senate, disputes allegations of a plot to disarm gun owners. She does, however, acknowledge regrets about how her legislation played out. "The thinking behind the law was that we would encourage the development of the technology," Weinberg says—and she concedes that the opposite occurred. Recognizing that the statute has become a tool used by gun-rights advocates to block smart gun development, Weinberg says she's inclined to lead an effort to repeal the law. Her condition for doing so is that gun-rights proponents pledge to cease opposing smart-gun research—a commitment they have yet to make and are unlikely to in the future.

Back in Maryland, meanwhile, Andy Raymond says he's done trying to push the Armatix iP1, a German-made pistol that fires only if it's within range of the authorized user's radio-frequency identification watch. He traces his strange experience to the unintended consequences of New Jersey's 13-year-old law. "To the people of New Jersey, my apologies," he says. "You've got nothing to worry about from me."

As long as the state law is on the books, it's unlikely that gun-rights enthusiasts there—or elsewhere—are going to have to worry about smart guns, either.