For decades, inventors have tried and failed to make a smart gun. A company called Biofire now appears to have pulled it off. It uses both fingerprint scans and facial recognition so that only a registered user can fire it.

But will anyone buy it? Will this technology become yet another point of contention between pro and anti-gun groups? Firearms advocates have long been skeptical of biometric weapons but they’ve also never run across one that actually worked.

Bloomberg reporter Ashlee Vance joins this episode to talk about Biofire’s new smart gun, how it works, and what it’s like to use. We also hear from Biofire’s 26-year-old CEO Kai Kloepfer, who started working on the gun after the mass shooting in his home state of Colorado, when he was 15-years-old.

Read the story: https://bloom.bg/43DMVBH

Listen to The Big Take podcast every weekday and subscribe to our daily newsletter: https://bloom.bg/3F3EJAK

Have questions or comments for Wes and the team? Reach us at bigtake@bloomberg.net.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A Gun That Knows Who’s Pulling The Trigger