GETTING SMART ABOUT GUNS

SAFETY

AROUND 1.7 MILLION U.S. children live in homes with loaded, unlocked firearms, and one-third of adults have hand-guns, rifles or shotguns at home, according to a survey published in the Pediatrics online journal in September. Faced with frightening statistics like these, industrial and manufacturing engineering professor Donald Sebastian is battling to make homes with guns safer for children. He and his colleagues at the New Jersey Institute of Technology are developing a smart gun, one that can tell friend from foe, user from nonuser. Within the first tenth of a second of the trigger squeeze, the gun's computerized sensors can measure the size, strength and structure of a person's hand and stop the gun from firing if the shooter isn't authorized. The smart gun has all sorts of potentially far-reaching benefits-stopping a thief from using a stolen gun is an obvious one, but Sebastian's focus is on safeguarding the kids. -LYNNE SHALLCROSS