I am just going to think out loud here - please let me know if any sound plausible. Note: these are NOT taking cost into consideration. Additionally, anything that increases 'safety' in certain ways (like the ones I describe below, also decrease the immediate availability of the weapon to some legitimate urgent needs (unexpected intrusions, etc)

(I'd like to get RDL's opinion on this as well)

First, I am sure it goes without saying, that guns are mechanically very simple devices, so any attempt to make them more technologically advanced/complex in an effort to make them 'safer' is an uphill and easily circumvented road (i.e. - making simple guns is not difficult)

1. Ammunition: Develop a system for (signed|registered|tracked|authorized) ammunition validation in the (civilian version) of the weapon.

Create a method and apparatus for the weapon t read the ID of the ammunition loaded into it (via barcode scanner/RFID/smart-chip/whatever) where the weapon will get a list of authorized ammunition it will fire via an external app. Basically you would have a cataloging system where you purchase ammunition, log it into your app then authorize the ammunition to a particular weapon with some form of two factor auth. A ring + plus a list of the valid ammo. When you load the ammo into the weapon, it is scanned as it is chambered, the gun receives either a list of the ammo that can be used, or it checks it at time of chambering and only fires if BOTH the ring and the list are green.

This means that if your weapon and ring are stolen/picked up by a child - without pre-auth of a list of ammo the gun wont fire.

2. Add RTLS + camera systems to weapons. Add wifi beacons throughout a space that talk to a tag built into the grip of the gun. It tracks the location of the weapon and must be deactivated via a smart app in the same manner as the ammo scenario above. If the weapon moves around/leaves the geo-fence/whatever other rules get violated - it will remain in a locked state.

3. add a physical combo device with a pin which locks the action/slide of the weapon physically.

4. Decouple the actual trigger from the weapon and turn the authorization ring into the physical trigger. Meaning that even fully loaded and accessible - one could not just pick up the weapon and fire it.

5. (more about accountability) - Require ALL LEO weapons to be tied to a go-pro style cam either on chest or on the weapons themselves - and every trigger pull shoots a burst of video/pics - bonus - have any unholstered weapon begin filming and streaming of the down-sights images. Stream to either the soldiers pack, the LEOs vehicle or a 4g network.

6. 'Gunalytics' - in relation to #5 - we need a 'fit-bit for guns. A sensor heavy device (even if only used in a temporary, data gathering duration) which can be mounted to a weapon (grips/rail/whatever) which will capture all manner of use data. This device could have environmental parameters entered into it to track variance against. It could use the accelerometer to detect certain events (and sound - like the shot counters do) - but this device could be used to gather data for better gun safety training.

E.G.: you could have these at ranges - you mount the device to the weapons of all users and it can determine any variance in the aim of the gun, so as to determine if a weapon was pointed in any direction other than down range. Gather the average duration between trigger pulls on all weapons - use anon user data as well (male, 38, 200#s, claims proficiency level X) etc...

get big data on how people are self-training/using firearms at ranges.

Gamify this - have competitions around this data. Make some weapons specific for this purpose etc... This can go in a lot of different directions. The goal being that better training, based on better, actual and actionable data is the best thing we can do for gun safety.

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So, with that said - this is looking forward and pretty much only at the weapons themselves. The millions upon millions of existing weapons that will never have any Smart features will always be an issue - thus item (6) seems a good approach to making gun safety/education an increased focus...

I'd love to see real data behind the claims that communities that require all houses to have a firearm have reduced crime. You'll never have any of the above address the crazies.