• Democratic New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy is about to sign a law mandating gun dealers carry a “smart gun” model once one becomes commercially available.
  • “Smart Guns” recognize the user and are rendered inoperable by unauthorized use.
  • While there are a number of “smart guns” being developed by gunmakers, no model is available for sale yet in the U.S.

A package of gun control bills sitting on Democratic New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy’s desk for signature includes a law requiring every gun dealer in New Jersey to offer one “smart gun” weapon.

A1016/S101, which passed the Assembly 51-23 and the Senate 24-13 in June, forms a “smart gun” commission and mandates gun retailers offer models equipped with trigger-lock technology 60 days after one becomes available for commercial sale and gets commission approval, the NJ Advance reported.

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“We take great pride in having some of the toughest gun laws in the United States,” Murphy told reporters at a June 19 press conference in Westfield, where a man with a handgun was arrested outside of the Tamaques Elementary School June 14.

“We need to better promote the development and commercialization of smart gun technology,” Murphy said.

The new law replaces a 2002 law that required gun retailers to stop selling non “smart” models three years after the smart guns became available for purchase, which effectively stopped gun manufacturers from developing them.

New Jersey passed smart gun bills twice before, only to have them vetoed by then-Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican, who called them “reflective of the relentless campaign by the Democratic Legislature to make New Jersey as inhospitable as possible to lawful gun ownership and sales.”

The idea behind a “smart gun,” which was first developed by Smith & Wesson in the late 1990s, according to Bloomberg, is that they are personalized to be operated by the gun’s owner only. After Smith & Wesson agreed to develop a model for the U.S. government in 1999, the NRA organized a boycott and the gunmaker backed off the concept.