A lot rides on biometric gun safes in schools. Their effectiveness is debatable

Startup safe maker 360 Life Safety says its biometric gun safes will keep weapons out of schools. The company, in the U.S. state of Michigan, can store guns, including rifles, behind a vault door designed to open only with approved iris scans.

It is selling the devices to schools, saying that a child or adult would otherwise bring firearms onto campuses would be dissuaded if they knew they could find themselves in a gun fight with faculty or administrators.

In an interview with local news program CBS News Detroit, Ben Powers, founder of 360 Life Safety, says “People say we don’t want more guns in the schools. Well, put these in there and the guns won’t show up.”

Powers says it takes 10 seconds to get the vault door open and grab guns and any other gear. The price of the safes is not disclosed. Iris ID appears to be the vendor supplying the biometric scanner.

He says he has sold vaults to four schools in the state.

A possible counter argument to the idea of guns safes in schools is the story of a six-year-old boy in the state of Iowa who opened his parents’ gun safe and brought the weapon to school.

The identity of the family has not been disclosed. The boy reportedly did not fire the weapon.

In an interview with an ABC news program, the boy’s father said he bought the $229 safe from a Chinese firm on Amazon. After storing his fingerprint, the father considered his home safe, but his son used one of his own fingerprints to get the door open.

Article Topics

360 Life Safety  |  access control  |  biometrics  |  fingerprint recognition  |  gun safes  |  iris recognition  |  school security  |  schools