Capping three days of meetings on ways to stem gun violence in light of the Connecticut shootings last month, Vice President Joe Biden said on Friday he was interested in technology that would keep a gun from being fired by anyone other than the person who bought it.
And it became clear that President Barack Obama plans to push for a controversial ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines to stem gun violence in his State of the Union address next month.
"Had the young man not had access to his mother's arsenal, he may or may not have been able to get a gun," Biden said on Friday, speaking of Newtown gunman, Adam Lanza, 20, who used weapons purchased by his mother to carry out the attack on an elementary school in the Connecticut town.
Lanza killed his mother — Nancy, a gun enthusiast — at their home on Dec. 14 before heading to Sandy Hook Elementary School where he fatally shot 20 children and six adults.
“We know that there is no silver bullet, no seat belt,” Biden said before heading into a Friday meeting with representatives of the video game industry, the Associated Press reports.
Technology for so-called "smart guns" is being developed, although, so far there has been little demand for it. Various techniques such as fingerprint recognition or the wearing of a magnetic ring would prevent anyone other than a weapon's registered owner from firing it.
The National Rifle Association and other groups have come out against smart guns in the past and did not respond to a New York Times article on the subject this week.
Instead, the NRA has placed most the blame for recent mass shootings on violent video games and lack of treatment for the mentally ill.
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