He’s not old enough to buy a gun, but a Colorado innovator is making them safer

Listen Now

Photo: Kai Kloepfer gun fingerprint IDA child or teen is injured or killed from an accidental shooting every 30 minutes in the United States, according to the Children’s Defense Fund. A Colorado inventor and entrepreneur hopes to reduce the number of those tragedies.

Kai Kloepfer is using fingerprint technology to make sure only the owner of a gun, or people that the gun owner chooses, are able to fire it. That means criminals wouldn't be able to pick up the gun and use it against the owner and children couldn't accidentally fire one on themselves.

Kloepfer isn't old enough to purchase a gun under federal law: he's 17 and a senior in high school in Boulder.

Kloepfer says he has always been interested in engineering, and he started this project two years ago, shortly after the Aurora movie theater shooting. As he started researching the issue, he says he was amazed how often kids and teens get hurt from accidents with firearms.

Kloepfer's product isn't yet available to buy, but when it is, he hopes gun manufacturers will license it and build it into their weapons. Kloepfer won an international engineering competition put on by Intel in 2013, and has started his own company to continue working on the project.

The home isn't the only place Kloepfer imagines his invention will be used. He was struck by how many law enforcement officers are killed with their own weapons. "With my technology, that... could be completely eliminated," Kloepfer says.

He also imagines the military could use it to prevent firearms from being stolen and used by enemy soldiers in a conflict.

On Saturday, Sept. 13, Kloepfer will talk about his invention at TEDxMile High at the University of Denver.

Editor's note: The original version of this story listed IBM as the sponsor of the international engineering competition that Kai Kloepfer won. The competition was put on by Intel. That version of the story also said that no one else is using the same technology to make similar products. While it is true that no other companies are using Kloepfer's technology, other inventors are working on so-called "smart guns" that use RFID (radio-frequency identification) and biometric technologies to attempt to make guns safer. At least one business is currently marketing a handgun that employs a similar fingerprint technology.