These Professors are Developing Tech That Can Detect a Weapon Before it's Shot

There have been at least 74 school shootings in America since Adam Lanza killed his mother and 26 students and teachers before committing suicide in Newton, Connecticut. They were lives – both young and old – lost at the hands of a man and his gun, a violent rampage that has been replicated at academic institutions nationwide day after day, month after month and year after year. As we continue to contemplate what went wrong on that fateful date in December 2012, trying to think of ways to prevent gun violence and save lives, two George Mason University professors are actually taking action.

Volgenau School of Engineering associate professor Ken Hintz and School of Management assistant professor Jim Wolfe are developing technology that can detect a weapon before it's shot, manufacturing a method to determine the location of a brandished gun before the first shot is fired. The detectors, they say, could not only make schools and workplaces safer, but also better protect deployed military members and heads of state.

According to the university, the professors' tech transfer startup company FirstGuard Technologies Corporation received a $2.3 million contract form the Office of Naval Research to create prototypes of the pre-shot weapons detector, which was discovered thanks to an Office of Naval Research grant to George Mason in 2008.

The technology, the school says, "can detect a range of firearms, from a four-inch revolver to an 81-millimeter mortar launcher. And, unlike previous anti-sniper technological advancements that locate the shooter after the first shot, this one detects the weapon before it is fired whether the weapon uses optical or iron sights." Clearly an advanced, cutting-edge detector, it's no wonder the Office of Naval Research is so enthusiastic about the product.

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