Danger Zone One

BID CHIP TECHNOLOGY,
IS IT REALLY MAKING US SAFER?
Nerri Ceras, Pallad City Post

Shortly after the Telson Act passed, the “Smart Gun” provision made it so that every firearm had to be equipped with a device that communicates directly with a user’s own bio-identification (BID) chip. The promise was that, by making it so only registered users can fire their own weapons, gun-related crime would decrease. As an added incentive, law enforcement agencies could effectively “shut down” a criminal’s firearm at the scene of a crime, since all smart guns are registered in a national database.

Initially, supporters and even some early critics of the Telson Act were impressed with the results, with gun crime dropping to an all-time low. However, recent years have seen a massive upswing in black market firearms making their way onto the streets. These illegal guns do not employ any BID chip technology, enabling anyone to pick up the weapon and fire it. While many of these new guns are of inferior quality and can be unreliable, they have nonetheless contributed to a noticeable spike in gun-related crime, particularly in megacities. It’s estimated that, within the last month alone, 14,000 illegal firearms have entered Pallad City. Where are these weapons coming from? It’s a question that has yet to be answered by the Pallad City Police Department or Mayor Neville, who has declined to comment.

(Continued in Section 5B)

Danger Zone One. Story by Midnight. Art by Zen Jirakun.