photo by: Submitted

A handgun specially-equipped with safety technology from Baldwin City-based Free State Firearms is shown.

A Kansas state lawmaker has a proposal you don’t often hear: Put a ring on your finger and a gun in your hand.

Sen. Tom Holland, a Baldwin City Democrat who represents parts of Douglas County and the surrounding area in the Kansas Legislature, thinks that might just be the way to prevent a host of handgun accidents.

In fact, he’s making a big business bet on it.

Holland is the president of Free State Firearms, a start-up company with a small manufacturing facility in Baldwin City. The company’s been working since 2020 to develop technology that will prevent a handgun from firing if it ends up in the hand of a child, a criminal or someone else who is not authorized to use it.

The key is a ring — the jewelry type — that contains an RFID chip. That chip — it is the type used to track boxes in a warehouse — is a partner to an RFID chip embedded in a specially equipped Colt 9mm handgun. A device developed by Free State Firearms stops the handgun from firing unless the chip in the handgun is in very close proximity to the chip in the ring.

The end result is, if you are not wearing the ring, you won’t be able to fire the gun.

photo by: Submitted

Tom Holland

Some of this may sound familiar to you. I reported on Holland’s venture in 2021, but back then it operated under the name SmartGunz LLC. The venture hasn’t gone away, but rather has gotten better since then, Holland said. Back in 2021, the technology required the handgun user to wear a specially equipped glove rather than the chip-infused ring.

“We learned that the ring is what people want,” Holland said in an interview with the Journal-World. ” You can keep it on your finger 24/7. In essence, you have the keys to the safe with you at all times.”

Now, Holland thinks the company is close to unlocking its potential to become a major player in the firearms technology industry. The company on Wednesday announced it had completed a collaboration with the National Gun Safety Consortium Board, which should put the product on track for nationwide sales in early 2024.

Specifically, the company partnered with the consortium to put the specially equipped gun and ring into the hands of six law enforcement agencies across the country. The law enforcement agencies, which are members of the gun safety consortium, tested the gun and its safety system in a number of scenarios and fired hundreds of rounds during testing exercises.

Holland said the results of the testing were positive, and it has given the company some of the final pieces of information it needs to turn its prototype model into a system that can be mass-produced and sold.

“I’m out there getting as many pre-sale orders as possible right now,” Holland said.

He and business partner Brennan Fagan, a Lawrence attorney, hope that law enforcement agencies will be one of the product’s major buyers. Holland said when they came up with the idea for the technology, they envisioned how it could be an added safety feature for law enforcement officers who transport prisoners or provide security at prisons or jails. The technology would make it less likely that a prisoner could overpower a guard and begin firing the guard’s weapon.

Holland thinks the law enforcement realm is still a big market for the technology, but in the past two years the company has determined the general civilian and homeowner market is an even more lucrative one. The company is in the process of partnering with gun ranges across the country to sell the product.

Holland said more than half of all new gun owners are women. He said the company believes those new gun owners may be particularly interested in technology that prevents accidental firings. Partnering with gun ranges makes sense, he said, because that’s where new gun owners often go to learn how to safely handle a firearm.

“We think it will appeal to a large segment of those new gun owners,” Holland said.

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photo by: Richard Gwin/Journal-World File Photo

Leeway Franks, 935 Iowa St., is pictured in this Journal-World file photo from July 2015.

In other news and notes from around town:

• Look for Lawrence’s Leeway Franks to close its restaurant operations later this month. The company made the announcement on Facebook on Wednesday.

But the closing won’t be the end of the Leeway venture in Lawrence. The company plans to use the space that currently is occupied by the restaurant at 935 Iowa St. to expand its butcher shop operations.

In the post, owners Lee and K Meisel said the business needs the space in order to take the butcher shop operations “into even bigger markets where our products can be enjoyed in people’s homes across the country.”

The post said the new butcher shop space will be devoted to butchering, sausage making, and charcuterie. Plans also call for the business to host some classes on butchering and workshops on “food sovereignty and indigenous foods.”

While the restaurant — which has a menu that features a variety of frankfurters, bratwursts, sandwiches and tater tots — will be gone, the butcher shop will offer some grab-and-go food options, according to the post. That will include hot and cold sandwiches and soups, according to the post.

I’ve got a call into the owners, but no exact word on when the restaurant’s last day of business will be. Rather, the post says “September will be Leeway Franks’ last month of daily operations as a restaurant.”