I can't directly respond to bruceb, but a child getting ahold of a gun is the fault of the parent, who neglected to responsibly secure it. If someone with a child isn't willing to buy a safe, they shouldn't buy a gun.
A safe does indeed make it slower to get to the gun. That's a tradeoff lots of people are willing to make, however, and safes are generally a mature technology.
I don't know a single gun owner who has any interest in so-called smart guns.
tradeoffs... That was the point I was trying to make. You can either have safety or convenience/reliability. It seems to me that this offers another option.... do you trust a dongle or do you trust your ability to get into your gun safe before the "bad guys" "get" you. Seems weird to me to just write it off without knowing which is actually better.
That's fair enough, ignoring your scare quotes. I think a lot of the visceral reaction that gun owners have against these things is the (totally justified) fear that they'll be foisted on us by law sooner or later.