LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A Kentucky man has created an app which he said will help improve gun security.

What You Need To Know

  • Gun Leash, a new app, aims to prevent gun loss and theft

  • Carl Lanore of Prospect invented the product when he thought he lost his gun 

  • According to the U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, more than a million firearms were stolen between 2017-21

  • Almost 96% were stolen from private citizens

The app, Gun Leash, aims to prevent gun loss and theft. It will notify its gun owner the firearm is out of the user’s proximity without using a GPS.

“There’s a small beacon that attaches to the handgun that talks to the app on my phone, so this is a simple proximity technology,” said Carl Lanore, founder and inventor of Gun Leash. “It knows when the gun is on you; it knows when the gun has moved away from you, and that’s when it goes into alarm.”

Lanore invented the product when he thought he lost one of his guns three and half years ago.

“It shook me to the core,” he said. “The idea of leaving a handgun in a public restroom where anyone can find it, (such as) a child and perhaps hurt themselves or hurt someone else shook me to the core.”

With his background in building the first Improved Mobile Telephone Service (IMTS) handheld cellphone in the U.S. and Citadel Securities in Louisville, he said he had the knowledge to make Gun Leash.

“I have the technology aspect of it and pioneering a new device, and then I had the ability to understand what security is all about,” he said. “And it came together.” 

Its purpose is to prevent guns from being stolen or lost.

“It’s the ideal answer to the problem we have today,” Lanore said.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, more than a million firearms were stolen between 2017-21. Almost 96% of those were stolen from private citizens.

“It’s not coming from the gun show loophole, not coming from 3D-printed guns,” Lanore said. “It’s coming from people not hanging on to their guns.”

In the National Firearms Commerce and Trafficking Assessment last year, the ATF said stolen guns often became guns used in crimes.

“Reducing firearm theft would help curtail an important supply line of crime guns to prospective firearm offenders,” the report reads.

The app will be available to download for free in mid-June, and the beacon will be $99.

According to the ATF report, there were over 9,500 thefts in Kentucky between 2017-22.

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