Leveraging Lockers: The Future of Weapons Storage is Here
Regardless of how large or small an armory is, it’s critically important to safely store weapons and ensure that only authorized officers have access to them.
It’s of equal importance that administrators have clear, real-time insight into which officers have a weapon on their person to maintain both a proper inventory and a working audit report of usage. Among the solutions that achieve these objectives—which are increasing in adoption among departments across the United States—are intelligent weapons lockers.
Similar to cabinets and lockers that manage keys and shared devices, intelligent weapons lockers are a physical security solution that can be customized to include individual storage compartments for both sidearms and long guns. There are clear advantages to storing weapons in this way, such as restricting access to a single user for a particular weapon, keeping all weapons in a centralized or decentralized location, and maintaining a real-time audit trail of where each weapon is at any time.
Features for these lockers include multi-factor authentication, such as badge, pin code, and even biometric security requirements, all of which can be integrated into a central access control system. When an officer inputs his or her information, the locker will only open the compartments that she or he has access to, which can include additional assets like magazines, vests, and other PPE equipment. The weapon itself can be RFID-tagged so that when it’s removed, the locker tracks its removal and records it in an integrated software management system.
Another useful aspect of intelligent weapons lockers is the ability for officers to input information into the locker interface. For example, if an officer removes a weapon to clean it instead of taking it on patrol, he or she can note that in the system for administrative awareness.
Also, if an officer is returning a weapon after a shift and there’s a fault with it, the officer can note that in the interface, which will then restrict that weapon from being removed until the fault has been corrected. This eliminates the potentially tragic scenario of an officer removing a weapon and not realizing there is something wrong with it if a critical incident arises.
Lockers have additional impacts on administrative and human resources processes. Typically, there’s an officer who is required to check weapons in and out of an armory. With an intelligent locker, that’s no longer needed. That officer can be deployed elsewhere since the technology is set up to audit that process.
When an officer inputs his or her information, the locker will only open the compartments that she or he has access to.
Also, if administrators need to provide an on-demand audit report of all weapon usage for a certain period, the locker, which is integrated into the access control system, can produce that. That integration is especially important when an officer leaves or is terminated. If his or her credential to the locker is the same as it is for general access to facilities, then deactivating it represents a comprehensive security measure that cuts down on a potential negative internal incident.
Finally, if there are multiple lockers within a single department, such as a large campus, administrators can remotely monitor all usage and, if need be, grant or deny access to critical weapons.
Many of the benefits that are detailed above are experienced daily within police departments across the United States, including those on college campuses. While every department is different in how many weapons it needs, it’s vitally important for all of them to safely manage potentially lethal weapons and have a clear idea of who has which weapon at any time.
This is critically important as it relates to campus shooter scenarios. Distributing, as an example, long gun lockers across a campus allows for secure storage, quick access, and faster access to those weapons needed in a campus shooter response scenario. Minutes count, and across campuses of all types (educational, medical centers, corporate campuses, etc.), the faster the appropriate law enforcement response, the more lives can be saved.
Intelligent weapons lockers represent the future in managing weapons, and departments that leverage them are investing in operational efficiency, which can make a potentially life-changing difference when responding to incidents.
Steve Atkinson, whose career spans more than 30 years, is the director of government business development at Traka Americas, which provides intelligent key and asset management solutions to a variety of agencies.
© Steve Atkinson, Traka Americas
