Precision-Guided Sniper Rifle

In spring of 2013, Texas-based start up TrackingPoint Solutions released the first ever precision-guided firearm, which is essentially a long-range, laser-guided robo rifle. Call it the gun of tomorrow: The technology is so advanced we've heard it can have beginners killing at extreme distances with single-shot accuracy in mere minutes.

Watch the documentary video after the click.

The PGF's closed-loop system is based off jetfighter lock and launch technology, something TrackingPoint CEO Jason Schauble says not only marks the next great paradigm shift in the evolution of firearms—it helps users make ethical kill shots too. But critics of the PGF platform, no doubt part and parcel of a rising tide of intelligent killer apps, say the gun, or rather its proprietary scope, marks the dawn of "skill-free killing".

In LONG SHOT Motherboard visits West Texas, the frontline of smart weapons. We get a backcountry crash course through the PGF, hear about TrackingPoint's plans to apply its system to a veritable suite of advanced weaponry, all built on custom software that promises to have novice shots like us to killing at 1,000 yards—and in the near future, potentially 3,000 yards—with single-shot accuracy, and try to untangle an increasingly knotty firearms debate in light of the so-called gamification of killing and, sadly, yet another mass shooting.

Has killing become too easy?