Motherboard is up for a trio of Webbys, the annual awards for digital excellence presented by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Science. Awards are weird, but we'd appreciate your votes and they will help us keep publishing the sorts of original journalism, stories, and analysis you're here for. Voting is quick and painless, promise.

[Best Science YouTube Channel](http://bit.ly/2nAjzPe)

[Best Drama](http://bit.ly/2p1IaNS) (Connected)

[Best Tech/Science Podcast](http://bit.ly/2nbGmWs) (Radio Motherboard)

Voting is open now through April 20. Get on it!

While we've got you, be sure to [**_subscribe to pluspluspodcast_**](https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/pluspluspodcast/id1210989400?mt=2)**_, Motherboard's new show about the people and machines that are building our future._**

And watch _A Smarter Gun_, our new doc on smart guns:

America is a gun culture. It always has been. With an estimated 260 to 300 million guns in the national gun stock today, firearms aren't going anywhere. And it would appear the political will to craft robust nationwide gun control legislation remains dead in the water.  But with an epidemic of mass shootings, and gun accidents devastating communities nationwide, a small movement seeks to change the very technology at the heart of firearms. Yet the players behind this movement to create user-authenticated firearms, or so-called smart guns that only fire in the hands of approved users, are blocked at every turn. A Smarter Gun, an original documentary investigation from VICE's tech channel Motherboard, is the story of why.  Over the course of two years of filming, Motherboard toured the ATF's massive gun vault and test range in West Virginia, where host Brian Anderson went in search of the elusive smart gun. Our journey also took us to the fringe—a garage in Washington State—for an exclusive first look the first ever test fire of an implant-activated gun, and then to bucolic upstate New York to spend time with a grieving mother whose 11-year-old son was accidentally shot by a friend in 2010. Seven years on, she's determined to put a dent in the approximately 33,000 people fatally shot in the United States every year. She doesn't think smart guns are a cure-all to preventing similar tragedies in the future. But they're a start. So what's holding back the technology?  A Smarter Gun is the never-before-seen look at who killed the smart gun and whether or not there is a place for user-authenticated firearm tech to scale in the future. It's a story about human nature, public safety, the inertia of time-tested mechanical gadgetry, the will to innovate, and the political, technological, and societal forces that shape our singular national gun problem.

vice

Motherboard

A Smarter Gun is the never-before-seen look at who killed the smart gun and whether or not there is a place for user-authenticated firearm tech to scale in the future. It’s a story about human nature, public safety, the inertia of time-tested mechani

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Vote for Motherboard in the Webbys!

Best Science YouTube Channel

Best Drama (Connected)

Best Tech/Science Podcast (Radio Motherboard)