President Clinton’s proposed investment of $10 million in “smart gun” research isn’t much money on a federal scale — but it also isn’t a panacea for resolving the problems it targets.

Smart guns use fingerprints, radio waves or other owner-specific attributes to prevent people other than a handgun’s owner from firing the weapon. The idea behind the technology, which is largely in infancy, is that smart guns could prevent accidental shootings and save a police office from being shot with his weapon if it was taken from him during a struggle.

President Clinton proposes spending $10 million in the next fiscal year to help develop smart guns. In grand terms, $10 million of what is likely to be a $1.7 trillion-plus federal budget isn’t even worth quibbling over. But Congress and the public ought to be wary of any quick fix that doesn’t address the central problem, and that’s certainly the case with smart guns.

If smart gun technology can be developed for market, it could well save lives, especially those of children who may otherwise have hurt themselves with a home-defense weapon. But that doesn’t prevent the gun’s owner from employing it against his family in a fit of rage. And it doesn’t prevent him from accidentally shooting someone whom he did not intend to shoot.

It’s important to remember, as well, that technology often fails. Perhaps a smart gun would almost always work. And perhaps, as a result of generally reliable smart gun technology, handgun owners become less careful about properly storing their weapons. Then, the technology fails at the one moment it is most needed to work. The exact opposite of the technology’s intent then transpires: Guns become more dangerous and easier to access.

But more to the point, smart guns don’t get at the central problems of gun misuse and a society that too often believes violence is acceptable.

Dealing with that problem is difficult. Even figuring out factors leading to violent crime seems impossible. But getting to the bottom of what makes so many Americans choose to kill is the only hope for a permanent solution. Dealing with just one of the symptoms of this national cancer doesn’t provide a cure.