https://www.techspot.com/news/10918...ng-armed-drones-respond-shootings-within.html
https://archive.is/XlXDz
A hot potato: In another sign of society moving ever closer to a Cyberpunk 2077-like dystopia, schools in Florida are testing armed drones as a defense against school shooting incidents. The drones sit in wait on charging pads at a school's campus and can confront an armed shooter within 15 seconds, according to their maker.
Three Florida school districts are trialing the weaponized drone system after it was approved by Governor Ron DeSantis.
The drones provide a constant live video feed to first responders. They cruise at 30mph to 50mph inside buildings and can reach 100mph outdoors, allowing them to cross a large campus in eight seconds.
Created by a company called Campus Guardian Angel, the drones remain on their charging pads in secure, multiple boxes – each containing six drones – at school locations until a shooting incident is detected. They are flown remotely by operators at the firm's Austin headquarters.
The drones are primarily there to aid law enforcement by clearing corners and rooms like a police dog. The live feeds can also help confirm a shooter's identity and location, aiding with situation awareness and threat assessment.
According to Newsweek, the Austin teams running the drones include a pilot, tactical specialists who coordinate movements and decide when to engage, and liaisons who relay real-time information to law enforcement.
While the drones are armed, they use non-lethal or less-lethal weaponry, allowing them to distract, disorient, confront, degrade, and incapacitate shooters, according to the company. They carry pepper rounds and a glass breaker for quickly entering classrooms.
Despite not carrying lethal firepower, having 30 to 90 of these drones in schools has raised concerns. Beyond any potential technical issues, there's always the possibility they could make a shooting situation even worse or more complicated. There are question marks over the kind of training the operators receive, too. Then there's the storage safety aspect, as well as the potential of a drone colliding with a student or law enforcement as it zooms through corridors at 50mph.
We'll find out how successful the system is soon enough. Campus Guardian Angel aims to install the drones in the schools permanently in September and October, ahead of the fully operational live service starting in January.
There's no arguing that more needs to be done to prevent these shootings. There have been roughly 1,000 incidents of gun violence in US schools in the past three years, about ten times the figure from a decade ago.
The danger of a potential shooting incident is one of the main reasons why so many parents oppose phone bans in schools. Florida was the first to introduce a statewide mandate banning handsets in classrooms, and it has since expanded to 35 other states.
https://archive.is/XlXDz
A hot potato: In another sign of society moving ever closer to a Cyberpunk 2077-like dystopia, schools in Florida are testing armed drones as a defense against school shooting incidents. The drones sit in wait on charging pads at a school's campus and can confront an armed shooter within 15 seconds, according to their maker.
Three Florida school districts are trialing the weaponized drone system after it was approved by Governor Ron DeSantis.
The drones provide a constant live video feed to first responders. They cruise at 30mph to 50mph inside buildings and can reach 100mph outdoors, allowing them to cross a large campus in eight seconds.
Created by a company called Campus Guardian Angel, the drones remain on their charging pads in secure, multiple boxes – each containing six drones – at school locations until a shooting incident is detected. They are flown remotely by operators at the firm's Austin headquarters.
The drones are primarily there to aid law enforcement by clearing corners and rooms like a police dog. The live feeds can also help confirm a shooter's identity and location, aiding with situation awareness and threat assessment.
According to Newsweek, the Austin teams running the drones include a pilot, tactical specialists who coordinate movements and decide when to engage, and liaisons who relay real-time information to law enforcement.
While the drones are armed, they use non-lethal or less-lethal weaponry, allowing them to distract, disorient, confront, degrade, and incapacitate shooters, according to the company. They carry pepper rounds and a glass breaker for quickly entering classrooms.
Despite not carrying lethal firepower, having 30 to 90 of these drones in schools has raised concerns. Beyond any potential technical issues, there's always the possibility they could make a shooting situation even worse or more complicated. There are question marks over the kind of training the operators receive, too. Then there's the storage safety aspect, as well as the potential of a drone colliding with a student or law enforcement as it zooms through corridors at 50mph.
We'll find out how successful the system is soon enough. Campus Guardian Angel aims to install the drones in the schools permanently in September and October, ahead of the fully operational live service starting in January.
There's no arguing that more needs to be done to prevent these shootings. There have been roughly 1,000 incidents of gun violence in US schools in the past three years, about ten times the figure from a decade ago.
The danger of a potential shooting incident is one of the main reasons why so many parents oppose phone bans in schools. Florida was the first to introduce a statewide mandate banning handsets in classrooms, and it has since expanded to 35 other states.
