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Texas Schools Add Attack Drones To Protect Students

www.dallasobserver.com

Texas Schools Add Attack Drones To Protect Students

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.today/post/34511710

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154 comments

  • I mean, considering the cops are just going to play on their phones and actively stop people from trying to rescue children (Uvalde was more fucked up than most people remember), it makes sense to consider alternatives.

    In all seriousness, this is actually a ridiculously hard problem and a horrible "solution". Drone weapons work best against unaware/unattentive enemies in a target rich environment. While a bunch of russians are goofing off and not even bothering to close the hatch on their tanks you fly forward with a couple pounds of explosives duct taped to the drone and detonate when you get in range.

    Against a shooter who is already having an endorphin high from murdering a bunch of kids and is on high alert for if/when the cops will stop their fun? They'll hear the motors echoing through the hallways even louder than the kindergarteners bleeding out and crying for their parents who have been handcuffed for daring to try to help. They'll shoot more kids in the time it takes the drone to get to them and children gasping for breath will likely die as their airways close up from the pepper spray bombs. Or the drone will hit a kid anyway since aiming those at high speed needs VERY good reflexes and skills.

    Again, we all know the actual way to reduce the number of children murdered in school shootings. But clearly The Second Amendment is more important than the death of a few thousand kids.

    • I’m going to disagree with you here. I think this is an excellent use of drones. If anything, Uvalde taught us that human versions of policing have one major defect/feature…they also don’t want to die.

      You throw a swarm of drones whizzing into a high pressure scenario, the shooter’s fight or flight response is going to be triggered. They’re either going to pop off a few last shots…which they likely were going to do anyway before getting caught, or they’re going to run to the nearest open door and shut it to hide.

      No lethal explosives needed for this use case. A few flash bangs, maybe some tear gas, a taser or two would likely do the trick in all but the most dire of situations.

      Now, what this says for our constitutional rights on the other hand…at some point we as a collective society are going to have to decide whether we want to be “free” or whether we want to be “safe”. Personally, I’m none too happy with the way I’ve seen things progress over the last 24 years.

      • You throw a swarm of drones whizzing into a high pressure scenario

        You might be over estimating the capabilities of drones to navigate interior spaces and closed doors. And don’t forget simple jamming devices should these systems be publicized.

      • We've become less of both, free and safe. I don't see this helping either of those. Btw, I just learned that the Ben Franklin quote of liberty or safety is actually out of context and was concerning a specific situation in Pennsylvania. The general idea was, don't take away our freedom in the name of safety, give us the freedom and ability to make ourselves safe. I see these drones as an arms race to let the police do what they want to do without being in danger themselves. Oh, the kids? Well, sorry about that, shooting people is all the police are trained on.

      • I have a nasty feeling that getting hit by one of these is going to be very traumatic in the medical sense. A 10-20 pound object with fast spinning blades flying at up to 100mph in an enclosed space? The tragedy practically writes itself!

        Kid pulls a gun in a classroom, shoots a couple of classmates before another kid starts wrestling him for the gun, ultimately the shooter and 3 students are killed a couple more wounded. Meanwhile the drones are automatically deployed in the hallways by the sound of gunfire. Their pilot is on vacation today so it goes to the on-call pilot who's currently chilling in the pool when the call comes in and therefore doesn't answer immediately. The drones are fully automated for the first 15 minutes of the incident because of this delay. One has its AI interpret a kids fortnite shirt depicting a sentient banana throwing a grenade as the assailant, flies through a window to get to them shattering it and blinding one kid, the drone however is damaged by the window and flies erratically hitting a few students in the heads giving them head injuries before crashing into the floor and shooting it's entire payload in all directions. Another drone clips a wall and crashes into the face of another student severely lacerating their face. Another interprets a pair of crutches as weapons that a kid with a broken leg is using to get to his next class, and pepper sprays him and blares alarms at him causing him to fall and break another limb, meanwhile the cops arrive on scene and pile onto the incompacitated and even more injured kid as obviously the assailant because the drones AI identified him, one trigger happy officer shoots him, and this is the moment the drone pilot finally comes online and starts powering them down since he could see from the drone that went to the source of the gunshot and related it's camera feed that the incident is cleared. Ultimately the gunman killed 3, and injured 3 more while the drones killed 4, injured 20 and police shot one more innocent because they trusted the drone's identification (oh and the innocent who was shot is initially blamed as the shooter while the cops try to cover their asses, and 20 more schools order drones due to this "success")

    • Uvalde was not what most think. It was an absolute clusterfuck of communication, not so much cowardice. Several people in charge at once, conflicting orders, no one in charge, wait, you're not in charge?!

      If someone, anyone, would have said, "Fuck this, fuck you, fuck you, fuck all y'all, I'm in command! ON ME!", and charged, it would have been over in 1 minute flat. Many of those cops were champing at the bit to get in there, but comms and leadership was a fucking mess.

      If your heart can take it, this PBS documentary is excellent.

      I can never watch it again, bit I wish anyone with an opinion on the event would give it a spin.

154 comments