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Last winter, as an FBI hostage rescue team took up an elevated position to assess an unfolding crisis, agents heard the buzz of small drones approaching.
Soon, the tiny unmanned aircraft had the team surrounded, swooping past in a series of "high-speed low passes at the agents in the observation post to flush them," Joe Mazel, head of the agency's operational technology law unit, told attendees of the AUVSI Xponential conference in Denver on Wednesday. The swarm caused the group to lose situational awareness of the target.
"We were then blind," Mazel said, according to a Defense One account of the session at the conference focusing on unmanned technologies. "It definitely presented some challenges."
Also at https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/4/17318080/criminals-drones-swarm-fbi-raid
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 05 2018, @11:30PM (18 children)
What? The FBI don't carry shotguns to shoot down pesky drones? That is really hard to believe.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Sunday May 06 2018, @12:54AM (17 children)
Yeah, "caused us to lose situational awareness"
What, one guy watches while the other/s shoot down the drones.
How hard is that, and should be standard procedure!
Either fake, or they suck at their job.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 06 2018, @01:20AM
Why not both?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by RandomFactor on Sunday May 06 2018, @02:01AM (14 children)
FBI shotguns are likely going to be be loaded with buckshot or slugs. Buckshot is comparable to multiple .32 to .35 caliber pistol rounds and shouldn't be fired into the air.
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Buckshot is used to kill BUCKS (male deer), which are ~human-comparable. While a terminal velocity falling bullet is moving much slower than when fired, it is still moving at hundreds of feet per second and can be damaging, injurious, or even lethal.
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Hunters shooting birds/trap/skeet (or drones...?) use smaller pellets for safety reasons, smaller pellets fall much closer, more slowly, and are more surprising than dangerous when they rain down on you.
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(Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday May 06 2018, @06:27AM (10 children)
Nice pontificating.
Truth is you have no clue what the FBI had in their shotguns, or even if they carried any shotguns.
Nor can you point to a single documented case of falling buckshot injuring anybody. Buckshot is extremely range limited.
And finally we don't even know if there was more than one drone, or the drones were the FBI'S own drones and their own pilots lost situational awareness and started buzzing their own agents. The whole story sounds contrived to me.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 06 2018, @08:31AM (4 children)
Are you advocating firing shotguns into the air around urban or suburban areas?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 06 2018, @10:21AM
Are you implying frojack is Joe Biden?
(Score: 3, Funny) by realDonaldTrump on Monday May 07 2018, @12:29AM (2 children)
In Saudi Arabia, they use machine guns. And it works very well.
(Score: 3, Funny) by arslan on Monday May 07 2018, @12:34AM (1 child)
Here in Oz, we launch drop bears!
(Score: 3, Funny) by c0lo on Monday May 07 2018, @01:18AM
FTFY. The only thing that's needed then is to place your observations points where the drop bear launch themselves and she'll be apples, mate, no longer losing situational awareness to drones.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Insightful) by RandomFactor on Sunday May 06 2018, @04:04PM (4 children)
I'm not defending the the FBI's position or the article, not sure how you're pulling that out of what i wrote. I'm referring to the routine "Just blast it out of the sky." response that keeps getting thrown around and explaining to the (typically non shooters) that keep saying this, that it is a dangerous idea with the loads likely in use in that situation.
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Law enforcement will typically have buckshot, slugs, breaching rounds, or even sandbags. I wouldn't expect the situation (vaguely described) to have sandbag rounds loaded. Try googling a bit on shooting into the air, law enforcement loads etc.
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Or just ask your friendly neighborhood police officer what would happen, and happen to them, if they started popping off buckshot into the air. We can disagree on potential lethality (we do), but even just putting out some innocent bystander's eyes due to recklessly popping off at drones and a million dollar funeral might seem cheap.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 06 2018, @07:52PM (1 child)
Let's say it kills 1 or 2 people when it falls back to earth. Here's what I think would happen to the officer who fired that shot.
...
Wait for it.
...
NOTHING!
Ok, maybe placed on paid
vacationsuspension for a few weeks. Oh! I'm forgetting! If one of the people killed had skin darker than a certain threshold, the cop will be the subject of several sternly-worded stories in the media about police violence against blacks.(Score: 1) by RandomFactor on Sunday May 06 2018, @11:49PM
Certainly possible depending on the situation and circumstances and department and media coverage... I'm a little less cynical about law enforcement than you seem to be, but i'm not going to argue that justice is blind or that police don't give each other slack the plebs can only dream of :-\
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 07 2018, @06:19PM (1 child)
"Or just ask your friendly neighborhood police officer what would happen"
lmao! when they pull me over by force of gun to rob me?
(Score: 1) by RandomFactor on Monday May 07 2018, @08:29PM
Yeah, after hearing 'Stand and deliver!' might not be the time for casual conversation :-p
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 06 2018, @01:43PM (2 children)
All right, all right, we won't be firing shotguns in urban areas, we will just bring some tennis rackets to swat those pesky drones...
- Your friendly G-Man
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 06 2018, @07:55PM (1 child)
How about a few HERF guns?
Oh... I've just been informed there's one problem with my proposal. HERF guns just aren't macho enough. They don't get the testosterone flowing. Instead they should use RPGs.
(Score: 1) by RandomFactor on Sunday May 06 2018, @11:55PM
HERF guns FTW. I would expect nets though.
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(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday May 06 2018, @03:09AM
Fake - with a purpose. The FBI intends to use this made up story in testimony before congress. And, in summary, "Congress critters, we MUST get these drones under control, before our agents start losing their lives! There is no legitimate reason why a private citizen needs a high-tech drone for his personal use!"