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'Campus Guardian Angel' Drones Can Also Smash Windows And Ram Attackers
This is how the Campus Guardian Angel drone system is designed to work:
The drone defense firm's CEO underlined that “the first 120 seconds are incredibly critical, because that’s when most of the shooting happens.” That implies that he thinks Campus Guardian Angel drones could be successfully deployed within that very narrow time window. But Uvalde was quite unusual, as responding law enforcement seemed paralyzed, waiting over an hour to enter the classroom.
These school-based drone systems are not without their critics. Some say that the funds may be better spent on prevention than cure. Even Mithril’s founder and CEO’s opinion seems to be that if these drones aren’t prompted into action within two minutes, they aren’t living up to their promise.
There is also the concern that drones could misidentify students or protection officers when controllers are under pressure. Others say that military-style drone systems aren’t appropriate for schools, and will cost a lot more than simple measures and routines regarding locked doors.
With the three states proceeding with pilot programs this year, we may see the true value and capabilities of the Campus Guardian Angel drones. If these drone-protected schools don’t suffer any terrible shooting incidents, then it may be claimed that the drones are at least a deterrent.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by khallow on Tuesday August 04, @01:10AM (11 children)
(Score: 4, Touché) by aafcac on Tuesday August 04, @01:48AM (9 children)
Anything to avoid interpreting the 2nd amendment as actually written and intended to be used.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 04, @02:25AM (8 children)
We can go there if you'd like. But the English language will side with me.
(Score: 2) by aafcac on Tuesday August 04, @04:18AM (7 children)
If your view is that we have an individual right to firearms without any sort of membership in a militia then you're absolutely wrong. If they meant for it to be a personal right they would have used the singular like they did in other amendments and they wouldn't have even bothered to mention the militia at all in justifying it. They don't justify any of the items in the 1st amendment, so why would they do that in the 2nd if it wasn't a requirement?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 04, @11:30AM (6 children)
To the contrary, that is exactly how the Second Amendment is written!
They use the same tense ("the people", "the accused") with the First, Fourth, Sixth, Ninth, and Tenth Amendments. And that same tense is routinely used throughout the Constitution, including the very first sentence ("We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union...").
The Second Amendment being the obvious counterexample to your assertion.
And yet that's exactly what they did.
The problem here is that you (and many others) keep trying to turn an explanation into a requirement. This is why I stated that the English language would side with me. "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." is pretty straight-forward.
My view is that a militia was an informal concept. It was people who was capable of defending their homes and society from threats. Further, the explanation was simply that such a militia was more effective ("well-regulated") if people owned and used their own firearms. The government wouldn't need to supply the firearms or need to familiarize militia members with their use. You can't just expect people to magically know that stuff.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by aafcac on Tuesday August 04, @03:09PM (5 children)
That's an absolute load of crap. You're trying to apply an understanding of the meaning of the 2nd amendment that didn't exist for well over a century to it. The constitution at the time was between the federal government and the people, it didn't even apply to state or local governments at the time, so no it absolutely was not something that granted regular people the right to keep and bear arms the way that you're implying and the language about the militia there was a massive hint as to who was actually being granted the right to have what weapons. They could very easily have just left that bit out if it wasn't intended to allow restrictions on the ownership and possession by private citizens.
As far as the militia being a counterexample, it only becomes a counterexample if you deliberately ignore the text and the context in order to read what you wish to read into it. That's not something that people of the day read it as meaning and the whole context was rather different as there literally was a need for a regulated militia in those days. You needed to know the intention of the amendment in order to know what sorts of laws could be written with respect to weapons and if amendments were required, which they absolutely are as you're not the only one that doesn't understand the text of the amendment and the amendment itself wasn't ever properly ratified due to varying texts of it in circulation, you need that information to know how to fix it.
As for the last bit about justifying it, only if you misread the amendment and are ignorant of the historical context and then don't notice that the interpretation that you're pushing didn't even become a popular one until much, much later does that make any sense at all to justify the amendment.
Granting individuals a right to more or less whatever weapons they can get their hands on with barely any restrictions doesn't make any sense and the people writing the amendment were almost certainly aware of it. Hence the specification that it's a collective right that's for the purpose of the militia having the weapons to do things like stand in for the lack of a standing military, have people available to ward off attacks by the various local tribes and serve on posses when there was a need for it as there was often no professional police force in most of the areas that could handle such things without needing to draft local people when tracking folks down.
They could very easily have used the singular if they wanted to mean that, it's not like the 1st amendment where having that be a personal right doesn't really make any sense due to most of that stuff involving multiple people and not wanting to create an end run where instead of preventing people from speaking, you just prevent people from being able to hear the speech.
Your view that the militia bit is informal isn't supported by really anything. While there is an unorganized militia in all states, there is also an organized militia, that's the one that's referred to. Having people with a bunch of weapons that have no training and military gear is just not something that anybody in their right mind thinks is a good idea.
(Score: 2) by cmdrklarg on Tuesday August 04, @07:29PM (3 children)
You must also understand that at the time the state of art firearms were muskets, which needed training to become proficient in using.
I am pretty sure that the Founding Fathers did not want the 2nd Amendment to mean "any idiot that can pull a trigger can have firearms", and certainly did not have semi-automatic pistols and fully automatic assault rifles in mind at the time.
No matter how much khallow insists we can't simply ignore the first part of the amendment, nor can we ignore the context of the times when it was first written. It absolutely needs to be updated, but good luck with that.
The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 05, @02:47AM (2 children)
I believe a fair number of founding fathers did indeed have that interpretation. After all, privately owned cannon and military ships were legal at the time, for example. Can't say those are mere firearms.
Badly misinterpreting the first part is not paying attention to it! It's just a genuine form of ignoring. As I noted, the first part is purely explicative. That doesn't change no matter how much more attention we pay to it than we already are.
(Score: 2) by cmdrklarg on Friday August 07, @07:32PM (1 child)
I don't believe that, and your belief isn't provable nor relevant. Cannon weren't exactly weapons any idiot could use without training either.
Yes, it's explicative; how does that translate into something that can be ignored? Your way lies madness; if we decide we can selectively ignore parts of other amendments we might as well not have them anymore. The sheer fact that the exclusion of that set of words completely changes the meaning of the amendment means it is disingenuous to insist on ignoring it. "Any idiot can own any firearm" in 2026 is very different than "We need people trained to use weapons in case we need a militia; let's make sure people can own them" in 1789.
Either way, it needs to be updated. Thanks to idiots interpreting the 2nd like you are, we won't be doing that anytime soon. Good day, sir.
The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday August 08, @12:28AM
You don't believe what? That private ships were tooling around with cannon and even engaging in privateering (legal piracy)?
Welcome to the English language. Explanations and other justifications have no legal power. By definition.
It does mean that your assertion is nonsense. For the above reasons.
This is one of those legal principles that people routinely don't get. When you do anything beyond the minimum of defining and stating the rule, then that fluff becomes a perceived loophole by people who are looking for any excuse to break the rule. Sometimes you need to do that anyway - for example, say because compliance with a rule is better when people know why the rule exists, or because you can't get the rule implemented (due to opposition) without the explanation such as in the case of the Second Amendment.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 05, @02:37AM
"Massive hint" means your thing is not law. What I see here is just a lot of projection. You claim that my meaning of the Second Amendment is relatively new. All I can say is that it's far more consistent with the Second Amendment as it is actually written than whatever you are claiming - which is probably a lot newer an interpretation. Similarly, I can't take your claims of historical knowledge seriously.
There is at least a century of history of militias predating the US Constitution. For example, King Phillips War (1675-1678) which was a nasty fight between Massachusetts colonists and their Indian allies against a strong tribal alliance involved a large (for the time) militia. Militia members were expected to provide their own firearms.
Militias were heavily used during the Revolutionary War on both the US and English sides. Again, members were typically expected to provide their own firearms.
There was an expectation among many parts of the US of the time that people would have and use personal firearms. And it was crucial to the defense of the region for centuries that everyone was so armed. My take is that there was some behind-the-scenes disagreement or concern over the Second Amendment and this was settled by explaining why the Second Amendment existed. But they didn't actually make the militia thing a requirement for firearm ownership and use - which can easily be confirmed by actually reading the amendment.
If they wanted your alleged interpretation then they would have worded the Second Amendment differently to convey that interpretation - they did not. There's no point to speaking of context when you ignore the most important context of all!
Why doesn't it make sense? The Second Amendment explained it "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State". As I noted above, people are expected to provide their own firearms/"weapons" and be familiar with their use because that would help protect the security of the US. And personally owned weapons are what people got their hands on by definition.
As to the bit about being a "collective right", the wording of the amendment, particularly the use of "the People" phrase is the same as used in four other amendments and the US Constitution. It is nonsense to claim that it's a collective right in this case, but not in the First Amendment! You are selectively inconsistent in your interpretation of the English language! To the contrary, the wording shows that they intended it to be a personal right just like all the other personal rights.
Just history. We have a lot of history here where militia are used both formally and informally. You even mention a couple of informal examples: "have people available to ward off attacks by the various local tribes and serve on posses"!
The First Amendment doesn't refer to a collective right either. They used a standard plural formalism present throughout the Bill of Rights to refer to individual rights. Deal with it.
This is just a ton of begging the question. When we read the Second Amendment honestly, we just can't go there.
(Score: 2) by cmdrklarg on Tuesday August 04, @06:53PM
I'm fairly sure that the first usage of these drones will be on innocent students, subverted or not.
The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.