SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
'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: 2) by epitaxial on Tuesday August 04, @03:23AM (7 children)
Do you have sources for your statistics?
(Score: 4, Informative) by Bentonite on Tuesday August 04, @04:23AM (6 children)
It came to me in a dream.
As you can see from this Wikipedia article, mass shootings targeting school students (school shootings) aren't as common as you've been lead to think in the USA; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States_by_death_toll?useskin=monobook [wikipedia.org]
Although even that cut down list, still inflates the count, by listing violence, that wasn't against school students, as school shootings.
An almost complete list of negligent and violent incidents with firearms at or near a school has been tallied up here, which counts idiots that shot and killed themselves accidentally, gang violence, a constable who negligently discharged into a school highway, idiots who negligently discharged into the ground in a school car park and a car thief that fired a shot into the air in the car park and fled and much more, all as school shootings;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States_(before_2000)?useskin=monobook#1990s [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States_(2000%E2%80%93present)?useskin=monobook#2000 [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States_(2010s)?useskin=monobook [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States_(2020s)?useskin=monobook [wikipedia.org]
The USA does have a major problem with violence - but not particularly with school shootings (even though each one is a tragedy, those don't happen that often).
There is also a listing of negligent and violent incidents with firearms at or near schools in the EU (that I suspect is incomplete, due to less reporting and less effort to tally them), that also lists school shootings (it also lists non-EU countries); https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_Europe?useskin=monobook#21st_century [wikipedia.org]
The EU seems to have less problems with violence, but school shootings do still occur, at a somewhat lower rate.
The real experts at school massacres (including school shootings) are governments; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_massacres_by_death_toll?useskin=monobook [wikipedia.org]
But no-one ever calls for governments to be disarmed.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by isostatic on Tuesday August 04, @11:13AM (5 children)
That's seven in 2025 alone
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by khallow on Tuesday August 04, @11:35AM (3 children)
And? How much of our freedom should we destroy to reduce that number somewhat? My view: there's always going to be stupid people and mean people. And they occasionally will do stupid and mean things. Show there's a real problem here that requires us to curb the freedom of hundreds of millions of law abiding citizens.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Bentonite on Tuesday August 04, @11:45AM
Destroying freedom further in the land of the nonfree, isn't going to reduce the number of school shooting deaths - as those are the result of violence, not freedoms exercised.
Trying to end violence, with more governmental violence, is doomed to fail.
(Score: 4, Flamebait) by epitaxial on Tuesday August 04, @12:48PM (1 child)
Therein lies the problem. You love guns more than you love children.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 05, @02:51AM
Rather I support the freedom of three hundred million people over shallow ideological signaling.
(Score: 2) by Bentonite on Tuesday August 04, @11:42AM
I count 2 mass shootings against school students in 2025, out of 7 recorded acts of violence.
There were 7 tragedies in 2025, but that was not a leading cause of death in the USA.
What killed many more people in the USA in 2025 was vehicles (after all, a vehicle has a lot more energy in it than a bullet); https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in_U.S._by_year?useskin=monobook#By_year [wikipedia.org]