This is what the kids today call "missing the plot:"
Taser developer Axon said this week it is working to build drones armed with the electric stunning weapons that could fly in schools and "help prevent the next Uvalde, Sandy Hook, or Columbine." ...
The publicly traded company, which sells Tasers and police body cameras, floated the idea of a new police drone product last year to its artificial intelligence ethics board, a group of well-respected experts in technology, policing and privacy.
Some of them expressed reservations about weaponizing drones in over-policed communities of color. But they were not expecting Axon's Thursday announcement that it wants to send those Taser-equipped drones into classrooms to prevent mass shootings by immobilizing an intruding gunman.
Oh suuuure this is a very practical approach to solving this problem. I mean, look, when a gunman is already inside a school and you're absolutely out of time, you could fire one of these up...
...and fly it to the school and (somehow) get it inside and maneuver it through the hallways and find the shooter and line up the shot and hope you stick it and it brings the shooter down.
Or you could just...you know...have this:
And then you're done.
To be sure, not everyone's on board with this:
[Axon's] own technology advisers quickly panned the idea as a dangerous fantasy. ...
"This particular idea is crackpot," said Barry Friedman, a New York University law professor who sits on the Axon AI Ethics Board. "Drones can't fly through closed doors. The physical properties of the universe still hold. So unless you have a drone in every single classroom in America, which seems insane, the idea just isn't going to work."
Friedman said it was a "dangerous and fantastical idea" that went far beyond the proposal for a Taser-equipped police drone that board members — some of them former or current police officials — had been debating in recent months.
"We begged the company not to do it," Friedman said of the company's announcement. "It was unnecessary and shameful."
That's not wrong. Anyway can we go back to talking about arming teachers again or is that still off-limits?
P.S. Now check out our latest video 👇
