[HN Gopher] Axon Ditches Plan for Weaponized Taser Drones (Major...
___________________________________________________________________
Axon Ditches Plan for Weaponized Taser Drones (Majority of Ethics
Board Resigns)
Author : eternalban
Score : 43 points
Date : 2022-06-06 20:48 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wsj.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wsj.com)
| bamboozled wrote:
| "Drones to stop mass shooters".
|
| Stop having mass shooters !
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| 'No Way To Prevent This,' Says Only Nation Where This Regularly
| Happens
|
| https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-na...
| swagasaurus-rex wrote:
| As a means of stopping a mass shooter, this seems like a
| promising avenue.
|
| We need more ways of incapacitating a dangerous individual
| without resorting to killing them.
| ews wrote:
| Like uhmmm... making gun ownership difficult or basically
| illegal like the rest of the civilized world?
| asah wrote:
| let's not get crazy here. Guns don't kill people. If we
| banned them, they'd still stone each other. /s
| burrows wrote:
| Does the word "civilized" have any content here?
|
| Or are you just saying, "guns are illegal in countries where
| guns are illegal."
| [deleted]
| darkwizard42 wrote:
| Wouldn't investing in better mental health care, more
| reasonable ways to track and hold individuals liable for gun
| ownership, and general investment in a social safety net be
| better here?
|
| Why would we look at a sword and consider it a shield?
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| Taser drones make the right people more money.
| qgin wrote:
| I think those are all good things, but most countries that
| have negligible mass shooting events don't have better mental
| healthcare or particularly great gun ownership databases.
| Something fundamental has happened to American culture and
| it's not clear what solves that.
| glaucon wrote:
| > but most countries that have negligible mass shooting
| events don't have better mental healthcare or particularly
| great gun ownership databases
|
| I don't know what countries you're referring to "that have
| negligible mass shooting events" but I guess within the
| developed world "most countries" here is "every country
| other than the USA" ? I mean I'm open to other suggestions
| but, sadly and tragically, it seems to me the USA is out in
| front to a significant degree.
|
| Saying that those other countries "don't have better mental
| healthcare" might be technically correct (or it may not I
| don't know for sure) but what does it mean when large
| swathes of the population in the USA can't access it anyway
| ? How many of those who perpetrate mass killings are
| actively being cared for ?
|
| I don't know how to comment on the gun database thing.
| These other countries have gun databases but the key thing
| is you just can't buy a gun unless you have a very good
| reason to own one. When you can buy a gun it's not an
| automatic weapon. I mean I can't think of a developed world
| country, other than the USA, where it's possible to buy or
| own such a weapon legally. So regardless of the quality of
| such databases, and I'm not saying they're better or worse,
| the main thing is that there's just not many entries in
| such databases.
|
| > Something fundamental has happened to American culture
| and it's not clear what solves that.
|
| I agree and I'm deeply sorry for it being the case.
|
| I read an article recently I now can't find which discussed
| the Las Vegas[1] killer and attempted to put him in set of
| men of a certain age who have economically "failed" (I
| don't like that term) and how that was viewed by US society
| in a less forgiving way than in other countries and how it
| also led to lack of treatment for depression etc. I thought
| that was interesting but as I can't find the article it
| doesn't take us far. If anyone recognises it I'd be
| interested to know.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Las_Vegas_shooting
| GordonS wrote:
| Like... proper gun legislation?
| endisneigh wrote:
| How exactly would gun legislation stop an active shooter? I
| agree it could prevent it from happening to begin with.
| asah wrote:
| it's just friction... by making it harder to attain guns,
| you reduce the NUMBER of active shooter situations...
| really, it's that simple.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Easy. You put a tax on guns or require registration. Make
| it a felony to not pay the tax.
|
| Then you get to trace the chain of custody of the shooters
| guns and start arresting the people supplying arms to
| psychotics.
| endisneigh wrote:
| Huh? A tax wouldn't have stopped the most recent Texas
| school shooting. A felony for not paying taxes seems
| needlessly punitive btw
| consumer451 wrote:
| Macro vs micro.
| endisneigh wrote:
| No amount of legislation can stop an active shooter
| already in your school, shooting people up is already
| breaking several laws.
| consumer451 wrote:
| Sadly at this point, the micro problem is the day's
| school shooting.
|
| The macro problem is decades of 2nd amendment "purism."
| No other country has this problem to the extent that the
| USA has. Also, no other country has such lax gun laws. At
| least no country of which I'm aware.
|
| In regard to this matter, I honestly don't see what the
| political paths going forward could be for the USA.
| logseman wrote:
| There were a bunch of police who'd just done training on
| stopping an active shooter and simply refused to follow the
| training. What is the point of reactive measures if they
| are flat-out disregarded? In this example, this drone could
| be deployed but it could not attack the shooter, or it
| could attack the kids instead. Considering that everyone
| would reject any liability just like the Uvalde PD has
| done, it would not help at all.
| endisneigh wrote:
| I don't disagree. What are some alternatives?
| [deleted]
| Teever wrote:
| Have you considered looking abroad to see how other
| nations do it?
| endisneigh wrote:
| I have - other countries don't seem particularly better
| at stopping active shooters. What they're better at is
| _preventing_ them, but the tech in the article is about
| _stopping_ them.
|
| Obviously making it harder to get guns will prevent them,
| but I'm talking and asking about stopping an engaged
| active shooter.
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| .
| chroem- wrote:
| Statistically speaking, in the United States you are more
| likely to be struck by lightning than you are to die in a
| school shooting. The vast majority of gun violence is drug
| and gang related, however since 2020 progressive
| jurisdictions have _lessened_ drug /gang firearms penalties
| and enforcement, because of their perceived disproportional
| impact on BIPOC communities.
| [deleted]
| roamerz wrote:
| Really? Would you like to see the Uvalde killer still alive so
| he could face justice?
| arthurcolle wrote:
| Yeah definitely. Rule of law is important
| endisneigh wrote:
| If you assume gun legislation will not change, what's the
| alternative? Curious to hear about alternatives being planned.
|
| - metal detectors are frowned upon
| (https://detroit.chalkbeat.org/2022/5/26/23143403/detroit-pub...)
|
| - automatically locked doors are faulty and don't really stop you
| if you happen to get in.
| (https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/06/06/buttigieg-s...)
|
| - armed police at school have been rejected already by many urban
| school district student bodies
| (https://www.mercurynews.com/2022/06/06/students-push-back-on...)
| [deleted]
| ok_dad wrote:
| Remember, guns are for the "well regulated Militia", so
| regulating gun technology and access to them are inherent in
| the 2nd Amendment, IMHO.
|
| Therefore, I propose:
|
| - Regulate access to guns; require training, background checks,
| and a database of gun owners that is cross-checked against
| mental health records and criminal legal records - Regulate gun
| tech for civilians; don't allow magazines or speed-loaders for
| civilian guns, so it takes longer to reload (will help with how
| easy mass-shootings are now) and disallow other features that
| are designed to make killing in battle more efficient
| (basically just allow hunting and target-shooting guns with
| reduced reload efficiency) - Cover mental health (and other
| medical procedures) for all Americans
| initplus wrote:
| Mental health checks sound like a good idea, but there is a
| risk that it prevents people from actually seeking help.
|
| See the way mental illness is treated in aviation - mental
| health care is inaccessible to pilots because seeking help
| for serious issues will put a black mark on your record and
| end your career. So pilots with serious mental health issues
| intentionally avoid getting help.
|
| Not that it's a bad idea just that it's not as easy as it
| seems. Penalties for seeking medical care push people away
| from seeking care and in turn make the health issues worse.
| ok_dad wrote:
| Yea, I've been through mental stuff as well in a career
| where it runined my future (I had to switch careers), but
| honestly if a mental health doctor thinks you might be a
| danger, then perhaps you shouldn't own guns for a period of
| time. Perhaps a system where doctors can report "this
| person is a danger to themselves or others at this time"
| and then after 1 year the report is scrubbed from the
| database. I do understand this is a "slippery slope" and
| perhaps it is hard to not have "false positives" (aka:
| people who lose access to guns who shouldn't have), however
| I prefer a small rate of "false positive gun removals" to a
| small rate of young children getting shot in the face. To
| me, as someone who has owned guns and even concealed
| carried them for several years, I would happily trade all
| of my guns and the perceived "defense" they provided me for
| a reduced mass-shootings rate.
| endisneigh wrote:
| I don't disagree that gun legislation is the solution, but
| the democrats are all but certain to lose in the midterms, so
| it's unlikely anything will be passed.
|
| Mental health records generally are sealed like all medical
| records. Are you proposing they be accessible?
|
| For instance the Virginia tech shooter received mental health
| care most of his adolescence, bought a gun legally and still
| committed the worst school shooting to date.
|
| My question is around stopping an active shooter once it's
| happening.
| ok_dad wrote:
| > My question is around stopping an active shooter once
| it's happening
|
| This is like treating the symptoms, not the disease. Cops
| should be sufficient for stopping an active shooter, and if
| they are not then that's their failure. It's society's
| failure to let it get to that point in the first place.
| endisneigh wrote:
| Sure, but sometimes you have to treat symptoms. If an
| active shooter does happen to come to a school they need
| to be neutralized way faster, not an hour
| ok_dad wrote:
| Agree, but we've been trying to treat the symptoms for
| decades now and it is just getting worse.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| I think you both agree there. How do you make cops that
| are willing to neutralize them? Clearly more funding,
| weapons, and power doesn't work.
| teakettle42 wrote:
| > Remember, guns are for the "well regulated Militia"
|
| That's a willful misinterpretation of the 2nd amendment that
| has been specifically rejected by the Supreme Court.
|
| It's also contrary to many state constitutions, which provide
| an even more definitive individual, affirmative right to bear
| arms.
| ok_dad wrote:
| > willful misinterpretation of the 2nd amendment that has
| been specifically rejected by the Supreme Court
|
| I can interpret the text how I want, regardless of the
| opinion of a captured, political organization like the SC.
|
| > It's also contrary to many state constitutions, which
| provide an even more definitive individual, affirmative
| right to bear arms.
|
| See: Article VI, Paragraph 2 of the U.S. Constitution
| (again, I reject the SC's opinion on these matters, so I
| believe the supremacy clause should override those state's
| constitutions)
|
| I'm not going to reply to you again, though, because
| clearly we have different base axioms we're starting from
| here.
| 323 wrote:
| It's ok, the Chinese will build them and US will order them from
| Aliexpress.
| pigtailgirl wrote:
| "A remotely operated non-lethal TASER-enabled drone in schools is
| an idea, not a product, and it's a long way off. We have a lot of
| work and exploring to see if this technology is even viable and
| to understand if the public concerns can be adequately addressed
| before moving forward.
|
| Pursuing an extended research path is just one element of getting
| this right."
|
| https://www.axon.com/news/technology/axon-committed-to-liste...
|
| -- not sure "ditches" is - quite the right word here? --
| adamredwoods wrote:
| Or return to improve sticky foam?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sticky_foam
| latchkey wrote:
| Slaughterbots (2017)
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CO6M2HsoIA
| qgin wrote:
| Originally, tasers were pitched as an alternative to shooting
| bullets at someone. That sounded very reasonable. In practice,
| tasers came to be used for situations in which bullets would
| never be fired in. They became tools to force immediate
| compliance. Someone doesn't listen to instructions? Out comes the
| taser. The non-lethality lowered the bar for use and enabled
| police to exert a level of control that didn't exist before.
|
| Now let's say you have a drone that fires a taser. For a mass
| shooting event, yes, that sounds very reasonable. But of course
| it will be used for many, many more situations. How long before
| it's standard practice for police to send an autonomous taser of
| some sort to knock on doors to keep occupants at bay while they
| search the house?
|
| I don't know which tradeoff are worth it, but less-lethal weapons
| don't just replace the lethal ones, they end up being used in a
| much more expansive set of circumstances than the lethal ones
| they replace.
| Teever wrote:
| They're playing with fire here. What happens when civilians
| make their own tazer drones and start randomly hitting cops?
| upsidesinclude wrote:
| Combine this with police militarization post 9/11 and we're on
| a terrible path. We have a trained military police force which
| views the public as an insurgency and is given ever increasing
| ability to subdue and subjugate the populace.
|
| The endless videos of people being tased into compliance is
| bizarre, no less the number of voices which condone the act.
| endisneigh wrote:
| Given that police already shoot unarmed people who literally
| are just standing around, or are sleeping, I'm not sure the bar
| can get any lower.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Tasers displaced some beatings, not shootings. It's harder to
| be held accountable because the taser company is partially
| accountable. When you crack Johnny Crackhead's skull, the
| civil jury is more likely to be sympathetic.
|
| Back in the day, the cops would beat the crap out of people
| with nightsticks. Guns were less commonly used - that changed
| in the 80s.
| Amezarak wrote:
| According to the WaPo tracker, police shot ~150 unarmed
| people last year. But this includes, per WaPo, people engaged
| in such activities as "gouging out the officer's eye." I
| think it's probably safe to assume an order of magnitude less
| people were literally just standing around or sleeping (is
| that a reference to Taylor? FWIW, that ended up being Twitter
| misinformation - she was awake standing next to her
| boyfriend, who was firing at the police through the door),
| for about 15.
|
| I would imagine it's a pretty good guess that police already
| tase at least 1000x that many people every year. I'm having
| trouble finding good national LEO statistics, but "Taser
| International" claims 900 Taser uses a day. I don't think we
| should do anything to encourage that.
| qgin wrote:
| I wouldn't be surprised if tasers actually increase the
| impulse to "reach for a gun-like solution" and may have
| actually increased gun use in policing.
| imglorp wrote:
| Maybe the line to draw is autonomy?
|
| If you're after a mass shooter, today anyway, that would be an
| ROV activity: a human pilot flying it could distinguish cops,
| perps, and vics and fire one taser.
|
| If you ask for autonomy, then you're leaping into Slaughterbot
| territory (see link below someone already posted) and you might
| have thousands of them in a theater of operations.
| joebob42 wrote:
| I'm glad, but unfortunately I'm sure if the police / government
| decide they want this sort of technology someone else will build
| it for them.
| dmead wrote:
| They wanted to fly them in schools.
| throw457 wrote:
| It goes in both directions... We should all be scared of the
| time when lunatics discover how easy it is to arm commercial
| drones. Drones are becoming increasingly available and easy to
| use, and as they become more sophisticated, it is only a matter
| of time before someone with malicious intent figures out how to
| arm them. Once that happens, we could see a whole new level of
| terror and violence, as drones armed with explosives or other
| weapons could be used to target civilians indiscriminately.
| Even worse, it would be very difficult to defend against an
| attack by armed drones, as they can be operated remotely and
| are very difficult to shoot down. In short, the potential for
| misuse of armed drones is extremely high, and we should all be
| worried about the possibility of them being used for nefarious
| purposes.
| meheleventyone wrote:
| This seems mostly a tv show threat outside of a war zone
| where commercial drones are already being retrofitted this
| way.
| latchkey wrote:
| https://youtu.be/TlO2gcs1YvM?t=340
| 323 wrote:
| > _it is only a matter of time before someone with malicious
| intent figures out how to arm them_
|
| You mean like in Ukraine right now, where they are dropping
| grenades from DJI drones?
| danenania wrote:
| For anything widely available, I believe they're very easy to
| jam? I don't know if jammers have been widely distributed to
| police departments though.
| killjoywashere wrote:
| I'm not glad. People have been weaponizing drones for a while
| now. Non-lethals are infinitely preferable when operationally
| indicated.
|
| https://www.cnn.com/cnn/2021/10/20/politics/drone-attack-syr...
| [deleted]
| trhway wrote:
| I'm for weaponized drones to be used by police. Police frequently
| uses lethal force indiscriminately because of the excuse of the
| "split second perception of danger" to themselves. Taking the
| physical bodies of police out of actual engagement and thus out
| of any danger would remove that excuse.
|
| Parkland an Uvalde pretty much showed that the threat of actual
| danger to police bodies slows response, and thus again weaponized
| drones, flying and/or crawling, would have allowed police to
| proceed without being slowed by that threat of danger to
| themselves.
| duxup wrote:
| If you can fly a drone in to "stop a mass shooter", why not just
| take other actions?
|
| Sit and wait for someone to go get the drone and deploy it?
|
| The use case here seems weirdly specific.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-06-06 23:01 UTC)