Taser developer Axon proposes armed drones to stop US school shootings
- The company says it is working on a product that could ‘help prevent the next Uvalde, Sandy Hook or Columbine’ by stunning gunmen with electric weapons
- The ‘crackpot’ idea has angered members of the firm’s own ethics board, some of whom may quit in protest
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”. But its own technology advisers quickly panned the idea as a dangerous fantasy.
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 weaponising drones in over-policed communities of colour. 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 immobilising an intruding gunman.
Axon founder and CEO Rick Smith said Friday that his company was “fired up” after the mass shooting at an Uvalde, Texas junior school and wanted to vet public views about technology that might help. “We have not launched a product,” he said Friday in an online forum. “We have launched an idea into the public debate.”
Axon’s stock price rose with the news. But the announcement angered members of the ethics board, some of whom are now likely to quit in protest.
