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North Dakota Legalizes "Less Than Lethal" Weapon-Equipped Police Drones
According to the Daily Beast, writes reader schwit1, North Dakota police will be free to fire 'less than lethal' weapons from the air thanks to the influence of a pro-police lobbyist. That means beanbags, tear-gas, and Tasers, at the very least, can be brought to bear by remote. It's worth noting that "non-lethal" isn't purely true, even if that's the intent behind such technologies. From the article, based partly on FOIA requests made by MuckRock into drone use by government agencies: The bill’s stated intent was to require police to obtain a search warrant from a judge in order to use a drone to search for criminal evidence. In fact, the original draft of Representative Rick Becker’s bill would have banned all weapons on police drones.
Then Bruce Burkett of the North Dakota Peace Officer’s Association was allowed by the state house committee to amend HB 1328 and limit the prohibition only to lethal weapons. “Less than lethal” weapons like rubber bullets, pepper spray, tear gas, sound cannons, and Tasers are therefore permitted on police drones.
The Drone Wars Have
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I can't fathom how they think this makes sense, or that there won't be pushback. Welcome to the police state.
Can I shoot at your "non-lethal" drone with my non-lethal weapons?
If the justification is that the officer fears for their safety, how does an armed drone possibly fit into that logic. Was the suspect threatening the officer from 1/2 mile away?!
... So we're talking about poorly regulated government officials using flying robots to spy on and electro-paralyze people from the air.
How exactly is this not a dystopian sci-fi novel come to life?
Don't get me wrong, I think civil use of drones can be a great thing. Even police use of drones - tracking vehicles during a car chase, fast response to a breakin or robbery, etc. But this is just ridiculous.
Stale pastry is hollow succor to one who is bereft of ostrich.
It will only leave you mostly dead, which is still somewhat alive.
FAA says no... firing an object from the air intentionally is illegal... maybe tasers could be allowed since the wire stays attached to the drone, but even then I suspect it'd need to be able to retract them... but bean bags are out.
industries that cater to law enforcement are playing a rather dangerous game. in this case a politician was greased to allow this technology through, seemingly with very little regulatory oversight. The politician has nothing to lose thanks to constituents who dont question lock-step tough on crime policies. The industry, in turn, fully expects lucrative future contracts from a proving ground/municipality it can exploit in the future in advertisement and case study. But what does it mean for crime?
these drones will be seen as a threat to personal freedoms and liberty interpreted by the constitution and beaten like a dead horse every other year by politicians. fugitives knowing these systems are in place will trade up their knives and pistols for shotguns, just as we do in Half Life 2 when the hacks approach. determined futitives will don chemical protection and equip their clothing in makeshift faraday decor to defeat these drones. it cannot be stressed enough that drones do not contribute to the de-escalation ethos of law enforcement. However, far more effective strategies are also far more likely to be viewed as 'soft on crime.' De-escalation in practice gets police chiefs fired and politicians run out on a rail, whereas we championed madness like 3 strikes and mandatory minimums for 25 years before wondering why we led the world in citizens incarcerated. Drones will beget more powerful weapons, which in turn will beget more lethal drones, and so the knot will tighten until police are dealing with 3d printed swarms of gun toting quadrocopters that respond from anonymous command by Tor node to riddle a target with rounds from similarly 3d printed mounted firearms.
Good people go to bed earlier.
I'm not dead! I think I'll go for a walk...
Carpe Canem - Seize the Dog
They just have significantly better chance than not of not killing you. They are, in fact, "less lethal", but definitely not non-lethal.
For what it's worth, getting shot by a gun is statistically only fatal about 5% of the time. While a taser is lethal even less often than that, it's still clearly lethal.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
The dystopian novels may concentrate on the methods, but the real reasons for gloom are the governments behind them. A vibrant democracy arming its peace officers with effective tools to help them fight crime is starkly different from a repressive dictatorship doing the same.
And, although the US is not any longer the vibrant democracy (republic) we once were, it is not the brutal police force, that is used by our overlords today to keep opposition at bay. Not yet, anyway — for now they still use the IRS and other "civilized" tools to suppress would-be challengers. Possibly, because their support among actual police is not all that high.
The Sci-Fi writers didn't see any of that coming.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Tasers are lethal. There are many cases of police killing citizens using tasers. We have had two in our area and in both cases the police should not have been shooting anything. They justify the tasering by saying they think it is non-lethal but people are getting killed. They justify the tasering by saying they felt threatened but an officer with a drone is threatened in no way what so ever.
It is very bad to be giving police drones.
It is very bad to be giving police 'non-lethal' weapons that they're then killing people with because of the perceived non-lethality.
Worst is to combine the two.
Actually, when founding fathers discussed reason for 2nd amendment personal defense was not the concern, but rather "Tyranny at home, enemies from abroad". The implicit right of The People to violent revolution against an evil government was the principal intent. Mark it down, a good American politician will agree with that, an evil police state thug will not. Guess what 98% of federal level politicians are?
Except that 'Wordsmithing', in most of your examples is actually useful in professional terms. Let me break it down:
Lethal Force - Force that death is a reasonable, even 'usual' result from. Standard firearms, fragmentary explosives, etc...
Nonlethal - The use of this term is actually depreciated in the force-continuum. It's a sad fact that humans can be both incredibly resilient and incredibly fragile. A disabler that works on a guy able to cut his own arm off that's trapped by a boulder and apply a tourniquet before hiking 26 miles to get to medical care is probably going to be lethal to a 90 year old diabetic great-grandmother. Worse, it's not always apparent who's 'fragile' and who's not.
Less-lethal - The replacement term. It's still potentially lethal, so care should be employed in it's deployment, but as long as you follow the directions, your department shouldn't kill anybody with it any given year.
WMD: Weapon of Mass Destruction. Now, I'm old school with this one, and demand that it be NBC - Nuclear, Biological, or Chemical. And the last is iffy as well. In order for me to count it as a WMD, it needs to be able to destroy city blocks of people, or at least kill more people than any individual practical conventional bomb. I dislike calling a pressure cooker bomb a 'WMD'. So I'd say on a 'killzone' requirement to be a WMD: Several blocks radius OR 'significant' primary duration in time. IE, as a direct intended effect from the bomb, it will keep killing people who enter the area for a significant amount of time after deployment, not just from hazards like structurally compromised buildings.
IED: Improvised Explosive Device. As opposed to a non-improvised one. A very important distinction during my time in the military. Standard munitions have standard means of disarming and disposal. EOD(Explosive Ordinance Disposal) rolls up on a Mark 82 500 pound bomb(or it's Russian equivalent), they know how to make it safe. All that goes out the window when it's an IED. Think of it like a paperwork thing - for a car you put make & model. For a bomb you'd do the same, but IED = 'home built'/unknown/unlisted. So your going 'It's a BOMB' is like saying 'It's a CAR' when I say that a Honda Civic was in an accident.
I don't read AC A human right