Firm proposes Taser-armed drones to stop school shootings

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 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.

Axon founder and CEO Rick Smith said Friday that his company was “fired up” after the mass shooting at an Uvalde, Texas elementary 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.

“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.”