Front Line to Lunch Line: Schools Test Out Drones to Confront Active Shooters

When students return to school in the fall in at least three states, some of their schools will have a new technology aimed at stopping school shooters: drones that can deploy pepper spray.A handful of schools in Colorado, Florida, and Georgia are launching pilot programs this year in a partnership with Texas-based Mithril Defense. The company developed drones designed to deploy nonlethal measures — such as sirens, strobing lights, and pepper spray — to quickly confront active shooters. Mithril says the drones, which can be activated by teachers and operated remotely by Mithril employees, can reach a shooter within 15 seconds. The drones can also ram shooters at speeds of roughly 60 mph. The drones can be activated at any moment. However, they are primarily meant to be deployed to respond to lethal situations, not merely fights between students. The CEO of Mithril, Justin Marston, told the Washington Post he got the idea of using drones to confront shooters after hearing stories about how Russian and Ukrainian military forces were using cheap drones in the war. Mr. Marston said he believes a fast nonlethal drone that confronts a shooter can save lives.“The first 120 seconds are incredibly critical, because that’s when most of the shootings happen,” Mr. Marston said. Florida lawmakers have approved more than $1.1 million for at least three school districts to complete the pilot program beginning this school year. Georgia lawmakers approved $550,000 in the 2026 budget for five school districts to participate in the pilot program. And a charter school at Sterling Ranch, Colorado, will also be participating in the pilot program this fall. Florida and Colorado have some of the lowest rates of school shootings in the nation, according to CNN. The network includes shootings if they occurred on school property and at least one other person besides the shooter was shot. Georgia has a rate of 0.42 shootings per 100,000 people. That is higher than Florida and Colorado, but lower than other states or Washington, D.C., which has a rate of 1.02 per 100,000. Mithril says it has tested its drones in simulation but have not actually been used in an active-shooter situation yet. Schools around the country have taken various steps aimed at preventing mass shootings, such as the installation of weapons detectors and camera systems that use AI to try to detect signs of a weapon. Some gun control advocates have expressed concerns about bringing drones into schools.A senior director of research at Everytown for Gun Safety, Sonali Rajan, said in a statement that the drone program is “nothing more than a band-aid solution” and an “admission of our collective failure to protect kids.”“We must stop trying to out-escalate school violence with unproven school hardening measures, and instead focus on the proactive, human-centered prevention efforts that address the root causes of gun violence before a weapon ever reaches school doors,” Ms. Rajan said.Other critics have said the drones will turn schools into war zone-like environments. Mr. Marston told a Georgia TV station, Fox 5, that the schools will have between 20 and 60 drones stored in boxes placed around the schools. He said they would only be deployed “when there’s an immediate danger to your child’s life.”While the drones have not been tested in an active-shooter situation, Mr. Marston told Fox 5, “Ultimately, if somebody is covered in pepper spray but still wants to kill children, then we will hit them with the drones at speed to prevent them from doing that.”Responding concerns about the safety of the drones, Mr. Marston told the Sun the drones are “equipped with non-lethal effects, flown by several of the top drone pilots in the world.” He said they are “supported by an elite team of former military operators, law enforcement, and first responders, all of whom are extensively trained in real-world scenarios to intervene when seconds matter and save lives during an active shooter situation.”At least one other company has explored the idea of using drones in schools to stop shooters, but scrapped the idea. In 2022, a police contracting company, Axon, proposed deploying drones that could shoot shock darts at shooters. However, the company abandoned the idea after nine members of its ethics board resigned over concerns that the drones could be hacked or that they could stun children instead of shooters.

Front Line to Lunch Line: Schools Test Out Drones to Confront Active Shooters

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