I agree with you points except this one. You'd be surprised what a skilled operator can do. Check out YouTube.

I could envision a swarm of small, low-cost drones entering a building or campus and automatically dispersing to cover a wide area. They'd provide video, bidirectional audio, and a secure network. Any one or combination of them could go into "flashbang mode" emitting debilitating/distracting sound and light.

It will get there, but not any time soon for any type of cost efficient pricepoint. Yes a skilled operator could do it. How many of those would be in a school/on a police force?

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If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went. - Will Rogers

Emery's Third Coast Triathlon | Tri Wisconsin Triathlon Team | Push Endurance | GLWR

You have not been near or flown a drone, they are NOT stealthy, they are pretty loud. You can hear mine fly overhead when its at 300ft. Granted at that height you have to be listening for it, but 200ft you know its there. Pretty easy to shoot down inside since you wont have lots of room to maneuver. Fixed camera's in the hallway with police access would be a lower cost, more effective solution.

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Just Triing
Triathlete since 9:56:39 AM EST Aug 20, 2006.
Be kind English is my 2nd language. My primary language is Dave it's a unique evolution of English.

I have been around one a couple of times. Stealth can pertain to visibility. If someone is shooting or looking for students, they may not pay attention to that buzzing sound. Likewise, if they were outside - the drone could be high enough that they would have to look for it if they did hear it. That distraction is a positive.

Then, if they wanted to empty their gun shooting at it - then that is one magazine less ammo they have to shoot at students.

Odd you choose 1980, Columbine was in 1999 and what I think of as the first mass school shooting, they seem to be increasing in frequency, and I think anytime kids in a supposedly safe place of school are killed in mass its going to get more attention.

But your opinion, is in line with what I think is happening in this country, eh it's ok it doesn't happen that often. Just another day in America.

Well this is an interesting link, Seems China has a problem with school killings also. https://en.wikipedia.org/..._of_school_massacres

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Just Triing
Triathlete since 9:56:39 AM EST Aug 20, 2006.
Be kind English is my 2nd language. My primary language is Dave it's a unique evolution of English.

Wouldn't just sending in a couple dogs be easier yet. Heck maybe thats it, each schools get 2 dogs per every 1000 students.

RELEASE THE HOUNDS

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Just Triing
Triathlete since 9:56:39 AM EST Aug 20, 2006.
Be kind English is my 2nd language. My primary language is Dave it's a unique evolution of English.

Only if they have bees in their mouths.

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If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went. - Will Rogers

Emery's Third Coast Triathlon | Tri Wisconsin Triathlon Team | Push Endurance | GLWR

I'll go back to 1764 if it made you happy, but that was Indians or to 2010 if that works https://en.m.wikipedia.org/...in_the_United_States

Mass shootings in grade schools (elementary, middle, high) resulting in 4 or more deaths really are not really more frequent, 3 since 2010.

I'm not nonchalant about school shootings. But it also isn't hard to see people trying to use them to advance whatever political agenda they have. I doubt their sincerity, especially since every side imaginable thinks it proves their side is righteous. Far more people die from far more mundane issues that we ignore. But then it is hard to politicize lightning and bees.

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I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.

The trend is that none of these documented mental-health cases had their access to weapons restricted or monitored? That might work... it would at least raise one barrier that seems to be pretty low at this point.

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Less is more.

It's basically impossible to look at Wikipedia HTML tables and conclude fuck-all. So here's some graphs I made by copying HTML tables into Google Docs and doing a little maths.

A little misleading on the end because 2018 isn't over yet, but the data is included. I could go further back if anyone cares, went to 1990.

I haven't done a regression, but from a statistics perspective I'd bet we'd get a positive slope on all 3 stats line from 1990-2018.

It was really obvious while calculating the stats. To calculate frequency at first I was was just eyeball-counting (4's and 5's). Once I got to 2006 or so I had to start using macros to save time. There is one double-digit count (1994) before 2006. From 2007 on there are 9, including this year in March.

So something is happening, statistically, if you believe the Wikipedia numbers. How much significance you want to place on it is up to you.

You have much more ambition (and time apparently) than I do. :)

As we have discussed before, a lot is also going to come down to how we define 'school shooting'.

I did not use university shootings as I think those are usually more akin to a workplace shooting and involve older perpetrators.

I only counted 4 or more deaths including the shooter because that is what I felt like doing at the time. There will always (at least since Cain gave Abel 40 whacks with an axe) be instances of one person getting mad at one other person and killing them, school or not, so I looked for the more lethal instances.

And it is tough to tell what was a school related shooting and what was a shooting that just happened to occur near or at a school.

I'm not saying that school shootings are not problematic. I am not saying they are not increasing at some rate., though I think that rate is lower than most people believe. All I am saying is that they are not increasing nearly as dramatically per capita as portrayed and that they are not the scourge on humanity as portrayed.

I may have come off flip, but the US averages more than 50 deaths a year from both bees and lightning, each averages more than the highest total ever (I think) for school violence incidents. But I cannot remember either of those getting any attention at all in our news and both are very preventable without infringing on anyone's rights.

There are far, far more people (and children) killed by guns every day in other circumstance so I would not base gun control laws on school shootings and I certainly wouldn't decide to put multiple armed teachers and several guns just waiting for an accident or misuse in every school in response.

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I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.

Ground robot perhaps. Drone? No way. How many of these things are there going to be? To have one that can be deployed in such a short period of time makes this impractical. Hell even a ground robot would take time to deploy. I imagine the skill level of the pilot would be very high. How quickly could these operators be deployed? Would probably need to form part of SWAT.