Last week, the New York Times gave us the heads-up that “A new federal law, signed by the president on Tuesday, compels the Federal Aviation Administration to allow drones to be used for all sorts of commercial endeavors — from selling real estate and dusting crops, to monitoring oil spills and wildlife, even shooting Hollywood films. Local police and emergency services will also be freer to send up their own drones.” So, when will the cops be freerer to shoot [suspected] perps with eye-in-the-sky-delivered flash bangs or TASER XREP rounds?

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30 COMMENTS

  1. Michael Bloomburg and the MAIG club are already salivating at the possibilities. Coming to a leftist state near you:

    “A motorist was pulled over for illegal transport of a firearm though New York today.A drone posted at the state line identified the gun owner buying gas & ammunition for a match in Vermont who claims he was travelling under protections of the FOPA. Police spokesman stated that getting guns off the street takes priority over civil liberties”

    “In California today a gun owner was arrested for possession of an assault weapon.A remote drone captured the gun owner on camera walking out of a gunstore with an AR15 , which the police believed looked like an illegal gun. Once the gun owner was followed to his residence by the drone a warrant was obtained, discovering an arms cache of 250 .22LR rounds and a legal .22 rimfire AR15 model.The police department could not be reached for comment.”

    • “discovering an arms cache of 250 .22LR rounds and a legal .22 rimfire AR15 model”

      A “cache” of 250 .22LR rounds??? A CACHE?? LOL! That’s half of a $20 “bulk” box of .22 from Walmart! If that’s a “cache,” I shudder to think what they’d call my ammo supply. LOL!

      (I realize these were hypotheticals, but not very far-fetched, eh?)

      • It’s just like when they bust a couple of mom and pop pot growers and take a picture of their “arsenal” and it’s a .270 with a scope,a 30-30 lever gun and a pump action .22 . I’m actually surprised they don’t toss the kitchen knives and sporting equipment up there as well.

    • “… getting guns off the street takes priority over civil liberties.”
      Continued:
      “The man was arrested, and taken to the local jail where he was kept for the legal 72 hours before being informed of his charges or allowing him to phone his attorney or anyone else. The charges were finally dropped and he was released, but the arrest will remain on his record for life, severly reducing his options for employment. He lost his current job due to his absence and inablity to call his employer.”

  3. Well boys & girls,

    This summer is really going to be the make it or break it time for all the occupy-minded people because once the police come down hard and force some to look to greece-like solutions with molotov cocktails, stones, and whatever else they can get their hands on!
    It is just the excuse Obumbles needs to call martial law, suspend elections indefinitly, and crown himself king of Amerikka. Of coarse all this will happen while his newly minted police agency the TSA, will head-up a response team with interpol, foreign troops, and many drones forcing large groups of citizens into their local FEMA camps for processing into a ash-cement mix that will help build more camps.
    The United States of America is coming to an end soon and people are going to be forced to choose sides, so pick carefully my friends because big bro is always watching!

  4. Francis Fukayama, of “The End of History” fame, wrote an interesting piece in the Financial Times yesterday: He’s building his own DIY drone now, fearing that they’ll be made illegal in the near future, echoing the pattern of thinking common to many handgun purchasers. “Drones, the New Guns.” Ah, technology.

    • Francis Fukuyama: History, you are over!
      History: Francis, you will end before I do.

      A gross simplification of his work, of course. Yet I couldn’t resist mocking that tool.

    • That bombing was just another one of those ‘surprise’ events in which a tough-on-crime conservative (of either party) takes a pass on violent action, only to have a liberal come in and declare war on some minority group of which they disapprove: That day, when Mayor Goode gave the go-ahead for the bombing of MOVE with C4 and Tovex, is a day of regret for me. I was walking to a college class. In the window of a boutique on Walnut Street was a mannequin wearing a T-shirt with a hysterical picture of “Frankie Africa,” a retouched photo of Frank Rizzo with dreadlocks, as a MOVE member. I didn’t buy it. The next day it was gone. Everybody in MOVE was named Africa. Frank Rizzo was a former Philly police chief and mayor, and to the right of Ghengis Khan, as he would say. “Frankie Africa.” I still regret not buying the shirt. The OK by Goode for the bombing brings Janet Reno to mind, I suppose. 65 homes destroyed by the resulting fire, eleven dead including 5 children. The more things change..

      • I remember it all too well. It was a sad day for Philadelphia and for America. The mayor and his minions killed, injured and terrified many more people that day than the MOVE movement had in all of it’s existance. I’m not saying the Move organization was a good thing, but they didn’t deserve what they got.

      • Osage avenue was mild compared to the plans they have for surveillance, apprehension and combat from the sky. There are a few constitutional wrinkles to iron out but it’s safe to say they will find a way to patrol from the sky very soon.

    • I recall the full story behind this was that they dropped the bomb on a reinforced rooftop bunker built by a group of armed squatters who wanted to go “back to nature” in the middle of the city and who had already killed in armed conflict with the city…

      oh here it is:

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOVE

      yeah…

      -D

  6. I suspect that the non-trivial costs associated with these things, and the general lack of aptitude among their eventual operators, will result in a whole lot of expense, both to replace said drones and to repair the public property that’s certain to be damaged by them falling from the sky.

    And that’s before anyone decides to get cute with the relatively trivial undertaking of jamming both video and control frequencies…

  7. Will they be circling all the donut shops?

    New bumper sticker? “D.A.R.E. to Keep Drones Off Donuts”

    In reality, this scares the hell out of me.

      • Especially since due process is a thing of the past. The Ruby Ridge of the future won’t feature any agents surrounding a compound, or a sniper looking down a scope. Instead, there will be some guy at a monitor, and he’ll get the go ahead to push a button, and he’ll send down some Hellfires to take out whoever’s in the crosshairs that day.

        Thing is, it’ll probably be totally legal by then, and it’ll maybe take up a couple column inches in the local paper.

  8. Get your shot guns boys. We’re goin huntin. So, how does one apply for that drone (hunting ) licence anyway.
    WE need to get NDAA and the Fascist that passed it out.

  9. This makes total sense – all the great futuristic novels and movies have flying police drones. A Scanner Darkley, Fahrenheit 451, Minority Report….Can’t wait for that.

  11. When/If and How a police drone is used as a direct weapon I’ll then consider the issue. I am as concerned with any pro-liberty individual with government and corporate spying and monitoring of our personal affairs. I am against it. On the plus side, drones can be used to monitor long stretches of highways, vast stretches of high-crime inner city neighborhoods, isolated camp grounds, and other out of the way places for cases of people who need medical help (accidents) and for cases of criminal activity. In a time of budget cuts and misuse of government budgets, drones can provide some eyes on the ground…if used legally and properly by government which is always the problem. I’m aware of several cases where city park security cameras (mostly in England) have actually saved innocently men who had been falsely accused of assaults from being prosecuted.

    • if used legally and properly by government which is always the problem.

      Recent history shows the chances that the technology will be widely abused are pretty much 100%.

  12. Interesting fact from the TaserXep web site. These wireless rounds have an effective range of 100 feet. Let’s see, that’s about 33 yards, and the effective range of a 12ga with, say, #4 buckshot is 40 to 50 yards. Hmmmmm.

    Apropos to nothing at all, wonder how fragile those drones are? Remember the phrase “golden BB” from the Vietnam War?

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