The United States is weird. Rather than put any kinds of restrictions on gun ownership, the type that, according to polls, Americans find quite reasonable, some people think the only way to keep our children safe from mass shooters is to add more guns. And then make them fly.
Florida is getting ready to test a new drone system designed to intervene during school shootings. It’s called Campus Guardian Angel, but like so many bad ideas birthed by conservative brain rot, its name is much more hopeful than its reality. It’s a drone equipped with a gun.
Developed in Texas (of course), Campus Guardian Angel is a rapid-response drone system that can deploy within five seconds of a silent panic button being hit. Once airborne, these drones livestream high-def video straight to first responders, and if needed, fire pepper rounds or even smash through windows with built-in glass breakers.
Might as well just put sniper towers and ED-209s around schools to complete the militarization of education.
Armed Drones Are Coming to Florida Schools. Seriously.
Each drone is controlled remotely by a team based in Texas, which includes a pilot, tactical experts, and law enforcement liaisons. Their job is to guide the drone through the chaos, track the shooter, and keep them occupied until boots-on-the-ground cops arrive.
In early tests, responders were supposedly able to locate the threat faster and act with more information than ever before—and all they had to do to pull off that feat was turn our children’s schools into war zones.
The system has already been demoed in Leon County and Miami-Dade County schools. With approximately $557,000 in state funding, a pilot program will be launched in three districts.
Full live service is scheduled to begin in January 2026. That is around the same time that I suspect you’ll first start hearing about innocent kids being attacked by drones on school grounds, creating a dark new normal in which you’ll never stop hearing about it until it becomes so normal.
Campus Guardian Angel’s CEO, Justin Marston, likens the drones to fire sprinklers: not a replacement for firefighters, but a way to immediately address the threat before it spirals. “You still want the fire trucks to come,” he says. “But since sprinkler systems were installed, school fires haven’t killed children en masse since 1958. We’re aiming for that level of prevention.”
A couple of things, Justin:
- Sprinklers shoot water. At worst, it’ll mess up your good hair day.
- Sprinklers are automatic, responding to a particular chemical stimulus. They are not subject to itchy trigger fingers from dudes sitting at a computer over 1,000 miles away.
The post Florida Is About To Unleash Armed Drones in Schools. Seriously. appeared first on VICE.
