A Non-Lethal Solution for Mass Shootings
It is 2020 and about twenty twenty-somethings are in an open office
setting that looks like an updated Houston mission control station. In
front of each of these modern day "Top Guns" sits a monitor and joystick
and a huge screen, currently black, looms at the front of the room. The
young men and women joke and jibe with each other, various limbs akimbo
as friendly insults and soft objects crisscross the room.
Suddenly,
an alarm goes off and Stacy's monitor lights up. In a flash, her hands
are in control of a drone just released from a lair so secret that only a
few know of its existence, let alone its exact location. The others
don't even flinch and some look bored until Stacy blurts out, it's a
school, and this is not a drill. Almost instantly, a supervisor buzzes
into the room and the Top Guns take up their stations as the big monitor
at the front pops into life.
Some take
control of drones from nearby buildings and race them to the scene, just
in case. But Stacy has this. The shooter, barely 15, is wearing goggles
so she deftly switches from mace to Taser and is on him so fast that he
barely gets a shot off at the drone as three of his classmates scamper
to safety. A split second later, he is on the ground, convulsing. Stacy
instructs the school's security system to sound the all clear, a unique
series of sounds only the teachers know the meaning of.
Just
as she does so, however, another Top Gun, a geeky looking male who got
his job by winning an international first person shooter video game
tournament, shouts "Second shooter, 6 o'clock!" He's too far for her
second Taser so Stacy switches to the tranquilizer gun and puts one into
the assailant's chest, toppling him. Meanwhile, the supervisor has
switched off the all clear chime, alerting teachers to remain on lock
down. Stacy then hits the first shooter, who is starting to recover from
the Taser, with a tranquilizer.
The backup
drones begin to arrive but both shooters remain motionless until later
revived by EMTs, after law enforcement personnel secured them to ensure
that they cause no harm to themselves or others. The Top Guns then
return to a typical boring day of false alarms, equipment tests, and
training drills.
Like other first responders,
the Top Guns actually want their days to be uneventful, but as employees
of an entrepreneurial company, they know full well that their success
will only induce those with evil intent to change tactics. The big boss
is already adding electronic bomb sniffing devices to the drones and
thinking about ways to stop truck attacks with a level of violence far
short of RPGs.
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