New Texas Police Drone Could Carry Weapons

[Dover]

For your security...


A Houston area law enforcement agency is prepared to launch an unmanned drone that could someday carry weapons, Local 2 Investigates reported Friday.

The Montgomery County Sheriff's Office in Conroe paid $300,000 in federal homeland security grant money and Friday it received the ShadowHawk unmanned helicopter made by Vanguard Defense Industries of Spring.

A laptop computer is used to control the 50-pound unmanned chopper, and a game-like console is used to aim and zoom a powerful camera and infrared heat-seeking device mounted on the front.

"To be in on the ground floor of this is pretty exciting for us here in Montgomery County," Sheriff Tommy Gage said.

cont'd

http://www.click2houston.com/news/New-Police-Drone-Near-Houston-Could-Carry-Weapons/-/1735978/4717922/-/59xnnez/-/index.html

[Fire Walk With Me]

1. "Taser drones."

[msongs]

2. perpetuation of the bush police state, now under new management nt

[Gregorian]

3. In a supposedly free country I cannot see justification for this.

When I was a kid, probably 40 years ago, I had a nightmare. One night I dreamt that there were remote control weapons that were invading, and I was terrified and trying to hide. This exists now in a primal way compared to the fantastic agile machines I saw. It's bothersome we'd even entertain this. As I have said before in these kinds of threads, this is counterproductive to the betterment of a good society.

Tommy Gage. Puke.

[neverforget]

4. Freedom weapons from above! Armed drones aren't just for wars

anymore....What the hell has happened to us?

[Marrah_G]

5. Have they never seen "Terminator" !!!!!$#$%&*)&)(* !!!!

[Blaze Diem]

6. I hve no doubt they would be tested on Protest Groups..'Occupy"

A cross country coordinated effort in crowd control.

[moondust]

7. Will they be ready to go by August 2012?

Republican National Convention

Any bets?

[ohheckyeah]

8. Yeah, nothing could go wrong with this.

:eyes:

What the hell is wrong with this country?

[Rochester]

9. Wonder how hard it would be to...

...damage or disable them in flight from the ground. Maybe catch them in nets or spray glue at them or something.

[saras]

10. Choppers die if anything hits the blades...

...like a bolo - rocks on the ends of a piece of rope. But if they're shooting at you...

if they're run remotely you can cut off communication, but it isn't easy. A microwave oven ray gun would do it.

You could put nets up with helium balloons, or just balloons on strong cord or wire. Or you could swarm it with little RC planes and helicopters. Possibly one sacrificial RC plane into the rotor would bring it down.

Trained birds. Crows carrying short pieces of chain, dropped into the rotor.

The pump and nozzle from an old fire boat, on the end of a giant Tesla coil.

Ball bearings in a modified paintball gun.

But we're getting WAY into postapocalyptic fantasy here. In the real world, if you mess with one, no matter how you do it, a bunch of troops in trucks, or full-size helicopters, with machine guns, will likely show up as fast as they can get to you.

I forgot to mention - give them six months before some kid hacks one and does something embarrassing.

[Rex]

11. Is it a police state yet?

[cutlassmama]

13. Actually, yes it is. That's the scary part about it.

[OnyxCollie]

12. Will Blackwater/Xe be loading the weapons? nt

[XemaSab]

14. I bet it's to control "Mexicans"

Sort of like the border fence. :eyes:

[Mac1949]

15. Gage also said "No matter what we do in law enforcement,

somebody's going to question it, but we're going to do the right thing, and I can assure you of that," The problem is, the right thing for who?