this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2026
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[–] TheStaffmaster@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Bold move in a nation that treats firearms target practice as a sport.

[–] BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 2 points 1 day ago

First thing I thought of was "TARGET PRACTICE!"

[–] vegafjord@slrpnk.net 7 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Can we use jammers against them perhaps?

[–] Olgratin_Magmatoe@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 day ago

Converting a little microwave oven to a homemade jammer gun never hurt anyone (it has).

[–] yermaw@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

A lot of americans already have them. I'm unfamiliar with them, but they've all got names like dezziteegoo and smiffunwessun.

[–] Ostrichgrif@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

Fun as it may be to shoot them out of the sky, that's not super feasible in urban or suburban areas. Don't want to risk the possibility of the bullet hitting someone on the way down and the neighbors probably wouldn't appreciate the gunshots

[–] Zron@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] vegafjord@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 day ago

lovely😍😍

[–] bstix@feddit.dk 2 points 1 day ago

Crowbar stocks is on the rise.

[–] vane@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

They're just copying Chinese ideas, don't they ?

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago
[–] vegafjord@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The drone on the thumbnail looks like the german flag!

[–] ivanafterall@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

It's so distinct that it must be intentional.

[–] muusemuuse@sh.itjust.works 22 points 2 days ago

In other news, falconry has become unexpectedly popular.

[–] treadful@lemmy.zip 81 points 2 days ago (3 children)

“Normally what would happen… is like one cop would have heard that, flip on the blue lights, race down there… and someone’s about to die,” [Flock CEO Garrett] Langley explained, describing a case in which a woman called 911 on a man, who later turned out to be holding a lighter, not a gun, as initially suspected. “Instead, they launch the drone.”

Langley claimed that “we have thousands and thousands of stories like that where communities are safer now with our drones. They’re safer with our cameras.”

That's your prime example of a community becoming safer? The cops droning a mf because he lit a cigarette and some Karen panicked? You're the CEO of the fucking company with like the worst PR and you say this shit.

[–] fartographer@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

How does that even change the situation to make things safer? Are they gonna crash the drone into a suspect to diffuse a situation? Unless Flock is advertising domestic drone strikes, then the only feasible deliverables are more spying and more profiling.

[–] bcgm3@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

I read it as the drones protecting the civilians from the trigger-happy cops rushing in first.

[–] turtlesareneat@piefed.ca 28 points 2 days ago

"We know cops are racist so we've lessened their load by making our drones racist too."

"Why are they not clapping"

[–] Avicenna@programming.dev 11 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Once this becomes the norm next podcast is "What if we put small tasers on the drones? Our communities become much safer!". And then handguns etc...

And when they get hacked, people will be able to do mass shootings from the comfort of their own homes. That's what I call progress!

[–] undefined@lemmy.hogru.ch 55 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (5 children)

Frankly, what a bunch of fucking creeps. Does no one else find it weird that they’re hellbent on spying on people? If it weren’t for the government we’d probably lock up these fucking psychos.

[–] chilicheeselies@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago

They will go down kicking and screaming. A company like flock has tons of investor capital. That results in a board putting tons of pressure on executive leadership. They will never go "oops nevermind this was a bad idea". It's just a other front in the class war against the billionaire Epstein class.

Next week having closed courtains will be illegal. What's going on in there? Probably something suspicious! Why is your bathroom window frosted?!

[–] Malyca@lemmy.zip 21 points 2 days ago

I have no doubt this is thiel's work. He needs the data for his surveillance machine.

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[–] mrmisses@lemmy.world 66 points 2 days ago (6 children)

Are they going to follow FAA rules then or just do whatever they want and kill people every now and then when they crash/fall out of the sky?

[–] RagingRobot@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Isn't there an fcc rule about drones needing to be in the line of sight of the operator

[–] mrmisses@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Yes. They are also not allowed to be over people (including traffic) unless it's just to pass over to move to another area with no people (not allowed to continuously pass over people) unless they are below a certain, very low, weight. I think only one drone fits that category last I checked.

I have my commercial drone license but quit the job that required it so I am a little rusty on the rules

[–] beveradb@sh.itjust.works 43 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

No, they'll do whatever they want and kill people deliberately, frequently, whenever they say something which disagrees with the dictatorship state definition of truth. Give it a decade

[–] Poppa_Mo@lemmy.world 11 points 2 days ago

Oh boy. Ain't gonna take that long.

[–] Cocodapuf@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Well when they crash the company needs to replace the whole drone, so they are probably going to try to avoid that when possible.

That said, they should have to obey faa regs, but while the laws for private use are pretty clear, the commercial use regulations are layered and sort of in flux. Major operators are always pushing to have laws adjusted, and because leadership in the US is generally overly supportive of big business, those changes often go into place.

In other words, there ARE laws, but you know, it's the US, so they can probably change them.

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[–] vegafjord@slrpnk.net 1 points 1 day ago

sounds expensive

[–] shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip 27 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] popekingjoe@lemmy.world 20 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] Shady_Shiroe@lemmy.world 14 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I forgot that there was a sport meant to help train you for shooting drones out of the sky

[–] Sunnshine@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 day ago

Everyone told you shooting skeet was a useless hobby.

[–] daggermoon@piefed.world 20 points 2 days ago (3 children)

It should be legal to destroy corpo property.

[–] GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

one thing I learned is that everything is legal as long as you don't get caught.

[–] vegafjord@slrpnk.net 3 points 1 day ago

According to my laws, this is not forbidden.

[–] modus@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago

It is if you ask me.

[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 20 points 2 days ago (3 children)

I've been waiting for this for a long time. Drones are cheap. Automating their flight is a super solved problem. At some point every cop car will have a drone on demand that can pop out and follow. They'll launch some slow movers with big blades and just have them patrol. 30-40 minute flights.

[–] chilicheeselies@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

This is already a thing

time to deploy our own counter-drone drones

[–] turtlesareneat@piefed.ca 9 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Skeet shooting: city edition

[–] chunes@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

The maximum viable elevation that you can hit a target at with a shotgun is ~40m, or ~55m with a very tight choke. Drones can comfortably operate much higher than that. I guess it might work from the roof of a skyscraper though.

[–] Zomg@piefed.world 7 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I mean, if it hovers, a laser to a camera is a known thing...

[–] jayb151@piefed.social 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Genuine question...I've only ever thought that was some kind of movie magic we all accepted as reality. Could you blind a camera with any kind of laser pointer? Like, Dollar store shit would work? or it needs to be a special frequency or something?

[–] Zomg@piefed.world 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Not 100% sure if laser wattage matters. I'm sure if not a higher wattage just does it faster. A YT search for laser pointer camera probably would give you an idea.

After Looking at those vids myself it does seem wattage is a factor, and steadiness of the pointer does too.

Be very careful to adequately protect your eyes when using lasers. Different laser wavelengths need different eye protection

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