Florida school to deploy security drones designed to stop school shooters mid-attack

[Skye Jacobs]

Forward-looking: When classes resume this fall at Deltona High School in Florida, students might find an unusual addition to their campus security system: ceiling-mounted drones designed to respond to active shooter threats. The machines – called Black Arrows and built by Austin-based startup Mithril Defense – can race through school corridors at speeds up to 100 miles per hour, emit piercing alarms, flash strobes, and even spray pepper gel at an attacker.

The deployment marks a new test of drone-based security technology in US schools. Backed by more than $500,000 in state funding, Florida and Georgia are rolling out Mithril's technology as part of broader school safety initiatives. The goal, company executives say, is speed. Pilots operating from Mithril's Austin headquarters could reach attackers faster than on-site officers.

"It's revolutionary," Volusia County Sheriff's Office Capt. Todd Smith, who oversees school safety in the district, told the Wall Street Journal. "This is the future."

Mithril Defense was founded in 2023 by British entrepreneur Justin Marston and former Navy SEAL command master chief Bill King. The idea for its school security platform, known as the Campus Guardian Angel system, emerged after Marston watched videos of small Ukrainian drones used against Russian soldiers.

"Our vision is ultimately to be in every school in the nation and to eradicate mass shootings," Marston said.

The company's drones were first tested in 2024 at an abandoned Austin school before extensive training exercises with law enforcement. Mithril's team includes veterans and competitive drone pilots, some as young as 18. Together, they use the same software that powers Epic's Fortnite to build detailed 3-D maps of school interiors. These virtual reconstructions help pilots remotely navigate classrooms and hallways with precision.

Unlike police drones dispatched after a 911 call, Mithril's aircraft remain dormant in ceiling-mounted boxes, charging until a threat activates them. When triggered, they launch in formations of three, providing live surveillance through encrypted feeds that local law enforcement can access via an app. Each drone's battery lasts 10 to 15 minutes – enough time, the company says, to give officers a tactical advantage.

"We can take every corner, we'll swing every door first, because we don't care if we get shot, we're metal and plastic," said Christian Van Sloun, Mithril's chief drone pilot. "It's kind of like cheating in a videogame after you die."

The technology comes at an annual cost of roughly 50 cents per square foot, or about $8 per student per month. In Texas, parents near Houston have raised over $200,000 to bring the system to a local high school.

Mithril's project enters a crowded space of school security innovations, from AI-based gun detection systems to wearable panic buttons. Police departments nationwide are also expanding drone programs, often deploying them as first responders.

Yet critics say the technology raises ethical and practical questions. "We have a real mental health crisis in schools, and we could be using the money to deal with that," said Barry Friedman, a law professor at New York University who studies policing. Others warn that remote force could be misused. "When you make it really easy to use force, zero risk proposition, something you can do remotely sitting in your IT room, then it's going to be overused," said Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst with the American Civil Liberties Union.

Company leaders insist the drones would activate only during active shooter situations, though Marston acknowledged that bystanders could still be injured. "We believe we can help in the vast majority of these mass shootings," he said.

Parents in Volusia County have expressed a mix of concern and hope. "To find out that we're one of the first ones to get this pilot program was a little nerve-racking at first," said Jessica Clayton, whose two children attend Deltona High School. "But at the same time, you have to start somewhere, and I'm hoping this can be a positive influence for the community."

Mithril, meanwhile, is already planning to expand its technology beyond schools. The company has held live demonstrations for oil and gas producers, financial firms, and retail operators – all potential clients for a future built around autonomous security forces.

Masthead: The Wall Street Journal

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Florida school to deploy security drones designed to stop school shooters mid-attack

 

[bloomsun]

Only in america this is cheered as progress and success..

 

[TheBigT42]

Oh this can't go wrong

 

[gamerk2]

Only in america this is cheered as progress and success..

Remember: This only provides retaliation, not prevention.

 

[Thatsdisgusting]

Welcome. Welcome to School #17.



You have chosen, or been chosen, to relocate to one of our finest remaining municipal schools.

 

[R00sT3R]

Sick in the head dysfunctional society...the place has outlived its usefulness.

 

[GeoffreyA]

Welcome. Welcome to School #17.



You have chosen, or been chosen, to relocate to one of our finest remaining municipal schools.

It's safer here...

 

[Tantor]

School shootings did not happen before the 1970's. Something changed at that point.

Most school shooters come from broken families, which are a direct consequence of Leftist values permeating American culture since the late 1960's.
- Easy 'no fault' divorces.
- Easy drugs.
- Easy abortions.
- Easy sex.
- Forgiving attitude for minority crimes.
- School busing to integrate the races. This was unnecessarily forced on America by Leftist anti-racist insanity. It was intended to separate children from their local communities and eliminate a sense of belonging to an ethnic group.
- Attacks on men as the head of the family.
- Attacks on traditional religious values.

 

[johnASP]

School shootings did not happen before the 1970's. Something changed at that point.

Most school shooters come from broken families, which are a direct consequence of Leftist values permeating American culture since the late 1960's.
- Easy 'no fault' divorces.
- Easy drugs.
- Easy abortions.
- Easy sex.
- Forgiving attitude for minority crimes.
- School busing to integrate the races. This was unnecessarily forced on America by Leftist anti-racist insanity. It was intended to separate children from their local communities and eliminate a sense of belonging to an ethnic group.
- Attacks on men as the head of the family.
- Attacks on traditional religious values.

So easy access to assault weapons doesn’t even make it on make it onto a list of ‘why are we the only rich country to have kids slaughtered in our schools every year? But ‘leftist values permeating America’ does?

Sure is an interesting bubble you inhabit…

As a bonafide leftist (an anarchist specifically), let me just make this absolutely clear; there are no leftist values permeating America anywhere. In most advanced economies, Bernie Sanders is considered ‘slightly to the left of center’. Most Americans, we consider extremely right wing. That includes plenty of democrat voters. Obama, in Europe, would be right wing. Not Reich wing, but definitely right wing.

Despite that… we don’t shoot people in our schools. And you guys do…

But yea… gotta be the leftist values I guess? Must be nice having easy solutions to everything…

 

[cfenton]

School shootings did not happen before the 1970's. Something changed at that point.

Most school shooters come from broken families, which are a direct consequence of Leftist values permeating American culture since the late 1960's.
- Easy 'no fault' divorces.
- Easy drugs.
- Easy abortions.
- Easy sex.
- Forgiving attitude for minority crimes.
- School busing to integrate the races. This was unnecessarily forced on America by Leftist anti-racist insanity. It was intended to separate children from their local communities and eliminate a sense of belonging to an ethnic group.
- Attacks on men as the head of the family.
- Attacks on traditional religious values.

Care to explain why they don't happen anywhere near as frequently in other countries that are significantly more left politically than the US? Northern Europe or New Zealand, for example.

 

[acrossthestars]

Care to explain why they don't happen anywhere near as frequently in other countries that are significantly more left politically than the US? Northern Europe or New Zealand, for example.

It's probably because (and I'm speculating here) the United States prides itself on the "Melting Pot" theory, where people from different ethnic backgrounds and cultures come together to create something new. But, that's the thing: they have to come together as a people and create something new, not collect in one place, as a disparate group of different people, with a grunge against each other (perceived or otherwise) and find ways to screw each other over or otherwise get payback, like we do now. Everyone is "owed" something from someone these days―some slight, some "just deserts"―and they want revenge.

It takes a strong people to set aside their differences and become something greater what they could achieve alone; to apire to a greater calling, beyond satisfying petty grievances between themselves and their fellow man, and we used to do that. We are not the people of yesterday and in fact, we are now a bunch of pompous little sh*ts, acting like we're smarter than our ancestors for "resisting the temptation to 'forgive and forget'", even if they really wanted to be that petulant and infantile about retribution. We act like "turning the other cheek" is a sign of weakness, so we revert to tribalism and demand people "take sides". Be "on the right side of history". Do the right thing does not mean "do the universally right thing"; no, now it means, "do the thing that society deems to be the right thing in the present". Because our time horizons have shrunk by decades.

We're not interested in building a better tomorrow. We're interested in building a worse today. "My life may suck, but so does yours, and if neither one of us 'makes it', that's good enough for me." It's no longer a mark of shame to be a bunch of crabs in a bucket. Now, it's a badge of honor, celebrated and praised by your fellow crabs.

 

[Endymio]

Care to explain why they don't happen anywhere near as frequently in other countries that are significantly more left politically than the US? Northern Europe or New Zealand, for example.

Of the 50 worst nations in the world by murder rate, 49 of them are in Latin America/Caribbean or Sub-Saharan Africa. Clearly there's an ethnographic component to these crimes. But you keep believing the converse, though it implies that if we simply distributed a few firearms to the youth of New Zealand or Norway, they'd become mass murderers slaying their classmates without compunction.

 

[cfenton]

Of the 50 worst nations in the world by murder rate, 49 of them are in Latin America/Caribbean or Sub-Saharan Africa. Clearly there's an ethnographic component to these crimes. But you keep believing the converse, though it implies that if we simply distributed a few firearms to the youth of New Zealand or Norway, they'd become mass murderers slaying their classmates without compunction.

What does that have to do with what I posted?
The post I was replying to claimed it was "Leftist" policies and beliefs that led to the increase in school shootings. If that were true, you'd expect other countries with significantly more left-leaning policies and beliefs to also have that problem. They don't.

 

[toooooot]

I have an idea for a school defense drone.
Basically, when the AI cameras connected to the drone identify a person with a gun in a school, the drone is dispatched to the location and then drops on the shooter's head, releasing 6 very sharp legs piercing through the head of the shooter.

The horror of imagining this happening to you might be enough to deter you from trying to start a shooting. A bonus feature would be to bury school shooters with the drones that neutralized them.
Better yet, there can be 6 drones flying around a shooter while he tries to shoot them down, saving precious seconds for children and teachers to escape. Chances are, one of them would "land" successfully before he shoots them all down.

I should make a start-up. Once this idea is proven to work, each school could have its own school shooter killer drones.

 

[johnASP]

Of the 50 worst nations in the world by murder rate, 49 of them are in Latin America/Caribbean or Sub-Saharan Africa. Clearly there's an ethnographic component to these crimes. But you keep believing the converse, though it implies that if we simply distributed a few firearms to the youth of New Zealand or Norway, they'd become mass murderers slaying their classmates without compunction.

Correlations do not equal causation. Also please just use ‘race’ when that’s clearly what you want to say. Using ‘ethnographic’ doesn’t make the blatant racial stereotyping any less so.

Also, as someone whose lived on every continent on the planet except for Australia and Antarctica, lemme just call a very quick ‘bullshit’. Violence (as a statistical phenomenon, I’m ignoring the individual here) has nothing to do with ‘race’ and everything to do with ‘place’ and ‘history’. Which is also why Canadians don’t shoot up schools to the degree US people do, despite firearms also being fairly accessible there.

As a general rule of thumb, happy people don’t shoot other people (even if given guns) and thus, happiness is the best form of crime (and suicide) prevention. This has always, and will always be the case. Show me poverty, grant me disillusionment with, and abandonment by government, sprinkle in some systemic abuse, and I’ll find you a high degree of violent crime exactly where those things overlap. It’s not rocket science. Whereas finding an ‘ethnographic’ cause that doesn’t collapse under even mild scrutiny certainly would be. You’re welcome to explain exactly HOW ethnicity influences crime rate. I’ve seen textbooks explaining how socioeconomic and historical factors do, but I’ve never seen anyone actually explain the ‘ethnographic’ argument. It’s always just vague allusions and cherry picked statistics presented without any context.

 

[Endymio]

Correlations do not equal causation.

In this case it does. In fact -- from someone who taught multivariate regression to college students -- correlation does equals causation in the absence of confounding factors. Can you name such a factor? It certainly isn't poverty, as far poorer and less developed nations in South Asia have much lower violent crime rates than Latin America and the Caribbean, whereas inner-city US neighborhoods more affluent than much of Europe have much higher ones.

But hey, trot out the old "disillusion with society" and "abandonment by government" tropes. They're can't be quantified, and can't be disproved. Convenient, eh? Just blame it all on 'society.'

Also please just use ‘race’ when that’s clearly what you want to say. Using ‘ethnographic’ doesn’t make the blatant racial stereotyping any less so.

Race has no scientific meaning; it's a meaningless construct. Ethnicity -- a mixture of both genetics and social and cultural background -- however, has a clear meaning. It encompasses both sides of "nature and nurture". What else do you think **could** influence human behavior ... magic fairy dust?

Also, as someone whose lived on every continent on the planet except for Australia and Antarctica, lemme just call a very quick ‘bullshit’.

I've done the same, and visited nearly 50 nations atop those I've resided in. And neither of our apocryphal experiences trump the ineluctable statistics of these nations.

Which is also why Canadians don’t shoot up schools to the degree US people do, despite firearms also being fairly accessible there.

You're comparing the availability of firearms in Canada to the US? Talk about BS.

You’re welcome to explain exactly HOW ethnicity influences crime rate. I’ve seen textbooks explaining how socioeconomic and historical factors do, but I’ve never seen anyone actually explain the ‘ethnographic’ argument.

You apparently don't understand the words you're using as you're already contradicting yourself. Do you truly not understand that ethnicity encompasses "socioeconomic and historical factors"? Good grief.

 

[GeoffreyA]

The bottom line is, America has a problem with school shootings, a phenomenon not common elsewhere, and a drone cannot shoot the root. Something causes a certain youth to go down a path of hatred and violence. If they haven't, the experts need to get to the bottom of what that is—whether it be bullying; broken, abusive homes; a culture of mockery, paranoia, and putting down the next person; a philosophy that you're nothing if you can't achieve materially, athletically, or academically; and increasingly violent media (yet paradoxically, very prudish when it comes to romantic nudity and sex). Can the fabric of a society be fixed? It's uncertain; but they've got to try.

 

[Che Cazzo]

In this case it does. In fact -- from someone who taught multivariate regression to college students -- correlation does equals causation in the absence of confounding factors. Can you name such a factor? It certainly isn't poverty, as far poorer and less developed nations in South Asia have much lower violent crime rates than Latin America and the Caribbean, whereas inner-city US neighborhoods more affluent than much of Europe have much higher ones.

But hey, trot out the old "disillusion with society" and "abandonment by government" tropes. They're can't be quantified, and can't be disproved. Convenient, eh? Just blame it all on 'society.'


Race has no scientific meaning; it's a meaningless construct. Ethnicity -- a mixture of both genetics and social and cultural background -- however, has a clear meaning. It encompasses both sides of "nature and nurture". What else do you think **could** influence human behavior ... magic fairy dust?


I've done the same, and visited nearly 50 nations atop those I've resided in. And neither of our apocryphal experiences trump the ineluctable statistics of these nations.


You're comparing the availability of firearms in Canada to the US? Talk about BS.


You apparently don't understand the words you're using as you're already contradicting yourself. Do you truly not understand that ethnicity encompasses "socioeconomic and historical factors"? Good grief.

Just when you think one sick puppy cannot post anything worse than his previous ones, we get something like this!!

Those countries that don't meet your race approval, happen to be 95% countries where cartels sprung up to provide and move drugs to the US to satisfy its rich kids' and most of the US society's amazing appetite for illegal drugs of any variety. and no matter the price.

Those countries you denigrate have crimes? Sure. But their crimes don't include almost daily mass shootings of schools kids as in the US. Shooting up school kids and accepting that as the price to be paid for the 2nd Amendment is a 100% American tradition and it is found nowhere else on the planet except in rare cases, unlike the US.

And yet, arming people to the teeth and their consequences is approved, endorse and magnified by EVERY US right-wing politician and their mistress, the NRA.

America lost its soul when 100% of US right-wing politicians looked the other way after 26 kids and teachers were shot at Sandy Hook, with conservatives like you either looking the other way or were screaming: "It's a hoax, show me the bodies!!"

So please spare us your "superior" race BS and look in the mirror instead.

 

[Che Cazzo]

School shootings did not happen before the 1970's. Something changed at that point.

Most school shooters come from broken families, which are a direct consequence of Leftist values permeating American culture since the late 1960's.
- Easy 'no fault' divorces.
- Easy drugs.
- Easy abortions.
- Easy sex.
- Forgiving attitude for minority crimes.
- School busing to integrate the races. This was unnecessarily forced on America by Leftist anti-racist insanity. It was intended to separate children from their local communities and eliminate a sense of belonging to an ethnic group.
- Attacks on men as the head of the family.
- Attacks on traditional religious values.

You are one misinformed individual. God bless your MAGA heart.

Other countries have exactly the same things you mentioned, but they don't shoot their school kids.

And the usual the MAGA MO: Plead ignorance and blame someone else!!

 

[OortCloud]

The arguments on here just show how crazy the right have become. Rather than try to work through the problems they immediately start trying to blame it on 'leftists' to score some incredible tenuous political point rather than address the huge elephant in the room that is that everybody is wandering around with handguns and assault rifles. It's so ridiculous. The crazy-far-right-moronosphere is on transmit only and has no ability to self-reflect.

 

[lonetac]

School shootings did not happen before the 1970's. Something changed at that point.

Most school shooters come from broken families, which are a direct consequence of Leftist values permeating American culture since the late 1960's.
- Easy 'no fault' divorces.
- Easy drugs.
- Easy abortions.
- Easy sex.
- Forgiving attitude for minority crimes.
- School busing to integrate the races. This was unnecessarily forced on America by Leftist anti-racist insanity. It was intended to separate children from their local communities and eliminate a sense of belonging to an ethnic group.
- Attacks on men as the head of the family.
- Attacks on traditional religious values.

- Easy abortions actually lead to less crime due to unwanted babies not ending up on the streets and becoming violent from broken families due to being unwanted. This is a verifiable fact.

- No fault divorces lead to less violence against women. Without it, you have forced sex slaves. Women absolutely should be able to escape a marriage at any time they want for any reason they want.

- Men having fragile male egos is on them to figure out, not for the rest of the world to cater to. Perhaps men who feel they need to be head of family for their own egos need to go seek therapy.

- Minorities are not having forgiven crime. its quite the opposite. Go look up crime statistics of who is charged for a crime. Then lets talk about all the Jan 6rs who got pardoned for trying to overthrow the government then got pardoned only to be re-arrested for child raping and other violent crimes. Or how about every white rich person who has escaped any wrong doing from raping kids. Saying minorities are being let off easy while we have a illegal pedophile cabal run by powerful rich white guys is laughable. Not to mention our felon president has escapted any accountability for his felons. A minority would have been locked up years ago. You guys wanted to torch Obama for wearing a tan suit ffs.

- If we dont want so many south american citizens coming to our country, perhaps we should stop sanctioning every country, forcing regime changes and meddling in their politics. We created the instability, the USA did. Its our fault. If you were in their situation, you would be fleeing too. Its obsurd to even make the comment you made.

- Traditional religious values are not being attacked. Religious values are trying to be re-written to fit a hateful agenda. Religion (and specifically Christianity) is about loving thy neighbor. Welcoming them, helping the poorest and improving folks lives. As a Christian I am embarassed by what right wing has tried to do to religion. Folks are just trying to be racists and hateful in the name of god and call it traditional values. mmm kay. No true Christian falls for that. If anyone ever needs to feel they "kill in the name of god" they are not a Christian. Period. Full stop. Thats it. Nothing more to it.

- Easy sex? Huh? Are you trying to rewrite the manosphere of right wing incels who hate women because they cant get any? Shaving, showering and showing empathy for people is too hard.

The problem you describe also does not happen in a vacuum. Other countries exist.

So much demonstrably wrong with your post it should be flagged for insanity.

 

[Endymio]

Those countries that don't meet your race approval, happen to be 95% countries where cartels sprung up to provide and move drugs to the US to satisfy its rich kids' and most of the US society's amazing appetite for illegal drugs

So the high murder rates in South Africa, Haiti, and Nigeria are due to the US? Who knew?

Those countries you denigrate have crimes? Sure. But their crimes don't include almost daily mass shootings of schools kids as in the US.

I'll be kind and label that lie a simple "exaggeration". If you define "mass shooting" as "a perpetrator killing more than one person besides themselves", there were a grand total of four school shootings in the US last year, 8 dead total, excluding the shooters ... and only four of those were children.

Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of children annually are killed across Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean, and several thousand a year in the US die from inner-city gang violence. But let's not talk about that, eh? Doesn't fit your absurd little narrative.

Shooting up school kids and accepting that as the price to be paid for the 2nd Amendment is a 100% American tradition

When I entered the US in 1970, guns were far more readily obtainable: in most states you could buy one without ID, much less a waiting period or federal application. At the high school I attended, a good one-third or more of male students brought a firearm to school with them daily in their vehicle, and seeing one in the hall or a locker was commonplace ... yet that school, nor a thousand others like it during that period, ever had a single school shooting.

Today, guns are a thousand times harder for a student to obtain legally, yet school shootings far more common. Clearly the issue isn't prevalence of guns ... unless you believe restricting gun ownership causes school shootings. Do you?

 

[Eflow]

School shootings did not happen before the 1970's. Something changed at that point.

Most school shooters come from broken families, which are a direct consequence of Leftist values permeating American culture since the late 1960's.
- Easy 'no fault' divorces.
- Easy drugs.
- Easy abortions.
- Easy sex.
- Forgiving attitude for minority crimes.
- School busing to integrate the races. This was unnecessarily forced on America by Leftist anti-racist insanity. It was intended to separate children from their local communities and eliminate a sense of belonging to an ethnic group.
- Attacks on men as the head of the family.
- Attacks on traditional religious values.

Holy lead poisoning, Batman!

"Easy no-fault divorces". These exist because women needed a means to escape their violent husbands (who apparently are an unfairly attacked group, according to you)

"Easy drugs". Strange how you think school shootings spiked right when the national war on drugs took off. How many single mothers were created because right wingers threw their partners in prison?

"Easy abortions". Access to abortion significantly reduced crime in the 80s and 90s. How you think abortions led to more school shootings is a mystery to anyone with two or more brain cells.

I don't have the energy to reply to the rest of your sexist and racist post. Turn off Fox News, stop eating lead paint, and go touch some grass.

 

[Endymio]

How many single mothers were created because right wingers threw their partners in prison?

What an absurd take, since Democrats voted equally with Republicans to illegalize these drugs. So either you're entirely clueless about the political landscape, or (worse) you feel we should pass federal laws, but then allow people to break them without penalty. Which is it?

"Easy abortions". Access to abortion significantly reduced crime in the 80s and 90s.

Wow. Given that black women have abortions at more than three times the rate of white women, it's pretty clear what you're saying here. You already demand the federal government pay for these abortions ... next you'll be wanting to offer young black mothers a bonus for aborting their babies 'before they become criminals'. Been a fan of eugenics long, Herr Eichmann?

 

[bloomsun]

I couldn't imagine living in the US where I have to worry every day about my livelihood and having a roof over my head because I can be fired from one day to the other or not going to the doctor because of bills. That's just insane. It's even more insane to see this as normal. The US is a hellhole. I wanted to go to America when I was young. The older I got I realized what a dystopian hellhole the US is. And now you get fascism as achievement. Congrats. You voted a racist and misogynist and just generally the worst human being you could imagine that doesn't give a **** about you into presidency. And you still don't do what has to be done, or should have done. Now it's too late. There will be no more fair elections, you blew it 2024, like for real. You Americans and your glorification of the president, like a holy figure. You see it in every movie, it's just sick. It's a civil servant.

As a German I think the US most likely just needs to go through the experience of tyranny and fascism to ****ing get it. Maybe then you understand and will change some things. But currently it looks more like you will be ruled for the foreseeable time by tyrants and fascists and have to save yourself. But yeah, you are so "exceptional" and the greatest country on earth.. What a delusion.. Now the world hates America and for good reason.