Some schools in Florida, Georgia and Colorado will be equipped with drones this year that can go through halls, smash windows and pepper-spray active shooters if teachers report a threat.
The program follows a wave of high-tech campus security spending. https://t.co/kyQELu9jkW pic.twitter.com/EFqqL0ZjJz
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) July 29, 2026
Teachers will have an app or classroom panic buttons to summon the drones. Mithril Defense’s professional drone pilots can then fly them remotely.
The drones have been tested in simulations but never by a shooting.
Justin Marston, Mithril’s founder and CEO, said the massacre at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 students and two teachers were killed in 2022 as law enforcement waited over an hour to enter the classroom, inspired the project.
When he learned of the Russian and Ukrainian military forces using cheap drones to attack each other, Marston said he figured a nonlethal version might’ve saved lives in Uvalde.
“The first 120 seconds are incredibly critical, because that’s when most of the shooting happens,” Marston said.
While the drones could be activated any time, they’re meant specifically for potentially lethal situations. The drones wouldn’t break up a schoolyard fight, Marston said. But if one of the students pulled a knife, they could.
— Cole Reynolds in Schools are adding pepper-spraying drones to help combat active shooters
“When he learned of the Russian and Ukrainian military forces using cheap drones to attack each other, Marston said he figured a nonlethal version might’ve saved lives in Uvalde.”
One of these things is not like the other. Drones worked in Ukraine because they employed lethal force. But note here, drones worked there specifically because they employed lethal force. Do ya really think they would have worked if all they did was get close enough to the enemy to put down some pepper spray balls or bump into them? Nope, they would not have …. One of these things is not like the other.
These ‘nonlethal version’ drones use ‘pepper balls’ and can bump into the shooter, and that’s the problem – these do not stop the shooter from pulling the trigger with spray-n-pray and the drone can be targeted and destroyed by weapons fire easily because it needs to get close to the shooter to do those things. And if the shooter is one of the 87% of people not affected by ‘pepper spray’ then aimed fire continues.
” Justin Marston, Mithril’s founder and CEO, said the massacre at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 students and two teachers were killed in 2022 as law enforcement waited over an hour to enter the classroom, inspired the project.”
A drone in Uvalde would have done nothing. The killer was in the room behind a closed door. For some reason it took law enforcement over an hour to get through this UNLOCKED door while they searched for a key to the already UNLOCKED door, all they had to do was turn the handle and the door would have opened – the locked door thing was an excuse. So unless ya gonna teach the drone to open a door (or unlock a door) its useless for a Uvalde type scenario and once inside if by some chance it did get in (I doubt the shooter inside the room commanind room exit via the door is gonna open it to welcome the drone in) it would still be useless because of what I already mentioned above. So your telling me that cowardly incompetent law enforcement at Uvlade inspired you? What planet do you live on?
Appreciate the effort, at least you want to do something and your heart is in the right place but you need to rethink this approach. The very first time its defeated by simply shooting it at its close range, or the shooter continuing to fire, the questions are going to be asked and they are not going to be kind either and this experiment would have possibly cost innocent lives.
Remember, the drones in Ukraine used lethal force for a reason – to stop the enemy … the mass/school is the enemy, mentally ill and dedicated to their rampage of killing, fanatical about it, they are not going to fear a non-lethal drone that can bump into them or shoot pepper spray or pepper spray balls at them and its not going to stop them from pulling the trigger if they are dedicated enough.
nonlethal drones to counter a lethal threat…that’s pure left wing ‘hey, lets take it easy on the bad guys cause we like them’ insanity. Its like the left winger concept of ‘Hey, you do not need a gun so here is a rape whistle. Blow it when you are being attacked and the rapist will run away.” (and fools actually believe this lie). ~38% of women attacked for purposes of rape in 2025 were armed with a firearm and employed DGU to ward off their attackers and escaped serious injury and rape, while all other victims except ~2% of the remaining number were seriously injured and raped and more than 80% of those used some form of non-lethal non-firearm ‘weapon’ as defense including pepper spray and blunt objects and trying to flee but were still seriously injured and raped and some were murdered and that ~2% got lucky and managed to flee but not without injury.
there ya go, that’s a pretty good representation of how effective ‘non-lethal’ is against a determined criminal minded violent attacker (in this case a rapist). Now multiply that rapist dedication and success against non-lethal by 1,000 and you begin to approach the mental illness depraved dedication of a mass-shooter (which includes school shooters) who is so concentrated on their goal of killing they do not even try to use cover or hide or notice when someone tries to stop them and just ‘brute force’ their way through it – and you think a non-lethal drone basically playing ‘tag your it’ with a school shooter is gonna work. For example, your own example, Uvalde – ~300 armed law enforcement at the school, and sure incompetence and cowardice among them – but despite it being obvious to the killer all this armed lethal force right there that could be used against him he ignored it all and continued. Another example, greenwood mall mass shooter stopped by an ordinary armed citizen named Elisjsha Dicken – the killer basically ignored Dicken firing at him and kept trying to target the fleeing people until Dicken put enough rounds in him to stop him. Another example, the trans school shooters in Nashville and Minneapolis – neither one cared that armed police could show up, it did not stop them, but in each case it was the lethal force via firearm that stopped them with one committing suicide and the other being shot by responding police. The same pattern appears over and over again in each and every mass-shooting (which includes school shooters) – and they continue until the are stopped cold because they want to die so as to become ‘infamous’ and remembered for their heinous act. And pepper spray has been tried … some victims in one attack managed to pepper spray the attacker but it did not stop the attacker from continuing to fire and hit victims despite the attacker being blinded by the pepper spray effect, and in another attack the pepper spray had zero effect on the attacker. They do not stop unless stopped cold and hard, your drone does not stop them.
But noooo… the anti-gun left wingers will eat this up just to avoid having an armed response to stop the killer – and what they are doing is once again experimenting with the lives of children – ignoring the sure thing of DGU against an attacker, in favor of playing ‘tag your it’ with the killer via a drone.
Firearm armed and trained school staff is what is needed, not a drone.
and that video with a stationary dummy. Is that suppose to be funny?
Do you seriously think a dedicated mass shooter (which includes school shooters) will fall over like that if hit with a drone? If anything, if the shooter has not already destroyed those close range drones with weapons fire, they will simply reach out and grab them then smash them and continue.
Notice the base of the dummy in the video is not weighted, its a set up. The purpose of weighting the base of that type of dummy is to simulate how a real persons balance reacts to force applied against it with their feet shoulder with apart and positioned to resist imbalance, it takes a lot more force than a light weight drone hitting them to make them become imbalanced to the point of falling over.
Sorry, but a drone is not smashing throug the tempered (safety) glass found in school buildings…nor are they getting through closed office/classroom doors.
The idea is so asinine, and expensive, that it could only have come from the weak mind of a liberal.
Left wing violence and depravity: [two left wing marx*ist mamdani voters] NY parents who starved 2-month-old daughter to death skirt jail time as activist judge sets them free.
ht* tps://thepostmillennial.com/ny-judge-gives-no-jail-time-to-parents-who-starved-their-2-month-old-daughter-to-death?utm_campaign=64470
How many shootings have occurred in schools where staff can voluntarily “train up” and ccw? THAT is the answer, albeit not a very “high tech” or marketable one…
“Marston said he figured a nonlethal version might’ve saved lives in Uvalde”
Yeah and, if a frog had wings, their ass may not hit the ground when it jumped!