North Dakota Police To Use Weaponized Drones

A bill in North Dakota called Bill 1328 was originally intended to prevent law enforcement from being able to weaponize drones. Before the bill was passed into law, the verbiage was modified to ban the drones from being fitted with lethal weapons. That means no drones for police in North Dakota with guns or missiles, but less than lethal weapons are ok.

This means that police in North Dakota will be among the first in the nation to be able to fit drones with rubber bullets, pepper spray, and tasers. These weapons are dubbed less than lethal, but while they are meant to incapacitate a subject rather than kill, this type of weapon has lead to death in the past.

Tasers have reportedly killed 39 people in the US this year. The bill also makes it so that the police need to obtain a search warrant before they can use drones to search for evidence. Grand Forks county Sheriff Bob Rost says that indicates a misunderstanding behind the core concept of how search warrants work.

Whatever police and citizens in the state feel, the bill allows the use of these weaponized drones. Some feel that the detachment brought with being on the ground controlling a drone, out of view of the controller, that is using weapons against people makes them a very bad idea.

SOURCE: Engadget