Texas firm wants to unleash drones on school shooters

(NewsNation) — A Texas firm that has developed drones to intercept school shooters is offering additional details on how their system works.

Campus Guardian Angel, which has pilot programs at three Florida school districts, hopes eventually to rent fleets of defensive drones across the U.S.

CEO and co-founder Justin Marston tells “NewsNation Prime” that the drones can confront a shooter within 60 seconds, after a school alerts his company and an operator remotely launches the aerial hardware from Texas.

The drones, which are ready to fly from boxes, have sirens and can fire non-lethal projectiles. They are meant to delay shooters and give police time to arrive, Marston says.

“We will try and make it difficult for that person to see or to be able to breathe, and if they’re still trying to murder children, then we will attack them with the drones themselves,” he said.

The issue of school safety is top of mind following last week’s deadly shooting at Annunciation Church and School in Minneapolis. Marston said his company recently made a proposal to a Jesuit school that included the idea of pre-staging drones outside its chapel.

“It is a place of mass gathering, and so it is a likely target,” he said.

Can't a gunman shoot down drones?

Contrary to what observers may think, a small drone is not an easy target to take down, says Marston, who likens it to a darting mosquito.

He added: “When you’ve got multiple of them coming at you, in waves of three, even if you clip one of them, the other two are still going to start degrading you. Again, our goal is just to buy the time for law enforcement to get there.”

What's the cost of drones to fight school shooters?

The cost to school districts for the drone system is about $4 per student monthly, Marston says.

“We’ve really designed it to try and be low-cost enough for public schools en masse to adopt, as opposed to just pricing it for the most elite kind of private schools,” he said.