3 ms·

As hamstergene mentioned, drones are the before and after risk abatement. A hunting rifle at a few hundred meters is going to be a heck of a lot cheaper, more

by personZ 12y ago

As hamstergene mentioned, drones are the before and after risk abatement. A hunting rifle at a few hundred meters is going to be a heck of a lot cheaper, more reliable, easier to use, and more difficult to trace than some drone with a mounted weapon. Aside from the difficulty of a few hundred meter shot in urban settings, shooting a weapon from a location announces where you are, exactly when you are there. Aside from the immediate and overwhelming response likely, the human traces would be enormous and unavailable. A drone, in contrast, comes from some unknown place off in some unknown direction, can with ease get anywhere near the target (on a nearby roof for instance), and then when the task is complete it can go low and fast and get back to a drop-off. For arson and peeping, the same premise holds -- a drone can go to exactly where is needed, do what is necessary, and get away with, currently, essentially zero risk of capture. Will we eventually have drone registrations and tracking systems, comprehensive urban radio tracking and announcement, police overrides, etc? Yeah, probably, which was what I was getting at -- events will inevitably happen, and regulations will adjust.

baddox 12y ago
These types of assassinations don't seem to happen very often, so there probably isn't much actual data. But I would expect that a single shot of a rifle is quite difficult to pinpoint, especially in an urban setting. There are audio gunfire locators that some cities have, but even then, the assassin can be long gone by the time anyone could respond. Just drive a car into a nearby parking garage, do the thing, and leave. For a drone operation, the setup and "mission" time is almost certainly much longer. I don't think we're anywhere near fully autonomous missions that could assassinate with any appreciable reliability, so you're going to need to fly line of sight (very impractical because of the range) or FPV (still impractical because of the required skill, equipment and mission time). Could a professional band of assassins pull off an assassination with a drone? Certainly. Would it be far easier to just use a rifle? I'd say absolutely.

by personZ 12y ago

baddox 12y ago

These types of assassinations don't seem to happen very often, so there probably isn't much actual data. But I would expect that a single shot of a rifle is quite difficult to pinpoint, especially in an urban setting. There are audio gunfire locators that some cities have, but even then, the assassin can be long gone by the time anyone could respond. Just drive a car into a nearby parking garage, do the thing, and leave. For a drone operation, the setup and "mission" time is almost certainly much longer. I don't think we're anywhere near fully autonomous missions that could assassinate with any appreciable reliability, so you're going to need to fly line of sight (very impractical because of the range) or FPV (still impractical because of the required skill, equipment and mission time). Could a professional band of assassins pull off an assassination with a drone? Certainly. Would it be far easier to just use a rifle? I'd say absolutely.