Sparking Dissent

Even in the United States, it would be unfair to think of school massacres merely as a reason to double down on thoughts, prayers and the God-given right to sell automatic weapons to teenagers. Axon, the artists formerly known as Taser, announced plans last week for a remote-control drone, potentialised for electrificational restrainment activity, that could hover around classrooms and disable troublemakers less than a minute after the shooting started. Besides their profit potential for Axon, such devices would indubitably motivate the gun market to ensure that troubled teenagers were equipped with ever more rapid rates of fire, after the best dynamic traditions of competitive capitalism. However, the project has now been put on hold after Axon's entire internal ethics board walked out. They had objected to a preliminary proposal to sell the drone to police departments, and for some reason failed to see the advantage in expanding the sales campaign to the juvenile training and socialisaion industry. Oozing injured feelings (he had co-written a graphic novel), the company's chief executive hastily denied that anything of the sort was being considered, at least for a year or two.