They blew up the Dallas shooter with a bomb on a robot.
At first I was wondering if it was his bomb but it wasn’t, it was a bomb on the robot.
We really should have talked about that before doing it.
Now we know the answer to Rand Paul’s question, our fine betters can kill us with their R/C brigade.
And now, of course, nobody will let the robots come close if they can, so it’s either a one-time-use only deal or they’re preparing to blow up a lot of houses in the future.
Yesterday was a really bad day for America in oh so many ways.
doubleplusundead 
I had the same thought…
a drone by any other name…
I hope a lot of people had that thought.
It’s an important one. I do not like the precedent.
OMG…so this was an army vet…US citizen…in Dallas, Texas, USA…not somewhere OCONUS…not on a terror watch-list…and the on-scene negotiator or whoever…says I’ve done all I can…this guy just won’t be reasonable…neutralize him…
boom…done…
I did a quick search and it seems there was a brief word about the robot on cnn…and a long hair named mike from moxnews made the connection…but…
I don’t want to think about it…
I guess I’m going to go against the grain of the above comments – unless they’re all written sarcastically and I missed the /sarc notes – and say:
I think the Dallas cops were dead-nuts right to take the guy out with a robo-bomb.
If they could have fatally impaled him with 10,000 McDonalds straws I would still be in favor of it.
Whatever works.
The. Guy. Was. SHOOTING. At. People.
He may have been an Angel from Heaven on his resume (he wasn’t), but,
HE. WAS. SHOOTING. AT. PEOPLE. AND. REFUSED. TO. STOP.
Good for the Dallas cops. That bomb probably saved lives.
I make no assertion about “setting a precedent”, or “how they (the robo-bombs) could be abused in the future”, or “due process”, or the advisability of having them in a police force’s arsenal.
The. Guy. Was. SHOOTING. At. People.
He’s not doing it now, nor will he ever do it again. Problem solved.
‘Nuff said.
Nope, totally serious. This scares me a lot.
Sure, this guy was very bad. But…..
But what about the next guy who’s threatening to shoot people?
Or the next guy who they think might shoot at people?
Or the next guy who doesn’t want to pay his taxes?
Or me when I don’t want to give them my last few guns?
We really need a discussion before they have the right to send in a bomb.
We cannot just leave this up to our social, moral, political and intellectual betters cuz they’re feckless, ignorant, smug, superior, hateful, insulated from reality cocksucking motherfuckers.
The cops already have MRAPs and all manner of warfighting stuff, do we really want them to have mobile bombs to blow me up?
I understand he was a shooter… shooting at cops…but…
In 2011, the Brossart family of ND was spied on using an actual military predator drone…because of some stray cows… but no optional equipment was attached/deployed…
How much more quickly could a Waco or Ruby Ridge be resolved if predator drones with optional equipment were available…and the precedent existed…
boom…done…all before lunch…
Yup, give them a toy and they’ll use it.
Like the guys who threw a flash-bang
into a baby’s crib because someone in the house had a gun permit but the guy they had a “tip” on wasn’t there.
The problem is that I’m afraid they’ll find these tools appropriate in what I consider very inappropriate situations.
Like I said (or at least implied), I make no statement about what the future holds, but IMHO the Dallas robo-bomb (RB) was properly & appropriately used. I applaud them for ending the danger so deftly without collateral injury to anyone else.
I can imagine any number of hypothetical (or real-world past) situations where a RB would be appropriate – and an equal number where it would definitely NOT be appropriate.
But it was still pretty fucking nifty in the Dallas situation.
I just wish we had discussed it before using it.
It scares me.
You could call/write/ask the Dallas police if they have a hard written policy or whatever as to “when/where/under what circumstances the RBs can be deployed. Maybe they’ve already thought this through.
Okay, that’s funny.
I figure the thinking it through was along the lines of, “Hey, we can strap a bomb on our r/c robot!”
“Cool!”