this post was submitted on 07 Jun 2026
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The injured teenage survivor of a January 2025 shooting at a Nashville, Tennessee high school recently sued the manufacturer of an “AI gun detection” system that failed to detect the handgun that left two dead, including the shooter.

According to the lawsuit, which was filed in Davidson County court last month, the security company Omnilert either knew or should have known that there were “significant operational limitations in its gun detection system that could result in detection failures during actual emergencies, including limitations based on camera placement, proximity of the weapon to camera sensors, camera angle, lighting, and weapon visibility.”

Omnilert cofounder Ara Bagdasarian declined Ars’ invitation to answer questions about the lawsuit. System Integrations, the other defendant in the case, which resold the Omnilert system, also did not respond to Ars’ request for comment.

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[–] howdy@lemmy.ml 53 points 6 days ago (3 children)

Using AI to stop school shootings it the type of idiot idea Sasha Baron Cohen would get a tech bro to unironically support. So much news these days feels like black comedy or satire

Not quite right. These types of ideas have existed for quite some time and have been used many many times in warfare by US military+allies. This was one of the core things that necessiated a company like palantir.

The only caveat is that, historically when these systems failed, it usually killed brown people which nobody really care about. Take the example of school bombing in iran or gaza genocide.

The problem is that the tolerance for error in warfare is always very high, anything can be written as "collatoral". But even a small error (like one kid dying) is too much inside a state.

That's why palantir in non military settings is disasterous.

TLDR: AI did better than expected, the problem was that, a white kid in USA died rather than a brown one in a third world country.

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[–] echodot@feddit.uk 43 points 6 days ago (5 children)

So once again the United States has attempted a complicated technical solution to a legal problem.

Why don't you just implement safe gun laws. You don't even have to ban people from owning guns, although that would be a good idea. You just need to have basic background checks on gun purchases.

[–] TotalCourage007@lemmy.world 15 points 6 days ago

But then we can't have draconian ass surveillance funded by Epstein Predators, oh the horror!

[–] Ithral@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 points 6 days ago (2 children)

We do have basic background checks on most purchases.

[–] Holytimes@sh.itjust.works 3 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

Fun thing about background checks they are only done once for the purchase.

Then after the fact doesn't matter if they lose their fucking shit and go mental. We checked their background! They where good at the time!

Background checks are fundamentally flawed from literally every possiable angle when your talking about a purchase of something that doesn't have a time limit.

Unless your doing annual background and mental checks it's literally just security theater. Better then literally nothing. But that's a low fucking bar.

[–] forbiddencherry@lemmy.today 3 points 5 days ago

Mental checks sound good in theory, but such things are actually counterproductive. People actively avoid getting help if they think they might get in trouble because of it. Also, mental health is not a scientific and solved field. It's highly subjective. Your mental health requirement would almost certainly result in more deaths, including suicides, by people who were afraid to go to therapy.

[–] greasewizard@slrpnk.net 4 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Most, but not all

[–] ironycanal@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 5 days ago

But then how will we go on our killing sprees? Murder our loved ones? Become cops? Do you just hate american culture?

[–] kuhli@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Background checks are good, but they aren't a solution to school shootings. Those are almost all parents giving kids guns or having shitty storage practices.

[–] echodot@feddit.uk 7 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Perhaps a tendency not to give your kids guns would be part of the background, check other countries managing.

[–] kuhli@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Oh 100% American gun culture is absolutely insane

[–] innermachine@lemmy.world 3 points 6 days ago

American gun culture also is too broad a term to mean anything. Gun culture in my north eastern state is worlds apart from gun culture in Florida, which is worlds apart from gun culture in Massachusetts. It's a big country and our culture is not homogenous across all 50 states and neither are our gun laws.

[–] greasewizard@slrpnk.net 4 points 6 days ago (2 children)

So charge the parents then

That doesn't prevent anything and doesn't change the system that produces these results in the slightest.

[–] titanicx@lemmy.zip 2 points 6 days ago

They have been.

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[–] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 18 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Even the greatest most infallible gun detection system imaginable can be defeated by having the gun inside a plastic bag.

[–] Rooster326@programming.dev 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

They are making backpacks required as clear plastic these days.

[–] LodeMike@lemmy.today 2 points 6 days ago

It's only legal in private spaces.

[–] umbraroze@slrpnk.net 6 points 5 days ago

Soooooo... which is going to ultimately turn out to be more effective way of detecting guns: AI systems, or dowsing? Both are gonna suck, be wholly inadequate for the purpose, and be giant wastes of public money - but obviously, but I've gonna admit, AI at least as mild possibility of being better than random chance. In optimal conditions. Maybe.

(You may be thinking "pfffft, surely people wouldn't be stupid enough use dowsing rods to detect weapons, that's just so clearly stupid", but they did, and this "solution" was sold to them by slick conmen. ...Sounds familiarrrr????)

[–] Crozekiel@lemmy.zip 3 points 5 days ago

AI can't even detect a fully formed gun, and California thinks the AI will have no problems detecting gun parts from just gcode??

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