This Week in Drones, Guns and Weed.

So this is a thing that is happening:

Thieves in UK Are Using Drones to Locate and Steal From Cannabis Farms
The burglars seek out cannabis operations in order to burglarize or extort them.

Miscreant techies in the United Kingdom are following in the footsteps of law enforcement, adopting the use of heat-seeking drones to locate pot farms, which often rely on heat-intensive hydroponic lights. However, the enterprising thieves are detecting the cannabis operations in order to burglarize or extort them.

The proliferation of drone technology is nothing new in the UK, but this particular application is the first of its kind, according to Halesowen News. The newspaper, which serves the West Midlands of England, spoke to one of these pioneering criminals about the development of the technique.

“I bought my first drone for a few hundred quid and learned how to fly it over wasteland and fitted a Wi-Fi camera to it so I could look into people’s windows,” the unnamed source said.

Well he seems like an all right d00d.

“However, I noticed police helicopters used thermal-imaging cameras to find cannabis farms because of the heat the hydroponic lights give off, so I bought a secondhand heat-seeking camera online and hooked it up to my iPad.”

It turns out that in recent years pot growing operations have been proliferating across Britain—with one entirely predictable result being a rise in people stealing the weed. The source for the article calls his targets “fair game.”

“It is not like I’m using my drone to see if people have nice televisions,” he said. “I am just after drugs to steal and sell. If you break the law then you enter me and my drone’s world.”

It’s his world, people: we just live in it. He seems nice. Wait, no. What I mean is that he’d make a nice authoritarian conservative panty-sniffer. Britain should thank the Lard it doesn’t have our gun access problem. Ooh! Hey Hollywood! I’m picturing an exciting arms race between police and drug thieves over the skies of the UK: “Copter Coppers vs. Druggie Drones.” Can they avoid crashing into each other in their efforts to be the first to capture the weed? Video game franchise, kids’ play sets, etc. etc. Hit me on my cell.

Speaking of gun access:

1 of 6 victims shot at FedEx facility remains critical; dead suspect identified as a package handler

A 19-year-old package handler, who was armed ‘like Rambo,’ opened fire on his co-workers at a FedEx facility in Kennesaw [Georgia]... injuring six people, before killing himself.

The gunman has been identified as Geddy Kramer. Cobb County police say the man walked into the FedEx warehouse on Airport Road and opened fire. Six men and women between the ages of 19 and 52 were taken to WellStar Kennestone Hospital, where one of them remains in critical condition.

Here in the Land of the Free to be Shot™, tragic stories of mass shootings are only too common. What is uncommon about this particular story is this:

The Georgia facility is located in Kennesaw, near Atlanta, a quiet suburb unique in the U.S. for mandating every household own at least one gun.

What.

The law is not enforced, so the Kennesaw gun ownership rate hovers around 50 percent, according to its police chief. That’s still higher than the average rate of gun ownership in the U.S., estimated to be about 34 percent.

Oh, okay. So there are obviously fewer mass shootings in Kennesaw than there otherwise would be, if its citizens owned guns only at the average national rate (34%. THIRTY FOUR PERCENT?!). Of course if everyone would just comply with the gun ownership requirement there would be even fewer still—and of course this particular tragedy would have been avoided entirely. Q.E.D.

Fortunately, Georgia seems to be on the right track in combating gun violence:

The incident comes just one week after Georgia enacted what may be the nation’s most expansive concealed carry law. The National Rifle Association-sponsored “Safe Protection Act” allows gun owners to bring firearms into most public spaces, including schools, bars, churches, airports, and government buildings, even though researchers have generally found that more people die from gun homicides in areas with higher rates of gun ownership.

“Researchers,” as we all know, is just a code word for “godless inteeleckshuls paid to enforce the New World Order,” so we should absolutely ignore them. And Melissa McEwan says about the incident, “So much for arguments about how more guns prevents mass shootings,” but I’m afraid I have to disagree. According to an eyewitness:

FedEx employee Liza Aiken told the Atlanta Journal-Constitutional she saw the shooter with an assault rifle and “bullets strapped to his chest like Rambo. I mean he looked like he was heading into war.”

What this clearly means is that everyone in Kennesaw must now carry an assault rifle and strap on enough ammunition to kill an entire enemy regiment. It’s the only way to ensure the citizens of Kennesaw are safe from people like Rambo Junior here, people.

Interestingly, FedEx is one of at least 34 corporations that support the NRA. It offers discounted shipping to NRA members. 

TPJ MAG