When people say "defund the police" this is the kind of shit they are talking about. There is no reason for a police force to have access to lethal robots. None.
Source: I just know. That robot saves lives.
https://abc7news.com/sfpd-budget-defund-the-police-departmen...
A remote-controlled robot equipped with a gun is needed in this type of situation. The gun will be operated by a human, remotely.
Were they cowards? Yes. Does calling them cowards solve the problem? No.
Robots would actually solve the problem.
In tech we have a culture of blaming the process, not people. Now, we should definitely blame the Uvalde officers for their cowardice. But we should also think about how we could improve the process around dealing with active shooters and officers who simply aren't brave enough when push comes to shove. This was not the first time, and nor will it be the last time, when innocent lives die because of afraid law enforcement officers. Let's solve this problem at the process layer.
In addition to fake gun the robot should have a camera too, so that police can see him.
Maintain minimum required force of trigger happies for all the shooting scenarios.
Our secular society isn’t anymore sacrosanct than religious based choices. It should be readily reorganize-able as logistics demand.
Optimizing for 24/7 status quo politics, profit margin optimizing and rent extraction “or else the world ends” is not so different from forcing unfalsifiable magic down our throats.
Aka hire more cops. A cop in the US is just a citizen with 3-6 months of tactical and paperwork training.
Anyways, the point remains: the difference between a police officer and a civilian is a small amount of training and a whole lot of in-group politics. Not sure how hiring different people solves either problem.