The Gun Violence Archive states that as of last week, the U.S. has experienced 253 mass shootings in 2019–an average of more than one a day.
In a recent explosion of U.S. gun violence, three white gunmen used military-grade weapons to kill 34 people, mostly people of colour.
On July 28, a right-wing teenager (19), opened fire on a festival in Gilroy, California, killing three.
On August 3, a white supremacist (21), killed 22 people and wounded dozens more at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas.
Later the same day, a “gun freak” (24) used an assault rifle capable of holding 100 rounds of ammunition to kill nine people in Dayton, Ohio.
Politicians like to blame the mentally ill or video games, but only 3% percent of violent crimes are committed by people with mental illness; Japan leads the world in video game revenue but only has five gun deaths per year, compared to 40,000 in the U.S.
We scanned the horizons for political solutions and found this:
Bi-partisan background-check legislation that passed the House is stalled in the U.S. Senate, whose majority leader, Senator Mitch McConnell, has received $1.2 million in NRA donations.
Since U.S. politicians won’t solve the problem, let’s turn to technology for solutions to reduce gun violence.
And no – we’re not talking about bullet-proof knapsacks for school kids.
Patriot One’s (PAT.T) “Cognitive Microwave Radar” detects concealed weapons from parking lots to buildings.
“Most incidents occur at locations in which the killers find little impediment in pressing their attack,” states Patriot One. “Locations are generally described as soft targets, that is, they carry limited security measures to protect members of the public.”
The softest targets are currently schools.
The ability to “covertly detect” weapons is critical to PAT’s technology’s utility in a school environment.
Few rational people want to see schools turn into military zones, with visible metal detectors.
Nor do they want to see the see children frightened by aggressive defensive training.
A school in Indiana school faced a barrage of criticism for “shooting teachers ‘execution style’ with pellets as part of an “active-shooter drill.”
“It’s time to make soft targets hard without impacting citizens’ rights and freedoms,” stated PAT CEO Martin Cronin. “We believe that we have a practical solution to prevent deaths in schools without traumatizing the student population.”
Cronin recently met with members of Congress, the Department of Homeland Security, Secret Service and Pentagon officials to discuss PATSCAN deployment in a civil liberties and privacy context.
On August 15, 2019 PAT announced an “integration partnership” with Johnson Controls International (JCI.NYSE).
Johnson Controls is a global tech company with 120,000 employees working in 150 countries, create intelligent buildings, efficient energy solutions, integrated infrastructure and next-generation transportation systems.
“We’re pleased that the many demonstrations and pilots of our PATSCAN™ Multi-Sensor Covert Threat Detection Platform in recent months have captured the interest not only of this Tier 1 global security integrator, but several of their high-profile clients, including professional sports franchises and Fortune 100 clients,” stated Cronin.
The Johnson Controls’ partnership follows the announced collaboration with AI company Xtract Technologies for joint research and development.
Xtract Technologies will work with three of Patriot One’s PATSCAN platform component teams—CMR, TMS and VRS—to explore how AI technology can be used to augment multiple data sets, such as people and threats, to improve overall sensor threat-detection performance.
“Deploying Patriot One’s platform with our security solutions and technologies will effectively enable us to deliver a layer of protection to increase the safety and peace of mind of our clients and the customers who visit their campuses and sports venues,” stated Kit Bishop of Johnson Controls International.
“We believe that both technology and the nature of violent acts evolve, and so our strategy ensures that we stay ahead of disruptive technologies and emerging threats through diversification and constant technical advancement,” stated Cronin.
“Our Platform offers an adaptively layered approach to threat detection for the protection of weapon restricted buildings or venues anywhere on the planet–forever. This is an approach that we are finding resonates with our sales prospects as an effective long-term global business strategy.”
More that 50% of American teens say they are “very or somewhat worried about the possibility of a shooting happening at their school.”
In this podcast, Martin Cronin explains the ambitions of the company with Equity Guru’s Guy Bennett.
PAT recently signed a multi-year reseller agreement for its PATSCAN VRS solution, which automates the detection of weapons and suspicious behaviour. The contract is valued at just under $6.3 million.
—Lukas Kane
Full Disclosure: Patriot One is an Equity Guru marketing client.
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