My city council recently voted to start utilizing those “gunshot detector” microphones, despite being presented with evidence of how they are frequently inaccurate, with false alarms, and can tend to exacerbate racial tensions. The false alarms, meanwhile, pull police away from actual emergencies.
But here we are. Apparently we’re going to spend millions of dollars on this.
I remember seeing the stats on this in DC. They always claimed they could precisely identify the sound signature of a gunshot… even filtering out similar noises like fireworks. Well, according to their own statistics, the system identifies the most gunshots on the 4th of July out of any other day of the year. I mean, I could see an argument for it. But, I also thought that this fact doesn’t give high confidence that it can tell the difference.
I mean, the one night of the year when the most guns are fired is the 4th of July. I try to leave the city for the whole weekend. It’s not safe to stand out on the porch to watch what fireworks there are. It’s fucking ridiculous, and terrifying. One year when I couldn’t get away, I kept family in another state on a video call. They couldn’t believe what they were hearing. It’s pretty obvious when they’re both going off at once, what’s fireworks and what’s guns.
My city council recently voted to start utilizing those “gunshot detector” microphones, despite being presented with evidence of how they are frequently inaccurate, with false alarms, and can tend to exacerbate racial tensions. The false alarms, meanwhile, pull police away from actual emergencies.
But here we are. Apparently we’re going to spend millions of dollars on this.
I remember seeing the stats on this in DC. They always claimed they could precisely identify the sound signature of a gunshot… even filtering out similar noises like fireworks. Well, according to their own statistics, the system identifies the most gunshots on the 4th of July out of any other day of the year. I mean, I could see an argument for it. But, I also thought that this fact doesn’t give high confidence that it can tell the difference.
I mean, the one night of the year when the most guns are fired is the 4th of July. I try to leave the city for the whole weekend. It’s not safe to stand out on the porch to watch what fireworks there are. It’s fucking ridiculous, and terrifying. One year when I couldn’t get away, I kept family in another state on a video call. They couldn’t believe what they were hearing. It’s pretty obvious when they’re both going off at once, what’s fireworks and what’s guns.