The most recent batch of cutting-edge law enforcement tools was unveiled by the New York Police Department.
Residents of New York will soon have to deal with Daleks, robot dogs, and a brand-new invention: a pneumatic pistol that can shoot a sticky GPS tracker at the moving automobile.
New York’s GPS Tracker Called StarChase
The launcher is known as the Guardian-HX and is produced by StarChase. It’s designed to provide a substitute for the typical police pursuit, enabling officers to remotely track a fleeing car without dispatching a team of interceptors to follow it.
Yet, the existence of any new tracking technology is concerning when used by an agency notorious for abusing monitoring.
Surprisingly, the Guardian-HX launcher is based on the AR-15 rifle. Any other AR-style rifle can use The Guardian’s lower receiver, which houses the stock, pistol grip, trigger assembly, safety switch, and magazine.
(Amusingly, as the lower receiver of an AR is where the serial number is located, these are technically AR-15s.)
With the exception of two—the internal trigger assembly and magazine—all of those attachments are cross-compatible.
This is thus because, in the Guardian, neither the trigger nor the magazine actually exists.
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A High-Tech, Less-Lethal Tool for Vehicle Tracking
The trigger, which resembles more of a button, is actually an electromechanical device that releases compressed gas to launch the GPS missile.
With all of that technology, one adhesive-tipped GPS tracker can be fired from a single-shot launcher before the barrel needs to be reloaded.
The business claims that the projectile can theoretically reach 60 feet and travels at a speed of 37 miles per hour with a straight-line range of 35 feet.
The GPS tag pings StarChase with its whereabouts every two to five seconds once it is attached to a vehicle. While the Guardian isn’t intended to be used on people, StarChase refers to it as a less-lethal tool, leaving one to question what would be fatal to a car.
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