The shocking mass-shooting in Christchurch on Friday is notable for using livestreaming video technology to broadcast horrific first-person footage of the shooting on social media.
Researchers at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, have found no relationship between aggressive behavior in teenagers and the amount of time spent playing violent video games.
The study used nationally representative data from British teens and their parents alongside official E.U. and US ratings of game violence. The findings were published in Royal Society Open Science.
By Michael R. Sisak Associated Press
NEW YORK - It's an Auld Lang Syne of the times: For the first time, a police drone will be keeping watch over the New Year's Eve celebration in New York's Times Square.
The unmanned eye-in-the-sky is the latest wrinkle in the New York City Police Department's ever-evolving plan to keep revelers - and "Rockin' Eve" host Ryan Seacrest - safe.
About 7,000 police officers will be on duty for Monday night's festivities in Times Square, including counterterrorism teams with long guns and bomb-sniffing dogs. Police cars and sand-filled sanitation trucks will be positioned to stop vehicles from driving into the crowd.
And, above it all, a remote-controlled quadcopter will be giving police a unique view of the merriment - and any potential mayhem.
It's the first time the NYPD is sending up a drone for a big event.
"That's going to give us a visual aid and the flexibility of being able to move a camera to a certain spot with great rapidity through a tremendous crowd," Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence and Counterterrorism John Miller said.
Police Commissioner James O'Neill said there are no known, credible threats to the city or the New Year's Eve event. He encouraged spectators to remain vigilant and to alert officers if they suspect something is awry.
"There's probably going to be a cop within 10 feet of you," Miller said. "If you see something, you can go right to them directly."
Mayor Bill de Blasio said Friday that the city is expecting "up to 2 million people in Times Square itself" for the ball drop, repeating a figure often cited by city officials, organizers and television broadcasters.
Crowd-size experts say it's impossible to cram that many people into the area, a bow-tie-shaped zone running five blocks between Broadway and 7th Avenue, and that the real total is likely fewer than 100,000.
No matter how many people actually show up, they'll all be screened with metal detectors at security checkpoints and funneled into penned off areas to prevent overcrowding.
Umbrellas, backpacks and coolers are banned, but those kitschy "2019" glasses are most definitely allowed in. And there won't be any popping champagne at midnight. The NYPD says alcohol is strictly prohibited.
That might be for the best. There aren't any bathrooms, and anyone leaving the secure area won't be allowed back to their original spot. That means they'll risk missing the ball drop or having to squint hard to see it from a faraway vantage point.
Like last year, the NYPD is embedding detectives in hotels around Times Square in an attempt to thwart a potential attack like the one in Las Vegas last year in which a gunman shooting from a hotel room killed 59 people at an outdoor country music festival.
Police are also harnessing new technology to detect drones that aren't authorized to fly.
The NYPD's drone adds to a vast array of visual surveillance that includes more than 1,200 fixed cameras and feeds from police helicopters circling above.
The department started using drones this month. It says they'll mainly be used for search-and-rescue missions, documenting crime scenes and monitoring large events.
Several of the NYPD's drones are equipped with thermal-imaging and 3D-mapping capabilities and strong camera lenses that can greatly magnify a subject.
For safety, Chief of Department Terence Monahan said the New Year's Eve drone will be tethered to a building and flown in a cordoned-off area so that no one gets hurt if it happens to fall. The drone will never fly directly above the crowd, he said.
Unlike a helicopter, a drone is small and makes little noise. Between the sounds of performers like Christina Aguilera and Bastille and the confetti that'll be swirling at midnight, Monahan said some spectators might not even notice it.
"Once it's up in the air, it will probably be hard to see," he said.
Environmentalists have a history of pursuing very weird agendas under the guise of environmental protection and it appears that gun control is no exception. So, now there are environmentalists, and there's a huge difference between environmentalists and conservationists by the way, environmentalists targeting gun ranges and identifying them as environmental liability saying that they pose contamination risks to the environment and to employees and customers at gun ranges. The environmentalists making these games probably know far less than my next guest. James Bathel is the President and MT2 the leading fire range maintenance gun range, lead recovery, environmental remediation service provider in the United States and he joins me now to talk about this. James, thank you for being her and dispelling some of this nonsense.
I'm always, whenever I hear that ranges, etc. are dangerous to the environment I always think well if you're talking about lead don't we get lead from the very ground that we're standing on? I mean none of this makes any sense to me. Talk to me a little bit about what in the world these people are, why do they think that a gun, it's lead, lead comes from the earth. What am I missing?
Well, that's true. Lead comes from the earth and I think that it's an avenue to pursue a policy or an agenda that's not genuine, that most ranges, most range owners, most shooters are very careful with shooting and very careful with how we handle lead. And, part of our business is just to come alongside the range owners and the shooters and just pursue best management practices, just common-sense things that keep the environment safe, keep the shooter safe, and protect the air and the water. And, these things have been done for a long time and we're just proud to be able to help this industry continue to be safe and to minimize any impact to its neighbors.
Right and I mean we see some of the clean up there and I can't imagine, I mean I would of especially considering how there is such a strong [inaudible 00:02:13] advocacy out there. I can't imagine any gun range not following best practices when it concerns clean up. I mean I've never been to a range, I've never even heard of a range that wouldn't follow the proper protocol and the proper regulations for it. So, it seems kind of a strong man argument and another way to go after again law-abiding gun owners. But, I mean this is your industry, I mean you tell me. I mean I've never seen an occurrence where a range did not behave, did not follow regulations where it concerned clean up or disposal etc. Have you?
Well, I think our business goes back and deals with ranges from a long time ago as well as current ranges. And, I think certainly in the last 20 years we've been doing this now for 18 years and I think in the last 20 years there's been a recognition that you need to manage lead and you need to keep the lead on the range. And, perhaps 50 years ago, I mean just look at battery sites and mining sites. 50 years ago, there were a lot of practices that weren't very good, that contaminated land, but in ranges in particular lead doesn't go anywhere. What we find is that if it's in an indoor range that with a ventilation system the ranges, the lead's going to stay in the traps. And, if it's a trap and ski club then the range is going to fall in the shot fall zone and it's not going to migrate very much. And, certainly shooting into berms the leads not going to migrate. So, it's really a very rare instance where there's been neglect or avoidance of falling regulations that's for sure.
Yeah, the complaints that I hear especially just as of late it just seems to be kind of more fear mongering. Well, James I appreciate you joining us. MT2.com is the website. James, thank you so much for your expertise on this.
Thank you for your time.
