It seems almost like something out of a movie – drones armed with pepper gel to fend off attackers. These drones aren’t science fiction though, and one company aims to make them the future of school safety.
Austin, Texas-based Mithril Defense operates the Campus Guardian Angel drone service that offers these drones up to school districts. In a Tuesday article, The Washington Post noted that they already have partnerships with schools in Florida, Georgia and Colorado.
These states have all had their own school shooting tragedies. In Colorado, there was the infamous Columbine High School massacre in 1999; in Florida, there was the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting nearly two decades later and in Georgia, the Apalachee High School shooting in 2024.
Those are just some of the school shootings that have rocked the U.S. According to Sandy Hook Promise, an organization named after yet another school shooting, more than 390,000 students in the U.S. have experienced gun violence at school since Columbine.
So far this year, at least 24 people have died due to gunfire incidents on school grounds in the U.S. and 32 people have been injured, according to the Everytown organization. Data from the K-12 Shooting Database indicates that there have been more than 100 incidents this year.
Campus Guardian Angel is described in a July 14 press release as “the nation's first active shooter suppression service.” Its own data shows that there have been 1,000 school shootings in the past three years alone, with an estimated 800 people killed or wounded.
“Seconds save lives. During an active shooter incident, the greatest loss of life often occurs before traditional response resources arrive,” the July 14 press release said. “Campus Guardian Angel’s non-lethal drone response capability is engineered to launch within seconds, identify the threat, and support rapid intervention – helping protect lives until law enforcement secures the scene.”
Georgia was the second state to approve a Campus Guardian Angel pilot program after Florida’s authorization of one in late 2025.
In a June 10 press release, Campus Guardian Angel announced that the Georgia State Board of Education approved five Georgia school districts (Bulloch County Schools, Cherokee County School District, Coffee County School District, Gainesville City School System, and Troup County School System) to participate in the Campus Guardian Angel pilot program. To fund the program, the Georgia General Assembly appropriated $550,000 in the state budget.
“Campus Guardian Angel’s drones are equipped with sirens, pepper gel, and other distraction devices designed to prevent a shooter from harming anyone while providing a critical advantage to law enforcement and first responders in order to save lives,” said the press release.
Campus Guardian Angel then announced in a July 1 press release a partnership with John Adams Academy Douglas County, a tuition-free public classical charter school in Sterling Ranch, Colo. to launch “the company's first Active Shooter Suppression System that uses drones remotely operated by world-class pilots to confront and degrade active shooter threats within seconds.” This program is set to launch in Colorado next month.
According to The Washington Post’s report, three schools in Florida, five in Georgia and the Colorado school will have will have storage boxes that house the plastic, non-lethal drones made by Mithril Defense. Teachers will be able to activate the drones, which are said to be able to reach a shooter within 15 minutes.
That speed could be a life-saving development in school safety. One horrifying example of the serious impact of delayed law enforcement action in a school shooting occurred during the 2022 elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas that claimed the lives of 19 children and two adults. Reports have indicated that law enforcement waited over an hour to enter a classroom where the gunman was barricaded.
