Seems to me that it does in fact mean that that excuse for gun proliferation is pretty useless.

So then it's not the guns that make resistance possible it's popular will.

There's something very wrong with your water. It's killing a lot of children.

What is that heavily armed populace doing? They're not resisting a government that has entered the information warfare age, where every police station has SWAT gear and tanks and helicopters. The guns aren't saving you from the government, they're not saving me from the government, they're not saving Cletus on 10 acre compound if Uncle Sam decides to pay a visit with flashbangs and riot gear.

All the guns are doing is terrifying minorities, who actually can be controlled by them.

Guess how I know.

You said not to punish them. How do you intend to teach them empathy if all they learn is that they can get away with doing what they want?

I was a child once. I got bullied by other children. Some of them grew up, some of them didn't. But you know what never helped? The adults who focused their ire on me anytime in stood up for myself, instead of having my back or telling the bullies to knock it off. No, they just told me I'm supposed to be better than them, so I'd get in just as much if not more trouble than they did, because "held to a higher standard" or some shit.

All they did was create a feeble, traumatized, spineless adult who lets others walk all over him because he's too afraid to stand up for himself, not because he's intimidated by bullies, but because he fears the authorities and feels he doesn't deserve the ground beneath his feet. An adult who bottled up all his emotions, because there was nowhere else for them to go, until years later when he couldn't hold in the pressure anymore and his psyche started rupturing into mental breakdowns and became entirely unable to participate in society.

Except no on ever says "it's okay, it's understandable, he has trauma." No, people say "That guy's crazy, stay away, he's mentally unstable, ew." They say "stop blaming your childhood, you're not a victim, trauma isn't real, you're clearly choosing to have mental breakdowns because you want attention and it makes you feel powerful" which is entirely counterfactual.

So no, don't let bullies off the hook because you think "punishment" is a naughty word. All you're gonna do is enable them to push their victims over the edge, with no recourse but to feel backed into a corner and have to fight their way out.

I've never shot anybody, because that's not something I would do. But I can definitely understand how enduring years of that kind of treatment can make someone feel like they have no other option besides seeking vengeance, making others feel the pain that those others had made them feel. And to an unbalanced psyche in that sort of state, everyone who minimized and dismissed and ignored their pain when they cried out for help might seem like valid targets. That doesn't make it right, but from a psychological point of view, it's easy to see the direct line of cause-and-effect, if you take a moment to remove those socialized glasses of admitting the facts only when they're comfortable.

A large proportion of school shooters were victims of bullying. That doesn't mean we should stigmatizing the victims and ostracize them further, although that's probably the response most "normies" would jump to. But that would exacerbate the problem. No, the problem is to reduce the prevalence of bullying, and give victims sufficient avenues for redress and support, so that they don't feel like they have to fend for themselves while backed into a corner with their hands tied behind their back and pushed daily beyond the reasonable limits of what a human psyche can take until they can't take anymore and finally snap.

“Its not perfect, therefore no effort should be expended toward any possible harm reduction”

Non sequitur fallacy and then some. Not only didn't I say "it's not perfect", I said it's completely stupid such as what's depicted in the illustration above. I also didn't say "no effort should be expended", in fact, my first sentence proves the contrary: most efforts should be concentrated on the root causes. And the last sentence quotes the article, symptomatic measures should be prevention, e.g., patrol. Money towards these drones can be spent far more wisely.

This isn't a case of perfect being the enemy of good. This is a case of the drones simply not being a good response.

This assumes that there is a potential for harm reduction in this proposal...which there is not.