--- title: "School’s $1 Million AI Gun Detection System Fails to Detect Weapon Before Fatal School Shooting" description: "An AI gun detection system appears to have been a massive waste of money after it failed to detect the weapon used in a school shooting. " date: "2025-01-24" modified: "2025-01-24" authors: - name: "Noor Al-Sibai" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/school-shooting-ai-gun-detection-failure" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" tags: - "guns" - "school shootings" - "the digest" - "weapons" --- # School’s $1 Million AI Gun Detection System Fails to Detect Weapon Before Fatal School Shooting ![An AI gun detection system appears to have been a massive waste of money after it failed to detect the weapon used in a school shooting. ]() *\Image: Getty / Futurism\* ## Gun Intended An expensive AI gun detection system appears to have been a massive waste of money after it failed to detect the weapon used in a school shooting. As [*NBC News* reports](), the [$1 million contract]() that Nashville's Antioch High School paid to a gun detection software company called Omnilert has come into question after a student managed to sneak in a gun and [open fire in his high school's cafeteria](). The 17-year-old gunman shot and killed one 16-year-old classmate and wounded another before turning the gun on himself, which he did not survive. Omnilert's technology [used the school's security cameras]() and added AI that was supposed to detect hidden weapons. It didn't recognize the shooter's gun, *NBC* notes, in a [news conference after the massacre](), Metro Nashville Public Schools chief technology and communications officer Sean Braisted pointed out that the Omnilert system did activate when police entered with their own weapons. "It is designed to activate immediately once it detects \[a weapon\]," the school system's CTO said, [per Nashville's *WBIR* broadcaster](). "It did not detect that weapon in this instance... because of the location and where the cameras were positioned." ## Fail Not In a statement to *NBC*, Omnilert echoed Braisted's comments about the system's cameras failing to find the gun in question. "The location of the shooter and the firearm meant that the weapon was not visible," said Omnilert CEO Dave Fraser in an email. "This is not a case of the firearm not being recognized by the system." Braisted — who was also quoted in [Omnilert's press release]() announcing the $1 million deal back in 2023 — said during the news conference that the system had worked well in the past, and had detected police weapons before. MNPS superintendent Adrienne Battle also seemed to defend the expensive and apparently not watertight weapon detection software. "There’s no system that’s going to 100 percent capture everything a person has on them," Battle said during the same press conference. While these school and company officials work overtime to defend their wasteful investment in the sort of AI-powered technology that has [for years now]() been [known to fail](), two teenagers are dead in the latest tragic school shooting. Slapping AI on top of [shoddy weapon scanners]() doesn't make them work — and in this case, the false sense of security they provide ended in tragedy. **More on AI horror:** [*Trump's $500 Billion AI Deal Includes Funding by UAE Royal Family Linked to Astonishing Number of Scandals, Including Human Torture*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've often been drawn to unpacking the narratives that underlie technological, scientific and medical progress, with a special interest in areas of conflict and ambiguity that end up setting agendas and steering the fates of both elites and the hoi polloi. I'm a committed generalist, but I often find myself returning to work involving NASA and the private space sector, the effects of AI on media and society, and the mechanics of the pharmaceutical industry, with a specific focus on the spread of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Prior to Futurism, I worked for publications ranging from Media Matters and Truthdig to Raw Story and Bustle. I'm also the author of "Myspace Scene Queens," a 2024 title in Instar Books' acclaimed "Remember the Internet" series. My work at Futurism has been cited by outlets including the New Yorker, Slate, Nieman Lab, the Verge, the MIT Technology Review, the Sunday Times, and the Daily Beast. I grew up in North Carolina, attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and now live in Brooklyn, New York. In my free time, I'm an avid reader and music fan; you can probably find me at a local poetry reading, concert, underground rave, or DJ set. I'm the proud parent of an ineffable orange cat named Mee-Mow. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()