While checking an article in ThinkProgress about Brady Background Check Delayed Transactions allowed to go forward, I bumped into a name that seemed vaguely familiar: “former ATF Special Agent David Chipman, now a senior policy advisor at the advocacy group Americans for Responsible Solutions.” And I was right, I had mentioned him once before in the blog, but back then he was Senior Vice President of ShotSpotter, the gunfire locator company and before that a senior advisor for Everytown for Gun Safety where he landed after his 20+ career with ATF.
I had not checked on ShotSpotter for a while. Last I had seen was last year and I had detected a subtle negative press about cities dumping the system because it did not return the expected results. Miami Dade PD had dumped the system back in 2013 for being inefficient (out of 1,000 detections, only 50 were real), but it was being forcefully shoved back in but county commissioners according to an article from September 2016 in the Miami Times.
So when I googled ShotSpotter today, I get returns that amaze me: According to many press articles, it is the best thing for crime since the movie Minority Report and Eric Holder. Basically anything written about ShotSpotter in 2017 is to celebrate the system and a true crime fighter tool. They even got an official congressional attaboy from none other than Charlie Schummer and demand DOJ to pour money into it. And you are hard pressed to find any article with a negative side. I wondered if the managed to improve their software or sound detection to get more accurate results so I searched some more and nothing. What I did find however is that ShotSpotter announced in May that they were going public and in June 7th they started trading.
I know the stock is up, but since I have no idea how the market works, I can’t tell if they have really made a profit or it is just huff and puff. But if I were somebody with a suspicious mind, I’d think the sudden onset of good press might be somewhat remotely related to the company going public.
I would love to know who bought stock and specially who may have had a chance of own company stock prior to the company going public, past and present officer included.
Cui bono.
If I could go back in time and influence the writing of the Constitution in any way, I’d want more protections of economic freedom and a greater separation between politics and economics.
The greatest economic issue of the 21st century is the power of political influence in business.
The Joint Strike Fighter program is a disaster because more effort has gone into lobbying for it than R&D.
Elon Musk is a billionaire because of Federal grants, not cutting edge technology.
Shot Spotter is going to make some people a lot of money, despite being worthless, because of political influence.
Get on the right side of the right politicians and the world is your oyster, regardless of what you can actually produce.
Go to yahoo finance and search SSTI…. you will see names of their top executives, and major holders
Am I paranoid for thinking some of those “false alerts” might end up on the addresses of law-abiding concealed carry permit holders?
Maybe it’s just the idea of a sensor system like this being run by a disarmament advocate whose movement already ignores real gun violence…
If you fear that a ShotSpotter detection is enough for probable cause, it is not. Specially with the huge margin of error it has. I have seen cops arriving at a location I was working because the system told them to go there… and they were off by almost 150 yards.
You think a Chicago zampolit ordered to “get guns off the street” is going to care?
Oh yes, imagine cops breaking in the house or apartment of some relative of a council member or popping a Minister because ShotSpotter was wrong by a block and a half….
The caca storm would be de luxe
qui bono. Who benefits?