The NYPD Can Now Shoot GPS Trackers at Your Car

Yesterday, the New York Police Department debuted its latest set of high-tech policing equipment. We New York denizens will soon come face to face with robot dogs, daleks, and something new: A pneumatic gun that can fire a sticky GPS tracker at a moving vehicle.

In case you missed it:

• Here Are the Cars That Left You Feeling Like the Automaker Was Close to Making Something Great

• The 2024 Acura Integra Type S Is Here in All its Glory

• Teacher Allegedly Rents Toyota Supra on Turo to Compete in Land Speed Record Competition

The launcher is called the Guardian-HX, made by a company called StarChase. It’s meant to create an alternative to the standard police pursuit, allowing cops to remotely track a fleeing vehicle without sending a squad of interceptors to tail it. But, in the hands of a department known for its surveillance abuses, the presence of any new tracking tech is worrying.

Read more

• These Are Your Guilty Pleasure Cars

• The 15 Most Successful Formula 1 Cars of All Time

• These Cars Should Never Have Been Killed Off

The Guardian-HX launcher is based on, of all things, an AR-15 rifle. The Guardian’s lower receiver — the part of the gun that holds the stock, pistol grip, trigger assembly, safety switch, and “magazine” — is interchangeable with any other AR-style rifle. (Amusingly, since the AR’s lower receiver is the part that contains its serial number, these may legally count as AR-15s.) Those accessories, too, are cross-compatible, save for two: The internal trigger assembly and magazine.

That’s because, in the Guardian, the trigger isn’t a trigger, and the magazine isn’t a magazine. The trigger itself is more of a button, an electronic system that activates the release of pressurized gas to propel the GPS projectile. The magazine is actually a battery.