There are probably no other issues today with more words spinning around them. And so little hard data.
Starting with Flock, we have few words that do not come directly or indirectly from Flock, and, as expected, the tale these words tell is how wonderful their system is. How many bad guys have been apprehended by cops using their technology. No hard data. No idea where they got their numbers. No methodology. Not traceability. But lots of words. With a very limited shelf life, because Flock have had their site and its history removed from the internet Wayback Machine so you can't see them contradict themselves. This is the kind of opacity usually reserved for government.
Nonetheless Flock's story is the one we have. So what are they saying? Used a million times in 2025 by 700 police departments and involved in 20% of case closures. Oh, and they've done a jam up job tracking down stolen vehicles.
The story around guns has many, many more voices, and at least as many more statistics. It is no surprise that data are cherry-picked to support a particular conclusion, so the ranges vary widely. The ranges for what, you may ask? The number of crimes averted, prevented, avoided, etc., because the intended victim had a firearm. The based data are very hard to come by because many jurisdictions do not collect data on potential crimes averted. But there are a variety of studies, some relying on estimates, unofficial reporting (media articles), and in one case polling of convicted felons regarding their aversion to armed prospective victims. No one references the Kennesaw gun ordinance.
So what do they say? Some research, based on public surveys, indicated that hundreds of thousands, up to as many as 1.6 million, crimes are deterred by the presence of a firearm. Due to the high number these groups are commonly categorized as 2nd Amendment zealots. On the opposite side, groups like Everytown for Gun Safety, offer a much lower estimate, approximately 70,000 defensive gun uses per year. While the variance is huge the words matter. One group may consider showing (brandishing) a firearm is an effective deterrent while another may only consider defensive use that results in official reports.
So where does this get you?
Well, Flock claim their technology was involved in closing about 200,000 open cases in 2025. Bad guys caught. Taking the most anti-gun report, defensive firearms avert 70,000 crimes per year. Bad thing prevented. Therein lies the key difference, why this is comparing road apples to apples. Law enforcement doesn't prevent crime, and that is Flock's customer base. And don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Police presence, in decline, is at best a few degrees of separation from crime prevention and if you hear that claptrap from city hall, point out that cops are rarely seen in the wild and Dunwoody's city manager has decided to either not equip patrol cars with cruise lights or has order cops not to use them. If police presence is a deterrent, why would you want them prominently visible? On the other hand you have an actual, proven deterrent.
Flock, or Glock? Which would you choose? That is exactly the problem: you only get a choice in one of the two, as the other is being forced upon you. Remember one thing: they are not mutually exclusive. Your choice.
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