A terrible idea for police reform from 1924: Robots who battle protesters

Robocop isn't just a campy gore-fest from the 1980s — it's also a horrifying and apparently serious proposal from Science and Invention magazine in May 1924:

Such a machine would seem to be exceedingly valuable to disperse mobs, or for war purposes and even for industrial purposes... The arms are provided with rotating discs which carry lead balls on flexible leads. These act as police clubs in action... Bullets do not affect them and if equipped with a twenty to forty H.P. engine, they will be well nigh irresistible. [Reason]

Just don't let the Pentagon see these plans or the 1033 program may suddenly offer a terrifying new product.

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.