In an announcement, Sheehy said the Special Operations Forces Concealed Carry Act would align the status of special operators with active and retired law enforcement officers, who are permitted under federal law to carry concealed weapons across state lines.

“Our elite warfighters never stop serving, and this bill ensures the law reflects the trust they’ve earned through a lifetime of sacrifice,” Sheehy said, adding that “Special Operations Forces spend their careers protecting the American people with unmatched discipline, judgment, and professionalism.”

According to Sheehy’s office, when Congress passed the Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act, or LEOSA, in 2004, lawmakers recognized that active and retired officers may need to respond to violent crime or terrorists while off duty. They also recognized that officers face ongoing threats from individuals they previously encountered while on duty.

Sheehy’s office explained that his bill would build on the framework created by LEOSA because individuals in special operations “have completed rigorous selection and possess firearms training that meets or exceeds professional law enforcement standards.”

Congressman Pat Harrigan, a Republican from North Carolina, filed a companion bill in April. In a statement, he said that “it makes no sense that an active or retired SEAL or Green Beret, someone who spent a career mastering firearms under the most demanding conditions in the world, has no equivalent recognition under federal law.”

While the bill would extend concealed carry privileges, it would also require participants to complete annual active-duty-level firearms qualification tests, as well as a Justice Department concealed carry class.

During Sheehy’s bid for a Senate seat in 2024, The Washington Post published an article about an incident in which Sheehy was cited at Glacier National Park for illegally discharging a firearm. According to the report, the park ranger investigating the incident interviewed Sheehy at an emergency room in Kalispell shortly after the shooting in October 2015.

“(Sheehy) stated he was arranging gear in the back of his vehicle, and that the gun (Colt Revolver, .45 long) had slipped down the pile of gear, hit the ground and fired. The round hit him in the right forearm and did not pass through,” the ranger wrote in a narrative with the citation.

The ranger also told The Washington Post that the revolver that Sheehy said had accidentally discharged was loaded except for a single missing bullet.

When confronted with the details, Sheehy told reporters that he lied about accidentally discharging his firearm and that the shooting injury actually occurred during a deployment in Afghanistan. He said he didn’t report it because a teammate’s negligent discharge caused the injury, and he didn’t want to get his teammate in trouble.

“I guess the only thing I’m guilty of is admitting to doing something I never did,” Sheehy told the newspaper. He added: “It was a small price to pay to make sure that a whole team of really great Americans didn’t get dragged through the mud over this.”

The training commenced with a three-day event at Twentynine Palms, California, where Marines from the 1st and 2nd Marine Divisions learned how to shoot down small unmanned aerial systems, or sUASs, with rifles, shotguns and grenade launchers, according to a recent release.

Capt. Faith Richardson, a platoon commander with the Tactical Training and Exercise Control Group, said in the release that they aimed to give Marines “a realistic look at the threat.”

For the exercise, TTECG created counter-sUAS lanes where Marines engaged simulated enemy drones from distances as close as 20 meters, or around 65 feet. Controlled by members of TTECG, nicknamed “Coyotes,” the drones reach speeds at over 90 miles per hour.

“The intent of the C-sUAS lanes was to build the confidence of our Marines to target sUAS and complete the mission,” Richardson added.

Inside the lane, Marines practiced using an assortment of weapons, including the M27 Infantry Automatic Rifle, the M1014 shotgun, and M32A1 and M320 grenade launchers as well as electronic anti-drone weapons.

In addition to the live-fire training, the event included house clearing and patrol exercises, which tested and evaluated Marines on their ability to deny, detect and defeat sUAS.

Richardson explained that by the end, participants developed the basic skillset to apply the C-sUAS mindset to all subsequent service-level training events.

While the U.S. military has long used large aircraft drones in combat, it has rapidly accelerated the use and experimentation of small commercial drones over the past couple of years.

In December 2025, the Pentagon launched the Drone Dominance program to invest $1.1 billion into the U.S. drone market. The goal is increasing the quality of the technology while decreasing price per unit.

The program was largely influenced by the war in Ukraine, where drones have become a dominating force on the battlefield. Combatants have used inexpensive commercial drones to destroy billions of dollars worth of Russian equipment, and 90% of Russian casualties are from drone attacks.

Adopting the spirit of Drone Dominance, the Marine Corps has been quickly developing its own drone capabilities.

In the past month, the service established the Marine Corps Robotics Integration Group, or MCRIG. The group serves to integrate, standardize and institutionalize training for sUASs and C-sUASs across the total force.

The service also began stockpiling anti-drone ammo, which Marines can load into an M4 or M27 without any modification. However, unlike standard 5.56mm ammo, the anti-drone’s projectile fragments as it flies down range, so it functions similarly to a shot shell.

For intercepting medium to large attack drones, the Marine Corps inked a deal with Allen Control Systems for the Bullfrog M240, which it plans to use to aid air defense. The AI-enabled machine gun is designed to detect, track and automatically fire at aerial threats.

Moving forward, the Marine Corps said it will continue the service level training at Twentynine Palms to ensure Marines have the basic skillset to operate in areas where sUAS may be present. In turn, those who complete the training can share it with their home units.

The parents of an Air Force Academy graduate who died by suicide filed a federal lawsuit against the school, arguing that it failed to protect her from sexual assault and adequately address the trauma that followed.

Gary and Colleen Foster filed the wrongful death case on July 13 in a Colorado federal court on behalf of their daughter, 2nd Lt. Cailin Renee Foster, who died six months after graduating from the academy in 2021.

In court documents, the Fosters detail a disturbing narrative about their daughter’s rape and argue that “systemic negligence, regulatory violations, and failures of clinical and administrative safeguards” contributed to her “severe psychological trauma and preventable death.”

Although they only list the federal government as the defendant, court documents identify by name the alleged rapist, other cadets at the school who knew Foster or witnessed concerning behavior, and Foster’s commander, whom her parents argue made the issue worse.

The sexual assault

According to court documents, Foster was sexually assaulted by a male cadet during her first year at the academy in 2017. He allegedly followed her into her dorm room after a party, locked the door and then attacked her.

“He then threw Cailin onto her bed and forcibly raped her, ejaculating inside of her and leaving shortly thereafter,” the court documents say.

The Fosters argue that the school failed to hold the cadet accountable because, even before the attack, he had displayed “coercive, threatening, and nonconsensual advances toward multiple female cadets.”

According to court documents, school authorities received multiple reports of him confronting Foster outside her dorm, peeping into dorm rooms, inappropriately touching female cadets and consuming alcohol on school grounds.

Despite the reports, he “was not issued a No Contact Order, not placed in quarters away from cadets he’d harassed, or otherwise restricted in any way from accessing freshman female cadets at the Academy.”

Months after the attack, however, the suspect was issued No Contact Orders for multiple cadets. The school also encouraged him to voluntarily disenroll for poor academic performance. Despite his reported behavior, he received an honorable discharge.

The academy’s failed response

The lawsuit says Foster’s mental health deteriorated after the sexual assault and argues that the academy failed to provide adequate support.

Citing the 2003 Fowler Commission, which found that Air Force leadership showed “indifference, incompetence or a combination of both” toward sexual assault allegations at the academy, the lawsuit says Foster “feared reporting the rape” because she believed officials “would take punitive action against her and her friends.”

Still, near the end of her freshman year, Foster did report the attack to her element leader — a cadet in a leadership position — along with four friends. One of them told a chaplain, who “actively discouraged” the friend from reporting the rape to authorities.

In the years after the attack, Foster’s friends described her as “extremely depressed” when comparing her behavior before the sexual assault.

In March 2020, two cadets died within two days of each other, both believed to have died by suicide. The lawsuit says one of the cadets was Foster’s boyfriend.

The lawsuit argues that the academy did not formally activate its disaster mental health team to help Foster, nor did it take decisive action when her parents reported that she was sending suicidal messages to her deceased boyfriend’s social media account.

Then, in October 2020, Foster was forced to complete a physical fitness test despite an injury. The lawsuit argues that the combination of her grief and failing a fitness test for the first time contributed to her suicidal ideation.

Additionally, sometime between March and October 2020, Foster attempted to kill herself by hanging, but another cadet stopped her.

Although Foster’s commander sent the academy’s Commandant of Cadets a message describing her disturbing behavior, the lawsuit says she received “no professional mental-health care.” Instead, medical personnel completed a one-page intake form.

Out in the fleet

In May 2021, Foster was assigned to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, where she experienced “unnecessary psychological pain” and “bullying” from her supervisor, according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit says the former was because Wright-Patterson was where Foster’s deceased boyfriend was buried and the latter was because her supervisor’s actions were “unusual and inappropriate” for the supervisor’s rank and position.

According to court documents, Foster failed another fitness test, but officials initially refused to tell her by how much. “After repeated inquiries, the Air Force finally admitted she failed by one point,” the lawsuit says.

Afterward, Foster received two “counseling” sessions from her supervisor for failing the fitness test and attending college classes outside of work, which the supervisor said demonstrated that Foster was “not supporting her mission.”

A little more than a month later, in November 2021, Foster died.

In 2022, the Air Force released the results of an investigation into the bullying allegations, which cleared the supervisor of wrongdoing. But the lawsuit says the full report was only released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request and contained “159 completely blacked-out pages.”

Two years later, Foster’s parents received an email from a high-ranking civilian employee who said she was also being “harassed and bullied” by the same supervisor, which “negatively impacted her own mental and physical health.” The civilian employee said she had also filed multiple complaints against the supervisor.

The fight after Foster’s death

The Fosters say they have been pursuing legal action since learning of their daughter’s sexual assault, which she referenced in her suicide note.

“Mommy, Daddy and sissy, You couldn’t have done anything to stop this. Do all that you can to make sure that I am the last one. Love you for all to eternity, Cailin,” she wrote.

Initially, the Fosters said they could not understand why their daughter, who came from a family with a proud tradition of military service and attending military academies, would blame the school.

“You do not understand,” Foster wrote. “The Academy does not care. They will let you down.”

In 2024, the Fosters filed a $20 million wrongful death claim, which the Air Force denied a year later.

Bradford S. Hunt, writing as the chief of the General Torts Branch for the Air Force Judge Advocate, told the Fosters’ attorney that he had considered their claims and “after careful review, I regret that I must deny them.”

Hunt explained that the federal government “is not liable for servicemembers’ injuries or death that arose out of activities incident to their military service” and that legal precedent bars claims that the government was responsible for protecting Foster from sexual assault.

However, Hunt added that if the Fosters were dissatisfied with his decision, they “may now file suit” in federal court.

“I cannot begin to imagine the pain they have experienced through this ordeal,” Hunt wrote. “I am grateful for Lt. Foster’s dedication and service to our nation, and for your clients’ desire to improve the Air Force culture for all current and future servicemen and servicewomen.”

Foster’s father, Gary, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel and academy graduate, told Stars and Stripes, which was first to report on the lawsuit, that he owes it to his daughter to push for accountability.

“We need people to stand up and be heard, to join the fight, for change, reform and system accountability,” he said, adding, “we just want to prevent the next Cailin from being victimized.”

The marketplace was developed by the Joint Interagency Task Force 401, or JIATF 401, which leads the Defense Department’s effort to connect government agencies with companies developing counter-drone technology.

U.S. Army Maj. Mike Hapner, the C-UAS marketplace lead for JIATF 401, said the marketplace is intended to deliver “the right counter-UAS capabilities to the right users at the right time.”

Promotional materials make the marketplace look like a basic e-commerce website, but it is designed to do more than simply catalog products.

According to Kaizen Laboratories, which JIATF 401 contracted to build the platform, buyers can browse, filter and search products based on specific tactical needs, evaluate system performance data and submit acquisition requests.

Nikhil Reddy, Kaizen’s co-founder and chief executive officer, described the platform as “first-class digital tools that move with the threat environment, not behind it” and “a win for the entire defense ecosystem.”

JIATF 401 awarded Kaizen a $15 million contract to build the marketplace in May 2026 through an Other Transaction Agreement, a contracting mechanism often used to accelerate the development and acquisition of new technology.

Although the website is live, access is limited to approved buyers and sellers. According to the marketplace website, eligible buyers include federal procurement officers, military commands and pre-cleared allied or partner-nation defense ministries.

Vendors, meanwhile, must apply and complete a vetting process that allows program staff to verify their businesses, review export controls and evaluate their products. Once approved, vendors can publish listings and respond to buyer inquiries.

The marketplace is part of the Defense Department’s effort to streamline the acquisition of drone-related technology, and is its second sales platform.

In 2020, the department launched the Blue UAS List to catalog approved drones and drone components, giving military units an easier way to acquire systems without going through the lengthy procurement process typically associated with new equipment.

Then, alongside the Drone Dominance program, an effort to invest $1.1 billion to boost the commercial drone industry in the United States, the Defense Department revamped the Blue UAS List to encourage greater procurement of drones.

The counter-UAS marketplace takes a similar approach but focuses on the technology needed to defeat drones rather than operate them.

Brig. Gen. Matt Ross, the director of JIATF 401, called the marketplace necessary because “drones are a defining threat of our time.”

“The proliferation of small systems and small drones and the threat that they pose both to critical infrastructure and to defense critical assets requires us to move faster in this space,” he said.

Although Congress authorized CMP to sell surplus weapons — and has sold 1911 handguns and M1 Garands in the past — this is the first time it will sell the historic M14.

Jerry O’Keefe, CMP’s chairman and chief executive officer, explained that the challenge was that the rifles were originally serialized as fully automatic firearms.

Although civilians can legally own machine guns, federal law requires both buyers and sellers to adhere to strict regulatory policies.

“We’ve spent an extraordinary amount of time and effort thinking through every step in this process, working with our partners to get everybody in agreement,” O’Keefe said.

He explained that they worked closely with their federal partners and walked them “through every step in the conversion process” to show how they will make the M14s “permanently and irreversibly semi-automatic.”

The federal government created CMP in 1903 to promote marksmanship training among civilians, and in 1996, Congress privatized the organization and gave it authority to sell surplus military firearms.

According to a 2019 Government Accountability Office report, the Army has transferred more than 700,000 rifles and handguns to CMP, which has generated about $196.8 million in revenue from their sale.

While CMP initially announced that the M14s could be available as early as this year, O’Keefe clarified that the first sales will most likely occur in early 2027.

“We expected the demand for this to be extraordinary and frankly, the feedback on all the different forums and websites and YouTubes has even exceeded what we expected,” he said. “So we now know that we’re going to have to spend a few months building up a pretty large inventory of converted guns before we go to first sale.”

The M14 has a complicated military history but remains popular among firearms enthusiasts. Chambered in 7.62mm, it was developed from the M1 Garand and replaced the World War II-era rifle as the standard U.S. service rifle around 1957.

The M14 was intended to serve as an all-purpose infantry weapon. Its select-fire option was part of an effort to consolidate several weapons used by American troops into a single platform.

Ian McCollum, a firearms historian and host of the YouTube channel Forgotten Weapons, explained that the military wanted to combine the capabilities of the M1 carbine, M1 Garand, M3 Grease Gun and M1918A2 BAR into a single weapon.

That effort produced the M14 Infantry Rifle, as well as the M15 Light Machine Gun, which was essentially an M14 equipped with a bipod and pistol grip.

The M14, however, had a short service life. Springfield Armory — the historic military arsenal, not the current manufacturer that produces modernized M14s — designed the rifle but was not equipped for the kind of mass production the military ultimately demanded.

Once other manufacturers got involved, though, they made parts of inconsistent quality, which led to inconsistencies in the rifle’s overall performance.

The military ultimately bought about 1.38 million M14s before ending the program in 1964. The rifle entered combat during the Vietnam War, but its size and materials made it ill-suited for the dense jungle environment compared to the M16, which began replacing it in 1967.

“Tromping through a jungle, you are better off with something a little bit shorter than an M14, so ultimately, the M14 would end up being the U.S. service rifle with the shortest active service life of anything that the U.S. has ever issued,” McCollum said.

Many of the remaining M14s were subsequently destroyed, sold overseas or transferred to foreign militaries, according to McCollum. They also briefly made an appearance during the Global War on Terror. M14 variants were used in Afghanistan and Iraq, primarily as designated marksman and sniper rifles.

That makes CMP’s planned sale particularly notable for enthusiasts who have long viewed the M14 as an iconic American service rifle.

Brian C. Sheetz, the editor-in-chief of the American Rifleman, called it “one of the best general-purpose rifle choices for uncertain times” because it “offers a level of utility and capability — all in an understated package — not commonly encountered in many more modern firearms.”

When the surplus M14s finally go on sale, O’Keefe said they will cost around $2,000 apiece, and buyers should be able to purchase up to two rifles at a time.

In Wednesday’s announcements, the company explained that its Missionforce National Security platform received Impact Level 5, or IL5, authorization, meaning it is “trusted” to address the “most sensitive, unclassified missions.”

Kendall Collins, the chief executive officer of Missionforce and Government Cloud at Salesforce, said the platform is “modernizing government IT” and that they’re “building the trusted AI backbone for America’s national security.”

According to the announcement, Missionforce is the DoD-authorized variant of the commercial Agentforce platform, which is a network of AI agents designed to support analysis and decision-making.

This is the latest application of the technology since Salesforce won the $5.6 billion contract to build Missionforce in January. In early July, Salesforce said the Air Force deployed Missionforce with the 441st Vehicle Support Chain Operations Squadron to help manage its $13.5 billion fleet of over 84,000 vehicles across nearly 389 locations.

The company called the approval a “milestone” because it moves the national security and defense entities “beyond predictive AI and chatbots” and onto “autonomous AI execution.” The AI agents will have access to controlled unclassified information as well as unclassified National Security System data.

While Missionforce is tailored for government use, the underlying technology is based on Salesforce’s commercial Agentforce 360 platform, which the company introduced in late 2025.

Ryan Von, a writer for Salesforce Ben, a publication that covers the company’s products, described Agentforce as Salesforce’s “boldest leap into AI,” and called the latest 360 variant, “the most powerful version of the tool yet.” He said it’s marketed as able to deliver “accurate, context-rich responses across text and voice.”

In an early review of the commercial platform, Von said demonstrations were promising. Still, he suggested the AI performed best on routine, keyword-based requests while struggling with more complex questions, such as personalized recommendations.

For the Army HRC, the company said AI agents will “provide around-the-clock support, respond to routine inquiries, summarize case histories, and surface relevant policy and career information from approved Army sources.”

According to the company, HRC handles more than 1,500 personnel cases each day. Salesforce estimates the AI agents could save roughly $6 million annually while handling more than 55 million conversations a month.

Bill Pessin, SVP of Missionforce National Security at Salesforce, said that the platform will allow the human staff to “focus more on the complex, career-defining decisions that directly affect the readiness and lives of our Soldiers and less on the mundane tasks that can be handled by AI.”

Under the settlement agreement, NCNG agreed to restore Timothy Stanhope’s access to its Facebook page and make reasonable efforts to unhide his comments.

The agreement also requires the Guard to revise its Facebook moderation policy. It can no longer block users or remove, hide or filter comments simply because they are deemed “inappropriate.”

However, comments will still be subject to Facebook’s community standards, and each side agreed to pay its own legal fees and court costs.

Michelle Scott, an attorney with the Center for Individual Rights, which represented Stanhope, called the settlement a victory for free speech.

“When a government agency opens an official page for public comment, it cannot treat that page as a one-way bulletin board where praise is welcome but criticism is censored,” Scott said. “Government officials don’t get to invite public comment and then censor the citizens who take them up on their invitation.”

In a statement about the lawsuit, CIR said the case was about more than “one person or one post.” Instead, it said, the lawsuit was about protecting the public’s right to criticize the government in online public forums.

According to the complaint filed in March 2025, Stanhope was blocked from NCNG’s Facebook page after years of commenting on its posts.

Although superior officers had confronted him about his comments while he was still serving, the Guard did not block him until after he retired in 2023.

The complaint said Stanhope frequently criticized what he viewed as mismanagement by Guard leaders.

In 2019, he commented, “so when do we get the results from the leader[’]s test?” in response to a post about a combat fitness test.

In 2021, he criticized what he described as the Guard’s “ill-conceived and hastily planned” deployment to Washington, D.C., following the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

In 2023, he responded to a post announcing an officer’s promotion by sharing the officer’s mugshot from a previous drunken driving arrest along with a news article about the incident.

The complaint also cited several posts Stanhope made on his own Facebook page that tagged NCNG, making them visible on the Guard’s page.

In a statement, Stanhope said the settlement affirms that “constitutional rights are not optional.”

“The right to speak freely includes the right to criticize the government, and that right doesn’t disappear when the conversation moves online,” he said. “Officials don’t get to pick and choose which opinions are allowed. I’m glad the Guard finally agrees.”

Maj. Gen. Patrick Ellis, commanding general of the 4th Infantry Division, called the system “functional but not optimized” and said they will “spend the next year refining how we fight using the technology to share our lessons learned across the Army.”

The Army had been scaling the NGC2 prototype since 2025, an effort that concluded at Project Convergence-Capstone 6. The 10-day event tested NGC2 hardware and software using some 10,000 participants from U.S. and allied forces as well as industry partners using 90 different technologies and a series of complex yet realistic scenarios.

“The dedicated opposing force and the unrelenting Fort Irwin conditions afforded us a great opportunity to stress the full NGC2 stack at PCC6,” Ellis said, adding that he’s “proud to have delivered a prototype at the division scale.”

NGC2 will replace the Army’s legacy C2 systems, which are a collection of systems for managing fire, logistics and airspace on the battlefield. Officials say it will unify data across all functions to increase the speed of decision-making and operational maneuver.

The Army said NGC2 will enable “every echelon from soldier to Corps to run modern warfighting apps and artificial intelligence to support their mission, while providing resilient communications across vast distances for greater dispersion and survivability.”

The Army’s executive leadership stressed the importance of updating its command system but also emphasized the need to implement it rapidly.

“We know the biggest risk to our national security and our national defense is not moving too fast. It’s not moving fast enough,” said Dan Driscoll, secretary of the Army. “The side that can sense a target, process the data, and deliver a kinetic effect the fastest, wins. That is the decisive advantage this capability provides.”

In the Army’s proposed budget for 2027, officials requested $904 million in research and development funding to scale NGC2, saying it will improve its communications and networking technologies. A year before that, Anduril Industries developed the prototype for $99.6 million and has been spearheading parts of the project.

The Army said its I Corps headquarters, which commands tens of thousands of soldiers in the Indo-Pacific region from Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington, will be the next NGC2 capabilities.

When compared to a rifle, though, a shotgun is less capable on the battlefield because it holds less ammunition, has a significantly shorter range and delivers more noticeable recoil. It also poses logistical hurdles. Someone has to carry it along with ammo that’s incompatible with other squad weapons.

In a nutshell, that’s how anti-drone ammo was born. Connor Schnepf, co-founder of the Arizona-based company Drone Round, explained that about a year ago, he and his partner were already making targets in the defense space when they learned that shotguns weren’t really working to address the military’s drone problem.

“It kind of sparked the idea with one of our other business partners. He was like, ‘Hey, we make ammo. Let’s make a rifle cartridge that almost simulates a shotgun that you can use in a regular battle rifle to shoot down drones,’” he said in an interview with Fox 10 Phoenix.

A small unmanned aerial system, or UAS, equipped with an explosive device can be used to destroy major infrastructure and expensive equipment. In turn, traditional counter measures prove either to be ineffective or too expensive to deploy. Therefore, the U.S. military is prioritizing inexpensive yet practical solutions.

Although Drone Round isn’t the only company making anti-drone ammo, the Marine Corps said in a notice of intent filed in June that its 5.56 L Variant is the only kinetic munition currently available in the commercial and defense marketplace that meets the service’s minimum standards for immediate counter-drone defense.

“Specifically, this round is the only solution offering ‘drop-in’ compatibility that requires no physical modifications, specialized upper receivers, or distinct weapon platforms to be operable in current-issue Marine Corps 5.56mm weapons,” the announcement said, referring to the M27 and M4A1.

Last week, the service confirmed with Task & Purpose that it has already bought 400,000 rounds from the company and plans to buy another 1 million in the next fiscal year.

Justin Lawrence, the company’s other co-founder, explained that the L Variant functions like a standard 5.56mm cartridge, but it has multiple projectiles.

“It’s essentially five bullets coming out of one trigger pull. Basically, what the real technology and advantage is sticking with the one caliber in a rifle platform, your soldier [or] warfighter is already carrying,” he said. “So you don’t have to change to a 12 gauge because these FPV drones move very fast and it’s something you need to have very quickly.”

From a logistical standpoint, a single magazine loaded with anti-drone ammo replaces an entire weapon system or expensive countermeasure.

Schnepf added that although they came up with the idea about almost a year ago, they didn’t have the ability to scale production, so they partnered with the Idaho-based Freedom Munitions. He said together, they now produce millions of rounds per month.

“The capability truly fills a gap in what we call counter UAS or counter unmanned aerial systems, so it is a needed solution … It’s like, you know, we brought water to a desert and they can’t keep enough of it because it’s so needed.”

SOFWERX, in collaboration the Marine Forces Special Operations Command, or MARSOC, is hosting an event in mid-September to develop ways to replace manual steps for documenting serialized inventory with digital and automated tools.

The July 27 announcement said the event’s purpose is “to design a secure, zero-signature automated armory that relies exclusively on optical recognition and computer vision.”

But here’s the catch: the tools cannot use RFID — the most common technology for tracking inventory — or active Bluetooth or radiating digital transmitters.

“Instead, this event challenges industry partners to develop a passive, image-based inventory system where weapons, gear, and serial numbers are automatically tracked, verified, and logged simply by taking a digital photo or scanning an optical image as items enter or exit the facility,” the invitation said.

It explained that the current process requires a person to manually inventory weapons using handwritten forms, resulting in repetitive data entry and multiple independent records.

“These processes are labor intensive, susceptible to human error, and consume significant man-hours while increasing accountability risk,” it said.

While eliminating “slow, legacy paper-based workflows and human-error bottlenecks,” the desired application would guarantee “absolute property accountability without exposing our facilities to electronic detection.”

Around 2010, the U.S. military began using RFID tags as a practical and simple way to keep track of weapons, but later discovered the technology can pose a major security concern.

An RFID tag, like the ones used by the military, consists of a microchip and a small antenna and does not require a battery. It is programmed with a unique ID signal that can only be activated by a reader.

Once a tag is read by a reader, that reader can be used to continue to track the weapon or clone the ID signal, creating a security risk.

Companies interested in attending the event must submit a request by Aug. 16. While the initial meeting will begins Sept. 17, additional events are planned throughout the year and and will conclude in December.