7 ms·

New Non-Lethal Bullet Burns Propellant Inside the Round

16 points by mparramon 11y ago

mschuster91 11y ago
The question is: for what purpose will this technology be used? We may market this as a "crowd control" tech - and export it to Saudi Arabia, Bahrain or similar countries where it will be used to squash protests against dictators. Just look what happened with all the stuff we Germans sold to said countries.
- seunosewa 11y ago
  > it will be used to squash protests against dictators. Still, it's an improvement over the lethal bullets currently used for the same purpose.
  - mschuster91 11y ago
    It's not, because killing people marching for their rights can be used by the protesters (martyrs) or by the West (to condemn said regimes). It's not lethal? => Nothing to worry about, move on.
    - dogma1138 11y ago
      Are you really arguing that it's more favorable for an oppressive government to mow down protesters with machine guns than use LTL and crowed dispersal techniques just so you could rally your friends for a cause?
      - mschuster91 11y ago
        No, but I'm afraid exactly the scenario I outlined will happen.
        dogma1138 11y ago
        Clearly you don't live in one of those places my bet would be is given the choice the people who protest there would rather be beaten and a live than dead.
        mschuster91 11y ago
        Look what Saudi Arabia did a week ago with the 47 executions, or what happened in Egypt a couple of years ago. If I were in the situation of one of the victims, I'd prefer to die a (comparably) quick death on the field rather than being captured, tortured and then killed. At least these people died by firing squad, there's way worse ways to die (e.g. being tortured to death, crucified, ...).
        Someone 11y ago
        One line of thinking to oppose non-lethal weapons is: if relatively few very brave citizens protest against their government, several things may happen: - the government takes them off the street; the protest fizzles out. - the government takes them off the street; the silent minority becomes angry and rises against the government. - the government listens to the protesters, and makes some concessions. For the "take them off the street" option, the "revolution" outcome probably is more likely if the government uses lethal force. So, with non-lethal weapons, it it less risky for the government to go for the "take them off the street" option and because of that, it is less likely that they will go for the "listen and make some concessions" option. So, yes, most people would rather confront a non-lethal weapon, but for the greater good, it may be better if the government doesn't have that option. Another line of thinking is that non-lethal weapons do not replace lethal weapons where possible, but replace situations where, previously, police officers would try to resolve problems by talking or by waiting for them to cool down a bit. Net effect is that the police will use more force and hence become less trusted, making them more likely to use violence, making them less trusted, etc. looking at some of the "police officer shooting citizen" videos, I think the US has gone through quite a few iterations of that cycle. So, in those situations, the choice (according to this line of reasoning) is not between a bean bag and a real bullet, but between a bean bag and an officer asking "what's up?" I think both lines of reasoning have some truth in them.
      - qbrass 11y ago
        https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/Boston_Massacre_high-res.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/Boston_M...
    - refurb 11y ago
      Really? You think the better situation is people dying?
    - Jugurtha 11y ago
      >It's not, because killing people marching for their rights can be used by the protesters (martyrs) or by the West (to condemn said regimes). This makes sense but doesn't hold against the reality of life. For several reasons: 1 - There are places where people have been killing each other for so long, it wouldn't even make it to the news and wouldn't shock anyone if it did. Who got shocked a few days ago when the Freedom and Democracy Front has overthrown General Babangida causing FOUR THOUSAND deaths in yet another ethnic cleansing disguised as a coup/revolt for "Democracy" in a country that has had one too many of those, considering that the guy gained power in a blood bath in the first place. Who has even heard of that news? Did CNN even bother? I bet no one because I just invented the Freedom and Democracy Front and General Babangida. But I also bet many actually didn't even doubt the information because it seems so plausible. After all, they all call themselves "Freedom and Democracy", there's always a General, who became President in a coup himself. I just Googled "African last names" to make it real. You can put that imaginary news in any scene of any movie of the last 40 years, and it would still pass unnoticed. There's so much wrong in the fact that all of this has become cliché, it's not even funny. 2 - Condemnation or any reaction from the "West", or any country for that matter, is not an idealized object in an isolated system that somehow manifests itself whenever and wherever injustice has stricken. It is just an instrument of statecraft. The same action done by the same State at different times would trigger different reactions based on the status of said state and the interest of the "Condemnators". A State would make a big deal out of an adversary State repressing riots and make it look like a Human Rights issue; at the same time it would make its own repression of riots a Security issue. It would not even comment on an ally State executing people for abusive reasons, certainly not when that State is its ally against an enemy State. That is, until now, which certainly marks the transition and the turning wheel.. The disgrace of an ally and burying the hatch with an enemy state. Condemnation is very akin to slut shaming. States get all ramped up when they're spied on and act outraged, yet they spy on other States. Intelligence Officers call their assets in other countries "brave patriots risking their lives to improve their countries by fighting against their abusive regimes", yet use the term "traitor" for people of their own country who do the same.
trhway 11y ago
>"The greatest risk of severe injury or death occurs from impacts to the head, face, or neck of the intended target or a bystander, " Widder says. "The use of more accurate weapons with disciplined fire can substantially reduce the likelihood of this unintended consequence." giving that the weapon has great precision, adding a camera and a bit of software able to recognize when it is pointed to a face would allow to block the shot if it directed at a face. Though one can imagine a protester wearing several "V" masks everywhere over his/her body as the counter-measure... On the other side, why all this new, and thus expensive, weapons when there are good old paintball guns easily and cheaply available? In the same way, based on laser rangefinder input, the firing controller can easily automatically adjust the firing pressure and timing so that to achieve the optimal velocity at the target.
- simonh 11y ago
  I've run through hails of paintball fire at close range without being slowed down at all. They would be completely useless for this sort of application.
  - dogma1138 11y ago
    Run through a hail of riot grade paintball which are fired at much higher velocities and contain usually a mixture of some irritating compound (pepper spray stuff) and fiberglass shards to really burn the skin and tell me how useless they are. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FN_303 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FN_303
    - Shivetya 11y ago
      After seeing how many of those playing paintball are geared up they would last a bit longer that you would expect. From being covered head to toe in gear to full face head protection they would be well off initially
      - dogma1138 11y ago
        You can also cover yourself in an EOD protective suit that's not the point as we were talking about just being in plain cloths / as much protection as a heavy jacket can provide. Those paintballs land with 200-300 lbs of force this rubber bullet / beanbag round ranges. They are filled with nasty chemicals that are designed to stick and burn you as well as fiber/glass shards to break skin and clothing to make them more effective. You do not want to get shot by one of those things no matter what you are wearing.
nitrogen 11y ago
Auto-playing video ad with sound and a hijacked back button. Real classy, PopMech. I wish HN's stylesheet worked in mobile Firefox so I could use it with ublock full time. --- Regarding the article subject, are more non-lethal weapons really what we need? The lighter and less visible the consequences, the more potential for abuse.
Steko 11y ago
3 comments at the moment all questioning the need for this but the article makes a fairly convincing case that existing less than lethal tech has enormous gaps. This doesn't seem like the holy grail that will make US police stop relying on real guns but it seems like a step in the right direction.
- dawnbreez 11y ago
  Well, we may never be able to rely entirely on less-lethal tech. Some situations are just too risky to take the chance that someone will keep attacking after less-lethal weapons are used on them. Most notably, a person wielding a firearm who is, say, blinded with pepper spray may panic and start firing in random directions. A person on PCP, a drug known to delay pain reactions, may not even notice if they're hit with one of these bullets.
  - bobwaycott 11y ago
    > "A person on PCP..." This sounds far too much like some fear-mongering from the 90s.
    - ZeroGravitas 11y ago
      It's got a longer history than that. A century ago cocaine was stuff that made black men want to rape white women and not even bullets to the heart could stop them. This article has a link to news story from the time, titled "Negro Cocaine 'Fiends' Are a New Southern Menace: Murder and Insanity Increasing Among Lower Class Blacks Because They Have Taken to 'Sniffing.'" http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/2384624 http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/2384624 Or in the twenties: "Under marijuana Mexicans [become] very violent, especially when they become angry and will attack an officer even if a gun is drawn on him. They seem to have no fear. I have also noted that under the influence of this weed they have enormous strength and it will take several men to handle one man while, under ordinary circumstances, one man could handle him with ease."
    - dawnbreez 11y ago
      My understanding of PCP is that it tends to make pain easier to ignore. I am neither an expert on nor a user of PCP; this is just what I've heard. If you've got a reliable source, I'd love to see it.
moron4hire 11y ago
I dislike that they use "non-lethal" in the headline (though in the article they use the correct term "less-than-lethal"). There is no such thing as a "non-lethal" weapon. When we call weapons "non-lethal" we discount the chance that they could kill a health-compromised target, or could be an out-of-spec copy that is too strong, or could be misapplied. Users are more likely to use violence in situations where they believe they have "non-lethal" means on their hands. The term "less-than-lethal" keeps in mind the non-zero chance of death. All violent interactions need to consider the chance if death, should something go wrong (and with violence, things have technically already gone wrong).
TheSpiceIsLife 11y ago
> "lightweight weapon will stop a target in their tracks from a hundred meters away without harming them." (emphasis mine) I don't follow how someone could write this. How does it stop the target? Does the projectile fly up next to them and politely request they remain motionless until they are captured? Just being shot at sounds fairly harmful to me, probably jangle the nerves a bit.
bobwaycott 11y ago
More LTL methods/devices do nothing to reduce the unnecessary default for force employed against citizens by LEO. We should simultaneously support transitioning LEO away from lethal force and away from defaulting to using force at all as a primary response option. Additionally, LTL bullets ought to be the only type of bullets needed by responsible gun owners for the sake of self-defense. There is simply no need for using lethal rounds by anyone when we should be able to produce alternatives that defuse a situation with a near-zero chance of killing anyone.

16 points by mparramon 11y ago

The question is: for what purpose will this technology be used? We may market this as a "crowd control" tech - and export it to Saudi Arabia, Bahrain or similar countries where it will be used to squash protests against dictators. Just look what happened with all the stuff we Germans sold to said countries.

seunosewa 11y ago
> it will be used to squash protests against dictators. Still, it's an improvement over the lethal bullets currently used for the same purpose.
- mschuster91 11y ago
  It's not, because killing people marching for their rights can be used by the protesters (martyrs) or by the West (to condemn said regimes). It's not lethal? => Nothing to worry about, move on.
  - dogma1138 11y ago
    Are you really arguing that it's more favorable for an oppressive government to mow down protesters with machine guns than use LTL and crowed dispersal techniques just so you could rally your friends for a cause?
    - mschuster91 11y ago
      No, but I'm afraid exactly the scenario I outlined will happen.
      - dogma1138 11y ago
        Clearly you don't live in one of those places my bet would be is given the choice the people who protest there would rather be beaten and a live than dead.
        mschuster91 11y ago
        Look what Saudi Arabia did a week ago with the 47 executions, or what happened in Egypt a couple of years ago. If I were in the situation of one of the victims, I'd prefer to die a (comparably) quick death on the field rather than being captured, tortured and then killed. At least these people died by firing squad, there's way worse ways to die (e.g. being tortured to death, crucified, ...).
        Someone 11y ago
        One line of thinking to oppose non-lethal weapons is: if relatively few very brave citizens protest against their government, several things may happen: - the government takes them off the street; the protest fizzles out. - the government takes them off the street; the silent minority becomes angry and rises against the government. - the government listens to the protesters, and makes some concessions. For the "take them off the street" option, the "revolution" outcome probably is more likely if the government uses lethal force. So, with non-lethal weapons, it it less risky for the government to go for the "take them off the street" option and because of that, it is less likely that they will go for the "listen and make some concessions" option. So, yes, most people would rather confront a non-lethal weapon, but for the greater good, it may be better if the government doesn't have that option. Another line of thinking is that non-lethal weapons do not replace lethal weapons where possible, but replace situations where, previously, police officers would try to resolve problems by talking or by waiting for them to cool down a bit. Net effect is that the police will use more force and hence become less trusted, making them more likely to use violence, making them less trusted, etc. looking at some of the "police officer shooting citizen" videos, I think the US has gone through quite a few iterations of that cycle. So, in those situations, the choice (according to this line of reasoning) is not between a bean bag and a real bullet, but between a bean bag and an officer asking "what's up?" I think both lines of reasoning have some truth in them.
    - qbrass 11y ago
      https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/Boston_Massacre_high-res.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/Boston_M...
  - refurb 11y ago
    Really? You think the better situation is people dying?
  - Jugurtha 11y ago
    >It's not, because killing people marching for their rights can be used by the protesters (martyrs) or by the West (to condemn said regimes). This makes sense but doesn't hold against the reality of life. For several reasons: 1 - There are places where people have been killing each other for so long, it wouldn't even make it to the news and wouldn't shock anyone if it did. Who got shocked a few days ago when the Freedom and Democracy Front has overthrown General Babangida causing FOUR THOUSAND deaths in yet another ethnic cleansing disguised as a coup/revolt for "Democracy" in a country that has had one too many of those, considering that the guy gained power in a blood bath in the first place. Who has even heard of that news? Did CNN even bother? I bet no one because I just invented the Freedom and Democracy Front and General Babangida. But I also bet many actually didn't even doubt the information because it seems so plausible. After all, they all call themselves "Freedom and Democracy", there's always a General, who became President in a coup himself. I just Googled "African last names" to make it real. You can put that imaginary news in any scene of any movie of the last 40 years, and it would still pass unnoticed. There's so much wrong in the fact that all of this has become cliché, it's not even funny. 2 - Condemnation or any reaction from the "West", or any country for that matter, is not an idealized object in an isolated system that somehow manifests itself whenever and wherever injustice has stricken. It is just an instrument of statecraft. The same action done by the same State at different times would trigger different reactions based on the status of said state and the interest of the "Condemnators". A State would make a big deal out of an adversary State repressing riots and make it look like a Human Rights issue; at the same time it would make its own repression of riots a Security issue. It would not even comment on an ally State executing people for abusive reasons, certainly not when that State is its ally against an enemy State. That is, until now, which certainly marks the transition and the turning wheel.. The disgrace of an ally and burying the hatch with an enemy state. Condemnation is very akin to slut shaming. States get all ramped up when they're spied on and act outraged, yet they spy on other States. Intelligence Officers call their assets in other countries "brave patriots risking their lives to improve their countries by fighting against their abusive regimes", yet use the term "traitor" for people of their own country who do the same.

trhway 11y ago

>"The greatest risk of severe injury or death occurs from impacts to the head, face, or neck of the intended target or a bystander, " Widder says. "The use of more accurate weapons with disciplined fire can substantially reduce the likelihood of this unintended consequence." giving that the weapon has great precision, adding a camera and a bit of software able to recognize when it is pointed to a face would allow to block the shot if it directed at a face. Though one can imagine a protester wearing several "V" masks everywhere over his/her body as the counter-measure... On the other side, why all this new, and thus expensive, weapons when there are good old paintball guns easily and cheaply available? In the same way, based on laser rangefinder input, the firing controller can easily automatically adjust the firing pressure and timing so that to achieve the optimal velocity at the target.

simonh 11y ago
I've run through hails of paintball fire at close range without being slowed down at all. They would be completely useless for this sort of application.
- dogma1138 11y ago
  Run through a hail of riot grade paintball which are fired at much higher velocities and contain usually a mixture of some irritating compound (pepper spray stuff) and fiberglass shards to really burn the skin and tell me how useless they are. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FN_303 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FN_303
  - Shivetya 11y ago
    After seeing how many of those playing paintball are geared up they would last a bit longer that you would expect. From being covered head to toe in gear to full face head protection they would be well off initially
    - dogma1138 11y ago
      You can also cover yourself in an EOD protective suit that's not the point as we were talking about just being in plain cloths / as much protection as a heavy jacket can provide. Those paintballs land with 200-300 lbs of force this rubber bullet / beanbag round ranges. They are filled with nasty chemicals that are designed to stick and burn you as well as fiber/glass shards to break skin and clothing to make them more effective. You do not want to get shot by one of those things no matter what you are wearing.

nitrogen 11y ago

Auto-playing video ad with sound and a hijacked back button. Real classy, PopMech. I wish HN's stylesheet worked in mobile Firefox so I could use it with ublock full time. --- Regarding the article subject, are more non-lethal weapons really what we need? The lighter and less visible the consequences, the more potential for abuse.

Steko 11y ago

3 comments at the moment all questioning the need for this but the article makes a fairly convincing case that existing less than lethal tech has enormous gaps. This doesn't seem like the holy grail that will make US police stop relying on real guns but it seems like a step in the right direction.

dawnbreez 11y ago
Well, we may never be able to rely entirely on less-lethal tech. Some situations are just too risky to take the chance that someone will keep attacking after less-lethal weapons are used on them. Most notably, a person wielding a firearm who is, say, blinded with pepper spray may panic and start firing in random directions. A person on PCP, a drug known to delay pain reactions, may not even notice if they're hit with one of these bullets.
- bobwaycott 11y ago
  > "A person on PCP..." This sounds far too much like some fear-mongering from the 90s.
  - ZeroGravitas 11y ago
    It's got a longer history than that. A century ago cocaine was stuff that made black men want to rape white women and not even bullets to the heart could stop them. This article has a link to news story from the time, titled "Negro Cocaine 'Fiends' Are a New Southern Menace: Murder and Insanity Increasing Among Lower Class Blacks Because They Have Taken to 'Sniffing.'" http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/2384624 http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/2384624 Or in the twenties: "Under marijuana Mexicans [become] very violent, especially when they become angry and will attack an officer even if a gun is drawn on him. They seem to have no fear. I have also noted that under the influence of this weed they have enormous strength and it will take several men to handle one man while, under ordinary circumstances, one man could handle him with ease."
  - dawnbreez 11y ago
    My understanding of PCP is that it tends to make pain easier to ignore. I am neither an expert on nor a user of PCP; this is just what I've heard. If you've got a reliable source, I'd love to see it.

moron4hire 11y ago

I dislike that they use "non-lethal" in the headline (though in the article they use the correct term "less-than-lethal"). There is no such thing as a "non-lethal" weapon. When we call weapons "non-lethal" we discount the chance that they could kill a health-compromised target, or could be an out-of-spec copy that is too strong, or could be misapplied. Users are more likely to use violence in situations where they believe they have "non-lethal" means on their hands. The term "less-than-lethal" keeps in mind the non-zero chance of death. All violent interactions need to consider the chance if death, should something go wrong (and with violence, things have technically already gone wrong).

TheSpiceIsLife 11y ago

> "lightweight weapon will stop a target in their tracks from a hundred meters away without harming them." (emphasis mine) I don't follow how someone could write this. How does it stop the target? Does the projectile fly up next to them and politely request they remain motionless until they are captured? Just being shot at sounds fairly harmful to me, probably jangle the nerves a bit.

bobwaycott 11y ago

More LTL methods/devices do nothing to reduce the unnecessary default for force employed against citizens by LEO. We should simultaneously support transitioning LEO away from lethal force and away from defaulting to using force at all as a primary response option. Additionally, LTL bullets ought to be the only type of bullets needed by responsible gun owners for the sake of self-defense. There is simply no need for using lethal rounds by anyone when we should be able to produce alternatives that defuse a situation with a near-zero chance of killing anyone.