Interest in safer substitutes for traditional firearms has surged alongside the protest and debate that erupted in the US after police shot dead unarmed Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, last year. A series of similar deaths followed, widening public concern.
The hunt for less deadly ways to uphold law and order goes on apace. Just last week, the Los Angeles police commission announced a review of the use of force after shootings by the city’s police rose in the past year.
It also saw the creation of a new to honour officers who avoid using their guns in dangerous situations. The policing union quickly condemned the medal, saying it favoured the lives of criminals over officers.
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So it is no surprise that development of alternatives to traditional firearms has been ramping up. Many are new takes on the rubber bullet, blunt and heavy projectiles designed to incapacitate without breaking the skin.
The engineering challenge of being effective and safe is producing some novel designs. Security Devices International has developed a . The cap shatters on impact and the gel flattens to spread the blow over a large area. Safer Shot’s uses a putty-like substance for a similar effect.
Others try to avoid impact altogether. sells a “flashbang” designed to explode in front of the target and knock them down with the blast alone.
The new devices are typically known as “non-lethal weapons”, originally a military term , or “less-lethal weapons” as the police call them. But it turned out that earlier non-lethal innovations can seriously injure and kill; by the mid 1980s, there was about in Northern Ireland. Numerous people have died as a result of police tasers.
Anything that looks like a gun also attracts scepticism. The , described as “a safe gun”, resembles a CO2-powered paintball pistol. It fires projectiles that burst on impact, scattering the active ingredient from pepper spray. But it was dropped from crowdfunding site in October following a by anti-gun campaigner Mike Monteiro.
“They were promoting a safe gun, there’s no such thing,” .
It is hard to imagine a totally safe weapon. Even if something like Star Trek‘s mythical phaser could safely make someone unconscious, they might still crack their head on a kerb stone.
Neil Davison, adviser on weapons at the International Committee of the Red Cross, has a problem with the language that is being used. He wants the term “alternative weapons to firearms” to replace “non-lethal”.
“There is a need to acknowledge the dangers posed by various weapons based on their design and real-world effects, however they are labelled,” says Davison. “Only then can appropriate constraints be put in place to ensure that weapons intended as alternatives to firearms are actually used in this way by police.”
He says these constraints would ensure that police do not use the weapons to apply excessive force to non-threatening individuals.
The debate goes on. It may be tempting to simply reject alternatives because they are not “non-lethal”. However, in the US at least, this would leave police with no other tool than firearms for subduing suspects.
While the alternatives have their dangers, firearms are undoubtedly deadly. A new generation of substitutes, deployed with restraint, is at least worth exploring.
David Hambling is a freelance science and technology writer based in London. His new book on drones, , is out now
(Image: Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images)
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