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Comment by prestonbriggs | Hacker News Reader

Pardon my rant, but... People say "baton" and I always think of the lightweight tube runners carry around a track. In this context, a baton is a nightstick. Have you ever examined one? A friend showed me his grandfather's. It was about 2 feet long, made of cherry, and filled with lead. It would break down a door or ruin a car. It would certainly break bones. With the lead weight and small diameter, it would be more effective (lethal) than a baseball bat.

"Baton" is just a euphemism that papers over extreme violence.

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When is the last time you saw something like that carried around that wasn't a rerun of "Cops" recorded in '89? Today you see telescoping steel tubes that certainly couldn't break down a door and could only break bones intentionally and with effort. You rarely see them deployed, which is unfortunate in my opinion, because it is an escalation of force step designed to counter physical but non-life-threatening aggression. So essentially you're abandoning a spectrum of force and adopting a model of only two modes - subjugated or dead.

I don't see police much. But I agree that the police batons I see advertised for sale seem to be metal collapsible things, though I never find a weight mentioned in the adverts. How much lead has been added to the tip?

An alternative I've seen used on campus is a big Maglight. I'll agree that it represents a step that's usually less violent that reach for a gun, but when I read of police striking a woman "21 times with a baton", I have a hard time.

I've never seen a leaded telescoping baton, but you might want to reconsider the fixation on weight - because strike damage depends a lot more on the angle and targeted zone. If the cops are getting anything like the military in training on these things - they spend a lot of time learning where and how you can hit somebody without risking permanent damage. I'm pretty much the last person to stick up for cops, but beating somebody with a baton is hard work - so I'd be more inclined to think the cop dealing out the blows is trying harder than his fellow officers to not shoot a person to death.

"Baton" is no more a euphemism than "night-stick". Baton is French for "stick".

Today, they're frequently collapsible, made of metal and can be used to break car windows.

That sounds more like a blackjack than a standard police baton.

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