Researchers: Rubber Bullets Often Cause Death, Permanent Injuries
futurism.com
futurism.com
The only thing that looks promising from the list on wikipedia seems to be scent based weapons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-lethal_weapon#Scent-based_.... Some sort of sleeping gas would work too, but there doesn't seem to be any safe and effective version.
However, hurting the target is very much the goal of police in north america.
Fun fact: the Japanese police are known for not being afraid to give rioters a bit of "stick time" if they don't obey orders.
Also, you're painting with a pretty broad brush when it comes to NA police, but I suspect you know that.
There should be no ambiguity in whether a lethal weapon should be used, including any "less lethal" one. The intention behind the very design of these weapons is to make the lethality of that weapon ambiguous, so that its use in inappropriate situations can be excused.
When officers use obviously lethal firearms, there is no question as to their intent. When they use "less lethal" ones, they are given the opportunity to misconstrue intent to kill as intent to maim or threaten.
A likely reason "less lethal" weapons have been promoted is that police officers often use inappropriate lethal force with little to no consequence. People hope that giving police "less lethal" weapons will at least lessen the likelihood of death from police abuse. This pipe dream is a very dangerous compromise.
There are a lot of changes that need to be made in law enforcement, and most of them end up being dependent on another. This entire situation really brings out the "hell" in dependency hell.
How often do police situations merit weapons of any kind? Probably not often enough for them to be available unconditionally.
This is widely considered appropriate here: When used with deescalation tactics, several officers brandishing firearms at a suspect can be an effective way to convince that person to stop whatever they are doing.
Of course, there are a lot of situations where the threat of lethal force is absolutely inappropriate. Protests always fit into this category, for a few reasons:
1. Bullets tend to go through or past people, so firing into a crowd should be avoided if at all possible. Anyone who has had firearms training knows to consider everything in the path of fire instead of hyper-focusing on the intended target.
2. Most protesters are unarmed, and nonviolent. Using lethal force against unarmed civilians is reprehensible.
This is where the desire for non-lethal weapons comes into play. The problem is that non-lethal weapons don't really exist. Instead, police are given "less-lethal" weapons. They are still lethal, but there is a significant chance that when used as-intended these weapons will not cause death. I think you and I can agree that isn't nearly good enough. Here's hoping that real change can come in response to these protests.
So lets assume that there will be always a policemen in some location that can't be trusted or has sadistic tendences, stop focusing in training people to make the correct decision in a highly stressing situation, and lets solve it at machine level once and for all.
Lets make the bad choices impossible.
A possible solution IMAO could be to include software in the weapon able to measure distances (with ultrasounds or so) and that will refuse to shoot if there is something too close.
Or even better shoot it but reducing greatly the shoot force.
Photo Cameras do the same since decades. They measure distances to autofocus and even can refuse to take a photo if is too far from range. Cars have something similar also, so why deterrent weapons don't?
The technology is available and mature and is a crime not to use it. The people that passed by the horrible experience of an exploding eye should collectivelly sue the maker by making unsafe weapons.
How can they be serious with giving a guide line such as bouncing it off of the ground to hit an intended target as a means of harm reduction. This sounds absurd no?
At least a bounced round will have less kinetic energy. That won’t make it more accurate, but it does make headshots harder.
It is absurd.
> KINETIC IMPACT WEAPONS
> 8.5.4 Skip-firing off the ground causes an unacceptable risk of serious injury.
Someone please explain this to me, in a few short sentences: Why exactly does the US police fire on protesters in the first place? I get the looting part of the problem, but what I saw on 7News seemed like the police had declared war on all protesters, no matter what they were doing.
Also, maybe that is my own sort of bubble, but I found it interesting that it was far easier to find live coverage of the mishaps during protests from foreign stations like from australia then from US media. From afar, it had the air of quite some censorship going on. Same with general coverage of the situation in my own country. I used to read a headline almost on daily basis detailing how crazy trump must be. But given whats going on since the protests started, there is very little coverage about that in local media. Almost as if the media were afraid to spread the sentiment to other countries?
They are idiots, but oddly enough they don't seem to attract those who would damage, steal, or destroy other people's property.
But that's philosophy, the fact is that USA hasn't excised all its racist roots. Your own president sought to fuel civic unrest by tweeting "FREE MINNESOTA!" during the lockdowns, yet it warned that rioters could be shot in more recent tweets. You can say that his hypocrisy comes from following his agenda, yet the troubling issue is that it resonates well among the intended recipients, which are too many TBH.
Given that apparently even well-known organisations and experts do not always agree on these (rather new) matters, do you seriously believe it is fair to call the common people that do not agree with your current interpretation "idiots"?
Mind you, I am not arguing for or against facemasks. I can't help but notice that the tone you're using here is actually much more part of the problem then you might realize.