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Thailand's "Q" Banks on Rubber Bullets
redwolfoz writes "ABC News reports that Thailand's answer to 'Q', the legendary inventor of gadgets for movie spy James Bond, is busy at work at his warehouse on the edge of the country's capital. Workmen inside are trying out the latest inventions of retired Major Songphon Eiamboonyarith, who runs defence contracting firm Precipart Co. The range includes umbrellas that shoot rubber bullets, bullet-proof baseball caps and a hand-held device to fire a man-sized net 10m to stop a villain in his tracks."
Maybe I just haven't thought about it enough, but why not pepper-spray paintball guns for riot control or other situations where you just want to incapacitate? You'd get decent physical range, with an automatic firing version excellent coverage.
.50s in the windows, guards with M-16s, all putting out 100s of rounds a minute of a chemical irritant instead of lethal bullets, risking a military conflict..
Regular mace or pepper spray requires you to be too close, "tear gas" or whatever they shoot in a gasseous cloud is too broad and not specific enough.
Paintballs hurt like a sonofabitch, a repeater could deliver a lot of them at a good distance to clothes, faces, hair, etc, adding some longer-term deterrant effect as well (have to change clothes).
From my experience, though, you'd have to "fix" the firing mechanism, since jams and fuckups with a tear-gas paintball would be a bit more than just an inconvenience. I'd make the paintball payloads more like conventional bullets, cased in a plastic cartridge. This'd solve a lot of feed issues as well as allow for more traditional box magazines. I'd also use conventional gunpowder propellant for higher velocities, larger payloads than CO2 can deliver.
It might actually be possible to make a paintball cartridge a standard weapon could use.
Of course the magic part is probably whatever membrane you use for the irritant payload. It has to be strong enough for firing and to really hurt on impact, but it also has to be soft enough to break on softer surfaces as well as not cause soft-tissue injuries other than bruising.
A weapon like this would really seem to be a natural, especially in situations where you want to deliver a lot of firepower in civilian environments -- think of defending an Embassy with this --
Anyway, why haven't they done this yet?
Agreed. My father was a cop in a major city and taught me the only time you should use any sort of projectile weapon is in situations where life is at risk. In the event that a weapon of this nature is to be used, it is to be used in only one fashion - you either shoot to kill or you don't shoot.
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Furthermore, while attending UCLA their basketball team won the final 4. A significant amount of the student body went into Westwood and became a bit unruly (as college students will). And of course non-students became involved and things got a bit out-of-hand. The L.A.P.D. sent out a riot control unit. At one point a non-student that was somewhat aggitated was surrounded by a groups of police. Then a stun gun - the type that shoots a bean-bag type projectile was fired at this person at close range. This guy fell as if he had been shoot with a generic projectile (aka bullet). He laid there for 10 to 15 minutes before anyone on the P.D. would take action to get the EMS in their. This only happened after the rest of the crowd became aggitated by the fact that someone that was essentially defenseless was injured and no assistance by the authorities was garnered. It was only then that the man was give assistance - and not before the P.D. dragged him behind the riot line by his feet.
Point is, that supposed "non-lethal" weapons are not completely non-lethal. If the situations are right or the weapon is used in a manner not intended death can easily happen.
And what good is a bullet proof baseball cap good for anyway. An umbrella that's just a camouflaged zip gun. Q he ain't. Just another mercenary trying to market stuff that the U.S., Stazi, and the K.G.B. have been doing since the 60's.
In the U.S. this guy would either be working for the C.I.A./N.S.A. or be labeled as a criminal.
Just MHO.