Pentagon Developed 'Laughing Bullets'

plasmadroid writes "It might sound like a joke, but documents unearthed by New Scientist show that the Pentagon actually funded research into 'non-lethal' bullets that would also hit a target with a dose of laughing gas. That way, they'd not only be stunned but incapacitated by fits of giggles. Another idea was to put stink bombs inside rubber bullets. I guess it would work, but the idea of crowds of rioters giggling uncontrollably while being pelted with rubber bullets is truly bizarre..."

Comments

Why do we need the gas?

[east coast]

I know I laugh every time I pull the trigger.

That's just the way we roll, in my hood.

Re:Why do we need the gas?

[0olong]

And all your homeys also read /. in their parents' basements, don't they?

Re:Why do we need the gas?

[east coast]

Actually, it's out on the front stoop since we got wireless and all. With our 40s of Bawlz. Yeah, booooooyy!

Re:Why do we need the gas?

[Alranor]

Or alternatively

Wenn ist das Nunstruck git und Slotermeyer? Ja!...
Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput.

Re:Why do we need the gas?

[Anonymous Coward]

I prefer "A baby seal walks into a club..."

freedom?

[flar2]

The freest and most democratic country on Earth spends far too many of its resources on novel ways to control people.

Re:freedom?

[Fizzl]

The freest and most democratic country on Earth

LOL

Re:freedom?

[MarkPNeyer]

Would you rather they just used lead bullets when rioters take to the streets?

Re:freedom?

[jandrese]

Obviously not, lead is toxic to the environment.

Re:freedom?

[DrDitto]

In Germany you go to jail if you speak the words "the holocaust never happened".

Re:freedom?

[It'sYerMam]

Etc. what? You're the beacon of freedom? I find that hard to believe - we're pretty much all as useless as each other, and if we're not yet, we will be in a few years' time.

...Oblig

[Karganeth]

You can't have manslaughter without laughter!

I feel safer already

[elrous0]

Between stuff like this and a CIA who wasted millions of $ over 25 years on a program employing psychics (I kid you not), don't you feel so much safer?

I wonder who the lucky contractor is who is going to be making a fortune off this one? Must be nice to make big money and never have to deliver anything which actually works. We have a military that was having to jerry-rig their own humvee armour and raise money from their parents to buy decent body armour--while contractors like this play around with nitrous bullets and loudspeakers.

Safe for entire range?

[borizz]

The article claims that the bullets would be safe over the entire range. I wonder how they made the bullets strong enough to survive the force of being fired, but weak enough to disintegrate harmlessly when striking flesh at point blanc.

Re:Safe for entire range?

[east coast]

Perhaps it's like a Simunition FX.

And please, don't misunderstand the non-lethal aspect of the technology. Non-lethal doesn't mean harmless. These rounds would likely cause bruises and sometimes breaks of the skin. I guess it's still better then being dead.

Re:Safe for entire range?

[apparently]

And please, don't misunderstand the non-lethal aspect of the technology. Non-lethal doesn't mean harmless. These rounds would likely cause bruises and sometimes breaks of the skin. I guess it's still better then being dead.

Acquantances of Victoria Snelgrove might disagree with your definition of non-lethal.

Re:Safe for entire range?

[Dan Ost]

A baseball could cause the exact injuries that the pepper spray dispenser did to that poor girl.

If we were to define non-lethal as not possible to kill someone with, we couldn't even define marshmallows as non-lethal due to their choking hazard.

I would still rather get shot by a bean bag or teargas dispenser than a bullet or lead slug. Sure, it could kill me, but it is much less likely to.

The Joker

[boristdog]

The Joker is working for DARPA now?

Paintball fills

[Baljet]

I thought the use of paintballs filled with CS gas and permanent markers was already fairly wide spread by law enforcement...

Reminds me of the gay bomb they wanted to make

[trolltalk.com]

Now THAT had me laughing ... except for the price tag - $7.5 million. I guess they wanted to add a whole new meaning to the term "comrades-in-arms."

http://cbs5.com/topstories/local_story_159222541.h tml

Pentagon Confirms It Sought To Build A 'Gay Bomb'

(CBS 5) BERKELEY A Berkeley watchdog organization that tracks military spending said it uncovered a strange U.S. military proposal to create a hormone bomb that could purportedly turn enemy soldiers into homosexuals and make them more interested in sex than fighting.

Pentagon officials on Friday confirmed to CBS 5 that military leaders had considered, and then subsquently rejected, building the so-called "Gay Bomb. Edward Hammond, of Berkeley's Sunshine Project, had used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain a copy of the proposal from the Air Force's Wright Laboratory in Dayton, Ohio.

As part of a military effort to develop non-lethal weapons, the proposal suggested, "One distasteful but completely non-lethal example would be strong aphrodisiacs, especially if the chemical also caused homosexual behavior."

The documents show the Air Force lab asked for $7.5 million to develop such a chemical weapon.

"The Ohio Air Force lab proposed that a bomb be developed that contained a chemical that would cause enemy soldiers to become gay, and to have their units break down because all their soldiers became irresistably attractive to one another," Hammond said after reviewing the documents.

"The notion was that a chemical that would probably be pleasant in the human body in low quantities could be identified, and by virtue of either breathing or having their skin exposed to this chemical, the notion was that soliders would become gay," explained Hammond.

The Pentagon told CBS 5 that the proposal was made by the Air Force in 1994.

"The Department of Defense is committed to identifying, researching and developing non-lethal weapons that will support our men and women in uniform," said a DOD spokesperson, who indicated that the "gay bomb" idea was quickly dismissed.

However, Hammond said the government records he obtained suggest the military gave the plan much stronger consideration than it has acknowledged.

"The truth of the matter is it would have never come to my attention if it was dismissed at the time it was proposed," he said. "In fact, the Pentagon has used it repeatedly and subsequently in an effort to promote non-lethal weapons, and in fact they submitted it to the highest scientific review body in the country for them to consider."

Military officials insisted Friday to CBS 5 that they are not currently working on any such idea and that the past plan was abandoned.

Gay community leaders in California said Friday that they found the notion of a "gay bomb" both offensive and almost laughable at the same time.

"Throughout history we have had so many brave men and women who are gay and lesbian serving the military with distinction," said Geoff Kors of Equality California. "So, it's just offensive that they think by turning people gay that the other military would be incapable of doing their job. And its absurd because there's so much medical data that shows that sexual orientation is immutable and cannot be changed."

Hee Hee Hee

[SEWilco]

crowds of rioters giggling uncontrollably

They're called "Jokerz".

"Laughing gas" isn't

[CoolVibe]

Nitrous Oxide, also known as "Laughing gas" does not make people laugh. Read more here on WikiPedia.

Failed Stink Bomb Bullets

[SirStanley]

The Stink Bomb Bullets Project was scrapped because of the ineffectiveness against Hippies.

Would it even work?

[Moraelin]

The question is: would it even work? Or would those contractors get big bucks for possibly the dumbest idea in history?

Laughing gas not only doesn't make people actually laugh, and certainly not in the minute quantities you can fit in a rubber bullet (doubly so considering that you'll aim at the chest, not pump the gas over their nose), it gets people euphoric (a sort of high, basically), might even cause slight halucinations, and it dulls the sensation of pain.

So shoot enough of these in an angry crowd, and now you have a crowd that's (A) angrier, since you just shot at them, (B) manic enough to do dumber things than normally, and (C) a lot less sensitive to pain. Just so, you know, they won't be as deterred by further rubber bullets or tear gas or a police batton. It sounds to me like just what you need to turn some unruly demonstrators into an outright riot. Or an outright riot into hell broken loose.

Especially B scares me. Being high even on nitrous oxide might just impair people's judgment just that tiny little bit needed to do something really dumb. Like "heehee, let's throw a big rock at the cops." Or "heehee, let's get their guns and shoot a bystander." Sure, it's no LSD, but we're talking the kind of situations where it often takes just a spark to go downhill fast. You might need just one guy getting over his inhibitions or thinking he saw or heard the awfully wrong thing, to spark everyone else into going berserk.

Ahh.. Slashdot viral marketing..

[bigattichouse]

Can't you see the rioting/giggling meme is just part of the viral marketing for the next Batman movie!?!?

Re:Ok, then

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, then how bout the country that god obviously loves the most.

Prior Art

[delete]

Conclusive proof, as if it were needed, that Monty Python were ahead of their time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IysnS5wO60g

In addition....

[Guerilla* Napalm]

to the laughing gas version, they're also working on a bullet filled with laxatives - but that story was probably started for shits and giggles. *** I'll get my things ***

Re:Ok, then

[estarriol]

Yes, indeed anyone pointing out that the USA isn't the greatest nation in all categories *must* be unhappy with their life. They're probably terrorists too.