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Sound Generator Lethal From 10 Meters
penguinrecorder writes "The Thunder Generator uses a mixture of liquefied petroleum, cooking gas, and air to create explosions, which in turn generate shock waves capable of stunning people from 30 to 100 meters away. At that range, the weapon is relatively harmless, making people run in panic when they feel the sonic blast hitting their bodies. However, at less than ten meters, the Thunder Generator is capable of causing permanent damage or killing people."
Sufficiently powerful shock waves can kill people!
Coming up next we ask an expert - what exactly is an explosion again?
Weather follows at 11.
I don't see the big news here. At close range it's easy to kill. Even something like a $5 potato cannon can kill people at close range. Being in close proximity to exploding things has never really been good for your health..
So how exactly is it surprising that a fuel-air explosion will scare, hurt and even kill people depending on the distance?
Maybe I'm being a bit too much of a pacifist here, but why are we constantly spending so much time developing newer ways to kill ourselves.. seems like we could better use those resources.
MABASPLOOM!
I don't see the big news here. At close range it's easy to kill. Even something like a $5 potato cannon can kill people at close range. Being in close proximity to exploding things has never really been good for your health..
I dunno... 10 meters isn't really what I would personally call "close range." That's 30ish feet... Roughly the height of a three-story building. That's a good amount of distance between you and the target.
And I wonder what the area of affect is like... Is this a single-target thing, or a crowd-dispersal thing? Because if it's designed for crowd control, I'm imagining it's got a pretty big area of effect... And you can fit an awful lot of people in a 30' cone... All of which would be permanently injured or killed.
If you look at the article...
According to company data, the system generates 60 to 100 bursts per minute, each traveling at about 2,000 meters per second and lasting up to 300 milliseconds.
One standard 12-kilogram LPG gas canister (retail cost: about $25) can produce up to 5,000 shock bursts.
"That's more than enough for hours of continuous operation,"
Imagine the potential for misuse.
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
wall of air = pressure wave
sound = pressure wave
therefore:
wall of air = sound
Please explain to this simpleton where I'm misinformed?
Women are like electronics: you don't know how damaged they are until you try to turn them on.
In military parlance, "relatively harmless" means something different than what it does in the civilian world.
Five dollars? At close range, I could kill somebody for free!
not much, just being forced to manually insert line breaks into my comment
A bomb is a sound generator too, and maybe we should this thing for what it is, a bomb. It is very loud when it explodes, and is world renowned for its ability to stun people at safe distances and kill them at closer distances.
This is my sig.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
i think it goes without saying that a weapon is designed to be a disaster, for somebody.
Civilian harmless = You can't possibly hurt yourself with it. Examples include... Nerf bats... nope. Water... nope. Play dough. nope. Hmmm. have to find an example.
Military harmless = You have to be negligent or intentionally trying to hurt someone with it. Examples: Lawn Darts. Nerf Bats. Tear Gas. (Yes tear gas is unpleasant, but it is designed not to cause permanent harm.)
Rubber bullets are in the same category of mostly harmless. They leave bruises, but are not designed to kill. That doesn't mean they can't be intentionally or negligently lethal, just that they are not designed to kill, kinda like lawn darts.
I don't really have problems with them using it when they would have used 'other' less lethal weapons anyways, such as tear gas and water hoses.
This probably won't replace shotgun bean bags or tasers, they're individual weapons while this is a mass weapon.
The problem comes from proper usage - potentially violent crowds are often led by 'professional' exciters, and they'd be smart enough to know that if you can get people within that 10 meter unsafe zone the operators are a lot less likely to set it off, and it's not like they can have cops standing in the same area to prevent them. They need a clear line. A country/force that willing to kill has more traditional and brutal choices available to it.
My concern is that there's a lot of overlap between 'disabling that fit young man' and 'killing grandma'. An attack that will kill grandma might not even faze a fit young adult.
I don't read AC A human right
"How about those assholes that honk their horns and flash their highbeams behind me when I'm doing 5 over the speed limit but think I should get out of the left lane anyway?"
You should get out of the left lane unless you're passing someone. The left lane is for passing - you do not drive in that lane for any period of time or at any speed, unless passing. Why don't more people know/respect this law?
Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
I believe making people think you are pointing a lethal weapon at them with a laser sight attached is an extremely bad idea unless you actually are pointing a lethal weapon at them, since it justifies them shooting first in self defense. And yes, I had coworkers who thought it would be "fun" to shine a laser pointer into the studios across the street -- please don't do that when I'm standing in the window!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
It isn't a law everywhere.
It is, however, a courtesy everywhere. But many people seem to be injected with a heightened sense of entitlement when they get behind the wheel. "Fuck you, this is my lane."
I treat other drivers the way I wish they would treat me: I don't pull out in front of the only car on the road; I stay in the right lane unless passing; I let faster traffic pass me before moving to the left lane to pass; I use turn signals before braking; I don't tailgate; and I rarely attempt to knock assholes into a concrete barrier.
Note that he didn't say "fully" blind. Perhaps he meant legally blind. One can be legally blind and still have some vision.
We already have water cannon, if the object is crowd control/riot control/etc. Why do we need something with what strikes me as considerably more potential for damaging people, since they won't be able to SEE it and get the hell out of its path?
Or maybe that IS the object.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Assuming that a visible laser dot means you are being targeted by somebody with a laser sight is Hollywood nonsense. I really doubt any judge/jury would accept that as justification for shooting first. There are assholes all over the place shining lasers in places where they shouldn't, we can't just go around blowing them all away, much as we might wish to.