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Sound Generator Lethal From 10 Meters

Posted by Soulskill on from the can-you-hear-me-now dept.

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."

19 of 314 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Permanent damage at 100 meters too... by GiveBenADollar · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Article doesn't give too many details, but if it's a vortex cannon it could be capable stunning people without causing hearing loss. The question is whether you get stunned by a wall of air or very loud sound. I don't trust reporters to be able to distinguish the two.

  2. Jon-Erik Hexum by BenEnglishAtHome · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Things harmless at range can kill at contact distance. That's why some blind people with licenses to carry concealed handguns use blanks.

    1. Re:Jon-Erik Hexum by swillden · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Umm. Fully blind people can get CCWs? They can fire live rounds? I suppose I can see why the 2nd ammendment allows for that, but still, wtf America.

      They're blind, not stupid or irresponsible. Blind people are perfectly capable of understanding the risks and potential consequences of using a firearm for self-defense. Granted that it's much more difficult for them to use a gun safely and effectively, but those obstacles are no more insuperable than many others a blind person faces. Obviously, they would only use their gun on an attacker at contact distance, and the idea of using blanks is to prevent innocents from being injured by overpenetration, since the blind person may not know who or what is on the other side of their target.

      Personally, I wouldn't recommend blanks for that application. I'd recommend frangible bullets, or perhaps just a relatively light powder charge in a large caliber cartridge with a reliably-expanding jacketed hollowpoint. Blanks fired into the chest are unlikely to stop a determined attacker. On the other hand, 95% of firearms self-defense incidents don't involve a shot being fired at all -- the attacker sees the gun and runs away -- so blanks would work fine. With blanks, you could even fire a "warning shot" (NOT a good idea with real ammunition) to make the point that you're serious, which would probably raise the likelihood of the bad guy turning tail another percentage point or two.

      Oh, and to answer the first question: Yes, in most states. A handful (e.g. Nevada) have range requirements that would be hard for a blind person to meet. Then again, there may be exceptions in the laws, or ways around them for disabled people.

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
    2. Re:Jon-Erik Hexum by RogL · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Re-read the post - he mentions blind people using blanks, so they can point a gun at a nearby attacker & fire, without much risk to anyone further away.

      Also, a CCW entitles you to legally carry a weapon, not necessarily a gun - the details vary by state, but that may include a stun-gun, pepper-spray, knife, baton, you get the idea... A weapon that may normally be prohibited but is OK with a CCW permit. Some of those would be useful even if blind.

    3. Re:Jon-Erik Hexum by TheLink · · Score: 2, Interesting

      > it's much more difficult for them to use a gun safely and effectively, but those obstacles are no more insuperable than many others a blind person faces.

      If it's really dark, some of them might be able to shoot you before you shoot them ;)

      There are a fair number of blind people who use echolocation and passive hearing to detect objects.

      See: http://www.benunderwood.com/echolocation.html

      Even sighted people can notice the "sound shadow" caused by someone blocking ambient sound - so it doesn't matter even if that someone is very quiet - the "soundscape" changes.

      Get someone to put move a hand near your ear. You'll be able hear the difference.

      --
  3. How fast? by zenopus · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    It is pretty impressive they can make a burst of sound move at six times the speed of sound.

  4. Kate Bush! by chub_mackerel · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Kate Bush's song about this type of thing: "Experiment IV"

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6hvNe11r9U

    "They told us
    All they wanted
    Was a sound that could kill someone
    From a distance.
    So we go ahead,
    And the meters are over in the red.
    It's a mistake in the making."

  5. Kate Bush did it! by RevWaldo · · Score: 2, Interesting

    "Experiment IV" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6hvNe11r9U

    Warning - pretentious as hell, even for Kate Bush fans. YMMV. Starring Hugh "the guy from House" Laurie and Dawn "magnificent bosom" French.

    --
    Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
  6. Re:Permanent damage at 100 meters too... by GiveBenADollar · · Score: 5, Interesting

    You have to see it to understand it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=am12NZwr3Fk Vortex cannons send out a spiraling ring of air. They can hit people and things with some serious force, but it's not due to sound.

  7. Re:Permanent damage at 100 meters too... by JWSmythe · · Score: 2, Interesting

        In other news, a concussion can be dangerous.

        Ya, it's not news. It sounds like a potato cannon without the potato, firing at 100 pulses per minute. Pretty interesting that they're getting that kind of rate, but still, obviously dangerous.

        There's a reason a concussion grenade works, and it's not always shrapnel. I'm guessing the 10m deadly zone is directly downrange of the cannon, not beside or behind it. It's still a contained explosion, so all the force goes one direction, rather than disbursing in all directions.

        Rapid sequence concussions can effect the action of the heart (induced arrhythmia), or a variety of other problems similar to being hit by something. So it's a concussion, not a projectile. Still obviously deadly. Folks know, don't shoot at people unless you want them dead, and that includes firing blanks.

    --
    Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
  8. Re:IAF Sound Devices by pongo000 · · Score: 2, Interesting
    This one works at low, inaudible frequencies that vibrate the internal organs of the targets.

    Interesting aside to PP: The movie Irreversible used low-frequency sounds in its soundtrack to induce nausea in the viewer.

  9. Re:I prefer a cannon by GargamelSpaceman · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Yeah, I'd prefer a cannon too. I remember reading in a magazine ( maybe Popular Mechanics? ) way back when about some Nazi Death Machines that were supposedly in the works near the end of WWII. They had a machine that worked on natural gas being exploded in a pipe that sounds substantially identical to this. The idea was to repel enemy troops trying to charge. It was one of those things that was just not practical on the battlefield, and never used.

    --
    ...
  10. Yeah music to die for by TheLink · · Score: 3, Interesting

    http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/news/2004/09/64829

    Reporting in the medical journal Thorax, they describe the cases of four young men who suffered a lung collapse -- technically called pneumothorax -- that appeared to be triggered by loud music. Three of the men were at a concert or club when the pneumothorax occurred, while the fourth was in his car, which was outfitted with a 1,000-watt bass box because he "liked to listen to loud music."

    --
  11. Re:Permanent damage at 100 meters too... by TerranFury · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Yes and no -- and no in this case -- as far as I understand. (I'd appreciate clarification/correction/confirmation from others on the points I make below.)

    In most contexts -- and I assume sound falls into this category -- the energy of a signal is its squared L2 norm. (This is certainly true for the power dissipated in a resistive load by a voltage or current signal.) Anyway, the L2 norm is invariant under the Fourier transform. And you'll notice that a Dirac delta has the same L2 norm whether it's as 2 Hz or 2000 Hz.

    Yet in quantum mechanics, we have such expressions as "E = h f." This is because the kinetic energy operator involves a derivative of the wave function; from a signal-processing point of view the derivative is a linear filter whose gain is linearly proportional to frequency. This explains the superficial "disconnect" between "energy is independent of frequency" and "E = h f."

    So my question for others is: What's the energy operator for a pressure wave?

  12. Re:TFA SAID, "RELATIVELY HARMLESS"!!! by confused+one · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I believe rubber bullets are categorized as "Less than lethal" which puts them in a slightly more dangerous category than "mostly harmless". Your point is valid, nonetheless

  13. Re:Permanent damage at 100 meters too... by BranMan · · Score: 2, Interesting
    I think that the idea here is for this to act as a barrier - an invisible fence if you will. As long as you start it up with no one near it, people will not want to GET near it. The nearer they get, the more it affects them.

    Seems like it would be workable. Plus, I bet there is a way to ramp up the effects over, say a minute? That would help to clear everyone out from the destructive zone before it hits full power.

    All in all, could be quite effective - though not subtle.

  14. Re:Permanent damage at 100 meters too... by brainboyz · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Given the population of the US is around 330M or so, you want me to get upset about a generally safe tool that has a track record of killing 0.0000001% of the population a year and accounting for a whole 0.00001% of deaths a year? The lethality rate for them is 1.5 or so per 100k uses and is, for the most part, easily attributed to pre-existing health conditions.

  15. Re:Pacifist by radtea · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Because then the people who spent their resources on developing new ways to kill use those innovations on the people that didn't.

    Nope.

    Genocide is really rare. Invasion, colonization and assimilation is a lot more common.

    Killing people is almost entirely pointless. Threatening to kill people is what does the job, because people happen to be wired in ways that let them be controlled up to a point by such threats. When the threat level becomes too high they always fight back, of course, because they happen to be wired that way, too.

    Gandhi's big trick was to realize that death threats are not generally credible, and react accordingly, which means not allowing your behaviour to be controlled by threats, and being willing to die rather than submit. There are specific circumstances where that won't work at all--such as the Jews in Nazi Germany--but in almost all cases peaceful, active resistance is far more effective.

    These weapons, as others here have pointed out, are aimed at Gandhi-style tactics: by having a non-lethal response to a peaceful, active resistance it tilts the tables back toward the oppressors, who are basically engaging in mass instantaneous public torture-at-a-distance via the use of these weapons.

    These weapons are designed to generate compliance with the alpha chimp's wishes by engaging people's pain response rather than their fear response. The latter can be fairly easily subverted, depending as it does on a vague cognitive connection between threat and outcome. The former is much tougher nut to crack, although it'll be interesting to see the first time the cops are on the receiving end of one of these weapons, which will no-doubt be reduced to hand-held form factors in the next couple of years.

    --
    Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
  16. Non-lethal is perhaps a greater threat by mariox19 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    [G]overnments have been looking for "non-lethal" crowd control devices like this [...]

    I actually find this worrisome, from the standpoint of civil liberty. Non-violent protest actually relies on the brutality of governmental response to provoke sympathy and garner support for one's cause. While the so-called "non-lethal" weapons of today are still pretty brutal, I invite people to follow me on a little thought experiment that illustrates my concern.

    Let's carry non-lethal crowd control methods to their ultimate conclusion. Imagine a device that lulls people to sleep, whereupon they're carried home, placed in their beds, enjoy a night's rest like the haven't managed in months, and awake to find a chocolate morsel on their nightstands and a terrifically refreshed sense of well-being. If crowds of peaceful protesters are broken up by repressive governments using this device, how much sympathy will that garner? How effective will civil disobedience be?

    The scenario I describe is purposefully fanciful and exaggerated. Nevertheless, my point is that non-lethal methods carry the very real threat of keeping bad governments from looking all that bad. Government should hurt; and repressing civil disobedience should carry the risk of looking bad. Otherwise, you can be sure it will be used at the drop of a hat. And that may just pose a problem.

    --

    quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.