The Vortex Gun Coming Soon To a Protest Near You

An anonymous reader writes "Vortex technology has been used in everything from rocket-powered fire extinguishers to Nerf guns, but neither of those things are capable of giving the beat-down to hapless protesters. By giving spinning vortices an electric charge, though, pepper spray can be sent over 150 feet at between 60 and 90 mph. A vortex gun uses a pressure wave and a carefully designed barrel to fire donut-shaped rings of air that can hold themselves together over long distances. The military (starting with the German military during World War II) has been running experiments with using vortex canons to knock things over, but it's not a particularly efficient or effective way to go. What the gas rings can be used for is transporting other gasses (like pepper spray or tear gas or pesticide) long distances with a decent amount of accuracy, holding their cargo inside the calm center spinning vortex."

Comments

Great, what we really needed

[Opportunist]

Another gun that lowers the inhibition of police to shoot at protesters.

free speech

[girlintraining]

They're coming up with ever-more creative ways to hurt peaceful protesters -- and let's be honest: Most of the time, they provoke, prod, cajoule, and taunt these people until one of them out of the dozen, hundred, or thousand there snaps, then they point and say "See! See! We're justified" and open up unholy horror on everyone nearby, including journalists, children, and anyone else, then seize or destroy the evidence of what went down, counting on their purchases media contacts to portray their victims as all manner of bad. But whether it's rubber bullets or real ones, the fact is this is a business of causing pain and misery... and it is because the people its being inflicted upon had the audacity to say "I think we can do better than this."

I am the last person to suggest violence as a response to improper government action: I live in a democracy, and one of our main pressure valves to prevent violence is peaceful protest. They're busy stuffing that up now, and just like every other country that has tried it in the past, eventually public sentiment is going to shift. It'll be fine one day, and the next shit will be on fire and they'll be declaring martial law, and the bought-off press will be busy with headlines like "How did this happen?" ... Well, it happened because you stupid bastards didn't do your job and report the truth. It happened because people don't like being silenced.

It happened... because human nature isn't all that different from an animal: Keep poking it with a stick and eventually it will stop hiding in the corner and come sink its claws and teeth into you. And why? Because it didn't have a choice.

Re:free speech

[Anonymous Coward]

Recent videos show that no excuse is needed, any longer, for completely unprovoked pepper spray attacks (as well as bludgeoning) by senior police officers on completely peaceful protestors.

I too believe in peaceful protest. THAT SHIP IS SINKING OR SUNK. Our political power, at this point, is limited to refusing paychecks (not following unethical orders.) The police, themselves, must stop using violence in their daily jobs. The use of pepper spray to hurt people who are not hurting you, is wrong. The use of a vortex cannon to squirt that pepper spray is no more, nor less, wrong.

The US government system is so corrupt that the corruption is "trickle down" and I, for one, am having more trouble with corrupt corporations at the personal level. And hearing stories about corruption.

A stolen credit card number? "No problem, provide us a list of suspicious charges. Oh, this suspicious charge on your list...you actually made."

"I did? Sorry, they're hard to understand, these cryptic entries."

"Too bad. Our policy is to force you to pay for all the fraudulent charges, if even one of those charges is mis-identified."

"Fuck!" (My honest friend's story.)

Re:free speech

[girlintraining]

The police are outnumbered by the citizens they protect a thousand to 1 at least and they can only be effective if the majority of those citizens trust them and cooperate with them. The social contract that all officers of the law have with its citizens is this: "We trust you, you protect us." It's a simple, straight-forward principle that depends on the officer's ethical conduct being at all times impeccable. Any unethical behavior observed and the officer should be quickly stripped of rank and authority to maintain public trust.

That isn't happening anymore. Our country now has mock trials where they declare the officers innocent, or that the protesters were engaged in vague-sounding crimes like "resisting without violence"... which in most of those cases can be rightly called, "speaking one's mind." Officers seize and destroy evidence of their own misconduct. They preferentially attack people on the basis of race, sexual orientation, ethnicity (perceived or actual), or on social class. These are not isolated cases: They are widespread issues that regularly receive attention in the press, though heavily edited, redacted, and spun to appear less severe than it is. It does not take anyone long on google to find a current, relevant case of significant police misconduct involving many officers, often an entire department or city of them.

The social contract of "We trust you, you protect us" is broken. And that's a problem. That's a big problem. That is in fact a super huge democracy-threatening problem... because if people don't assemble to protect out of fear, then that anger with the status quo isn't visible. We (as a society) don't know there's a problem, can't address it, and so the anger builds and builds until we start getting gunman in the bell towers, people marching into classrooms and blowing away everyone they see... We get sporatic acts of seemingly random violence because these individuals feel they cannot be heard. And then we have a society living in fear, more fear, terrible amounts of fear.

And protracted anxiety and fear destroys economies, governments, and institutions. Democracy depends on freedom, and freedom depends on the confidence to use those freedoms. I cannot find anyone above the age of 21 who thinks they have the freedom of speech they were told they had in school. I have trouble finding anyone who's willing to attend a protest for something they believe in and support out of fear of "getting a record" or "getting on a list". They well and truly believe their livelihoods would be threatened by engaging in activities protected by the highest law in the land, activities that our founding fathers and every reputable scholar on the subject of civil liberty and democracy says are essential for the functioning of this society.

F*ck terrorists: We've got a much bigger problem. We're rotting from the inside out.

Go Ahead. It won't make any difference.

[rbrander]

Typical of a certain mindset that sufficient force will stop a demonstration.

And it will, of course. ONE demonstration. But if you don't want another twice as big, you can't stop it with force.

Ghaddafi used anti-aircraft ammunition on human bodies. That tidied up the whole street in jig time. But where is he now?

Re:"Starting with the Nazi military during WWII"

[ZankerH]

The German Wehrmacht (and the other regular branches of the German military in WWII) had little to do with the Nazi party. The only "Nazi" military was the Waffen-SS, whose notable accomplishments include running death camps and overall pathetic performance in actual combat. The American stereotype of branding anything related to Germany in the 1933-1945 era as "Nazi" is just wrong.

Dangerous Denial Of Brutality

[Web Goddess]

Police are supposed to be trained officers. They are being provoked by taunts? Throw those goddamn police out of their jobs, with a black mark on their records. What you say is (trolling?) bullshit. I have seen numerous videos of peaceful people blindsided by police with pepper spray and bludgeons. Overwhelming force, yet the police are provoked by taunts? You live in a world of hypocrisy and denial, previous poster.

Re:Dangerous Denial Of Brutality

[tqk]

Wow, such vitriol directed towards someone that might have a different perspective than you. Yeah, I've seen the UC YouTube video, and I've also read stories about Occupy camps rigging booby-traps when threatened with eviction, throwing human shit at police, cursing at them, daring them to attack, threatening lawsuits, etc.

The protesters are civilians. Police are supposed to be trained professionals. If you're a cop at a protest, you're wearing a face shield and helmet, you're armed and dangerous, and you can change out of your uniform at the end of your shift. Why care about what's thrown at you by civilians? It's your job to take it and react reasonably. It's what you were hired for. If you can't handle that, you're in the wrong job.

Why any policeman would think it's reasonable conduct to pepper spray a line of kneeling civilians is beyond me. I'd be looking around for a rifle if I saw that happening.