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Ask Slashdot: What Non-lethal Technology Has the Best Chance of Replacing the Gun?
Wycliffe writes: Most cops are not out to kill someone, but when someone reaches for a cellphone or their glovebox, the cop may assumes the worst and try to protect themselves from dying. Guns are used to immobilize the target, and aren't even that good at it when a person is charging. What other potential devices could be used to protect a cop so that guns are unnecessary? Foam? Lightweight body armor? Nets? Robots? 'M.A.N.T.I.S.' paralyzing gas? Force field? What non-lethal technology out there has the best potential to be more effective at immobilizing a target and/or protecting a cop than a gun?
A well-placed "yo momma" joke? Harsh language?
The one with the highest profit margin.
Halitosis is the answer.
"Most cops are not out to kill someone..."
[Citation needed]
Common sense, the human brain? Reform of policing so citizens actually trust the police?
Of course sometimes force, even lethal force, is needed. The best non-lethal immobilizer we have at the moment is the taser, although that can sometimes be lethal.
But it seems to me that training in de-escalation can go a long way to not needing immobilizers.
A dubstep version of "Call me Maybe" ought to do the trick
Who writes this shit? A Berkley journalism major who's never even been down to ground level of the ivory tower?
pen!
Make love, not war.
I mean, tazers have become the standard.They are not completely effective by any means, but I can't help but think they have helped... I have seen numerous videos where multiple shots did not stop an aggressor, but in videos with tazers, as long as there weren't any weird circumstances, they usually drop like a rock.
3D printed laser drones should be the perfect solution, as long as they aren't running systemd.
I wonder how much it will cost in Bitcoin.
Phrased differently: "What can we use to replace guns (which we kill people with) that we can't use to kill people with?"
Americans love that silly and extremely boring baseball game so why not use a baseball bat to replace guns?
BTW, all your damn TV shows and films have at least one idiot reciting baseball statistics... why?
No, guns are used to STOP the target. Which looks a lot like "immobilize", but isn't quite. "Stop" includes a lot besides "prevent it from moving".
Such as "maim" or "kill", to provide a couple examples....
As for me, I think I'll go with Frederik Douglas' advice "a good revolver and a steady hand"....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
You have to wonder what the effect would be on the criminally minded if they believed that the worst case scenario with the police was that they would be immobilized.
love is just extroverted narcissism
What will be more effective than a gun?
How about a polite request.
Just as the pen is mightier than the sword, lemonade is generally preferable over lemons. Let's get rid of the hostility, or at least have one side (the people who are getting paid... the cops) at least do their part in trying to remove at least one side of the cause for hostility.
Remember the old phrase "to serve and protect"... notice how that phrase mentioned "protect" second, as if that was the secondary role.
That's the faulty premise in the question.
How about "What can we do so that cops shoot people who aren't doing anything wrong less often?"
Prosecute them. Hold them to a HIGHER standard than the rest of us, not a lower one.
CITIZEN NAME:
Unknown
ALIAS(ES):
Phresh Wipez
CITATION DESCRIPTION:
Grabbing a gun from his glovebox and then --
Investigator: Is that it?
Clerk: Yes, sir. It ends there.
Investigator: It's likely that he was shot at that point.
Clerk: Very likely, sir. What should I do? He didn't sign it.
Investigator: Damn! Very well, there's nothing we can do. File it under "unsolved cases".
Clerk: Will do, sir. I'll need you to fill out and sign form 36B-2217-A9.
Investigator: There goes my day. Why couldn't he have just signed the damn thing on his way out!
*ducks*
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
High volume, directed sound waves.
I thought tasers were already the de facto standard for non-lethal immobilization. The dirty secret is that they don't actually work very well, as in wearing a neoprene wetsuit under your clothes would pretty much render you immune to them.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
People need to embrace the power of dialouging and negotiation instead of violence. Recently there was a jumper on top of a building in SF. Police talked him down by bringing his housecat to the scene.
It starts with the youth. Teach children to express themselves through language instead of acting out. Set a good example!
Just let the government insert a chip into everyone's brain so they can 'shut you down' at will.
The gun crazy idiots are passing laws to ensure no University can stop students coming in with guns onto campus, no metal detectors, no guards to take guns away... banned by law.
http://www.mysanantonio.com/local/education/campus-chronicles/article/campus-carry-ut-austin-dildo-dildos-texas-6563276.php
So those shooters than go wild and kill all the kids? Well by law they can bring in their weapon concealed, and nobody can stop them or take their guns from them... well till after they kill kids. Then the NRA crawls out and pays a lot of money to Republicans for more pro-gun laws.
So people are protesting by carrying dildos, which are ILLEGAL to carry on campus. And if they get the way the majority of Americans want, then gun laws will be enacted, and schools can get guards and metal detectors and keep the school free from guns. Shopping malls and movie theatres will become gun free zones just like Disney parks.
Meanwhile, NRA and its paid law critters are trying to pass laws to force businesses to let workers bring guns to work (including Disney theme parks, which pisses Disney off no end).
Why is a gun being compared to non-lethal technology? A gun is lethal. A gun is supposed to be lethal. To use a gun is to be lethal.
If we want our police to have a non-lethal option, we need to give them something that is by nature non-lethal. A bobby stick or tazer are what immediately come to mind.
Maybe the question is how do we train our police to choose when lethal versus non-lethal methods should be employed and how/what the best tool is for a lethal or non-lethal action.
I guess it depends on how the laws are written as well. When is it ok to use a lethal method to stop a person from doing a perceived act. If we have a technology that is non-lethal and can stop a person immediately, that should be employed to allow the person to stand before a jury to decide if the person should be killed for the attempted act.
They already have the only weapon they really need...a radio. They can call backup, nobody else they run into can really do that, and the few that can, can't do it like they can on the scale they can.
There really is no need for every cop to be armed at all when they can call in armed backup as needed.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Cops giving up guns, hilarious. The only people they are interested in disarming are their subj... citizens. Now pick up that can.
Many would be shooters wouldn't try anything if they knew it was 2 against 1. It would give the arresting officer much more confidence in his safety and thus he would less likely to draw his sidearm.
We should go back to the model where police are always out on patrol in pairs.
Oh wait, the question was non-lethal.
"What non-lethal technology out there has the best potential to be more effective at immobilizing a target and/or protecting a cop than a gun?" Education.
Now say it again...
Absolutely nothing physical is "non-lethal" (remind yourself of the recurring joke about banning dihydrogen monoxide). The only choices are between "less lethal" and "more lethal".
If you want to return to non-lethal you'll have to try non-physical alternatives. Once upon a time our cops had this nice non-physical alternative for protecting themself (*and others*) that was called "de-escalation". Another good one was called "community policing".
Maybe they could go back to using those again.
Have the police run into criminals with their cars, like the officer who hit the guy that stole a rifle from Wallmart. Effective and non lethal.
I would have a hard time respecting a cop without a gun... that movie 'Mall Cop' comes to mind.
I might could take this post more seriously if he was trying to supplement guns instead of replacing them.
There's an old adage that goes something like "Never bring a $lessThanLethalImmobilizer to a gun fight."
Is sill more likely than anything else
Tasers already exist. Yet, cops shoot to kill instead of stun to disable. Why do we need another non-lethal weapon that won't be used?
Nothing... yet. Short of pie in the sky stuff like Star Trek phasers, all less-lethal technology has flaws and can be rather ineffective at times and can still be lethal, especially to the old or sick. Essentially anything that can generate the kinds of energy needed to stop a drug crazed psychopath can be very lethal to someone who is frail (but can still be violent and armed). The second primary disadvantage is capacity to continue with multiple attackers or ineffective hits or complete misses.
- The tazer's limitations are that they can be defeated by those who know how and suffer from capacity issues when the first shot missed or is ineffective.
- Bean bags and similar bludgeoning devices are frequently shrugged off by those immune to the effects of pain.
- Any kind of area effect device like gas and foam has the disadvantage of potentially trapping innocents and police officers in them making them easy prey for criminals. They also have limitations in confined spaces and reducing visibility can sometimes make a situation worse.
All these reasons and more are why the gun is still the pinnacle of weapons design for self defense. It works in almost any environment, its generally reliable (more so than alternatives), has good capacity (Can keep using it repeatedly) can be used at distance and it comes in a convenient package the officer can keep with him at all times, even while off duty. Until some technology can match or better those criteria, the Gun is here to stay.
The "non-lethal" option should be removed from the police force. Because it is non-lethal it OK to use it all the time... this leads to more more violence, not less. Who has not seen the video of the officer tasing the 70 year old woman just because she wanted to sit down? Or the "Don't tase me bro!!!" followed by a completely unnecessary torture session.
The problem with using it is legal and ethical.
Look at North Korea. Their police rarely have a need for guns, and in fact, most conflicts that occur seem to be at the behest of the government and not the other way around. Their policing is proactive, reducing the number of conflict events.
You just have to remove all personal freedoms and justify everything as being better for society, for a given definition of better. Our two major political parties in the US have already been making inroads on this, we just need to take it a step further.
Sarcasm aside, guns are not meant to 'immobilize a person'. They're meant to kill. The goal of a LEO using a gun is to eliminate a threat, by killing it. That's not only to protect the LEO, but also others. As far as that goes, guns are pretty good. Not great, but not bad.
As far as sci fi solutions go, even the most imaginative writers of our time cannot separate risk from policing with access to any fantasy tech or magic possible. Look at Star Trek with the ability to detect and identify individual life forms from light years away, a transporter that can move people thousands of miles, a weapon that can stun nearly any life form into unconsciousness with no risk to the target (which makes you wonder why they don't just use it on all suspects from the start), and they still can't manage prisoner transfers 10 out of 10 times, where the guy is already in chains!
Nope, you're going to have to go the brainwashing/programming route.
This question is illustrating for the problem the US has. The solution is not technological, it's psychological. Law enforcement agencies in many other countries rarely need to use their guns or tasers so why do US police officers kill so many people?!
Not having trigger happy cops, not creating trigger happy criminals that have nothing to lose because of your ridiculously long jail terms could be a start. Legalizing all kinds of mundane things like drug use would also help greatly. And, obviously, the number of guns in the US is a major factor in this; if the chances of a criminal having a gun would be much lower, the police could approach everybody much less agressive than they do now.
Example: so far in 2015, in Germany only one man was killed by police. In the US, which has FOUR times as many people, over THREE HUNDRED times as many people have been killed by police.
0x or or snor perron?!
There going to be situations when lethal force is the only choice. Thats that that.
Vast majority of situations don't need to be.
And the only way to improve odds of non-violent conflict resolution is training the cops that want to do that right thing and weeding out those that don't.
This isn't an overnight panacea but i'm afraid there simply isn't one.
They are used to kill people. Look at the force continuum used by PDs. Guns are in the lethal section. If an officer is shooting his gun, he's trained to and willing to kill someone at that point. Now a ton of things need to change with respect to the officer and his willingness to shoot someone for little to no reason (eg Tamir Rice's killer or Lonnie Swartz), but as long as officers are given the ability to kill people there really isn't an effective replacement for guns.
Honestly better recruitment and enforcing use of de-escalation techniques is probably the best bet.
The only practical solution currently is rubber bullets. The cops get to keep the ease of use and most of the stopping power of a gun but the lethality levels go way down.
> So you whackos want to disarm cops too now?
Yes. It's time to take away their SWAT gear.
It's one thing to have a special action squad for the occasional well armed robber or kidnapper but it's gotten to the point where it's the day to day SOP.
There are plenty of liberal weenies crying for the disarmament of the American citizen right now. They've forgotten about the need to demilitarize the cops.
If you are afraid of civilians with guns then you need to be even handed about it and take them from cops too.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
I thought this sounded promising. If you feel like you're on fire, it is a strong incentive to stop/drop/roll. https://youtu.be/dmuyLIrSjxI
We just need to get this into a handheld size.
They are here to protect us. If they can't handle that job then they should get another one.
It's going to be fairly difficult, particularly that last one
- Capable going from safe to ready to use in about a second
- Can disable an assailant in one shot, although more than one may be required
- Can be used again immediately in case of miss or hit in non-vital area
- Capable of 6-15 engagements before reloading. Can be reloaded in seconds
- Can remain in ready/safe condition for a long time (years) and still function
- Can engage assailants from a minimum range of zero out to a maximum effective range of 30 yards or so
- Accurate within a few inches out to maximum effective range
- Can instill fear of death in a would-be assailant causing them to flee
Maybe a Star Trek style phaser with a setting of "stun"?
and powered armor
Free the weed!
Police are taser happy. If you talk back to a cop, get tazed. You are slow to comply, get tazed. You complain that your friend was tazed for doing nothing, get tazed. You confuse a cop because of his prejudices, get tazed.
I believe the narrative of this question to be false. An officer cannot start shooting unless and until their life or the life of another is clearly and imminently in danger. Reaching for the glove box? Yeah, no-go on that one. Pointing an actual gun at an officer? Yes, lethal force is justified. Pointing a gun at a third party (hostage situation, for example), yes, lethal force is justified.
So the question should be - When an alleged criminal is putting the life of an officer or a third party in direct harm with their own firearm, what non-lethal methods will immobilize a target? I don't think there is any other option. When a bad guy is high on meth or other drugs, for instance, gun shots often don't even work until there have been several of them.
When an officer's life, or the life of a third party, is directly threatened, I wouldn't want a cop using anything other than lethal force.
But it does have some drawbacks for the victim. It can set gasoline on fire rather easily, and can cause heart attacks in people with heart issues. It also can be abused - being basically a form of torture. Foam is the safest - you can apply it to a persons's limbs, not their heads, so you can avoid ingestion. It basically is the equivalent of a long distance handcuff.
But the cops don't care about the victims, they care about their own interests. Without legal action (court or legislatative), I see Tasers continuing their prime spot in non-lethal defense.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Tell me this is a joke.... It's a joke right? A lame attempt at humor? Wait, you are SERIOUS?
As long as there are bad people with guns intent on doing harm, you will need good people with guns to stop them. There are no other options for cops, but to be well armed and proficient in the use of force, deadly force when required. Non lethal options need to be available, but you cannot replace firearms with them in today's world.
Even without the 2nd amendment in the USA, keeping firearms out of the hands of "bad people" is impossible, so there will be no *replacement* for guns in the hands of the police. With the 2nd amendment there will be literally MILLIONS of guns in circulation, making them easily obtained though illegal means. We might disarm the police though law and practice in some places, but they will be backed up by well armed police carrying firearms and many of the disarmed will pay with their lives because we denied them the means of protecting themselves and us. Taking guns from cops is stupid in almost all cases IMHO.
There is no replacing the gun in the hands of cops with any of the technologies we now have, and if we force it to happen, the police and the public will pay in blood for our foolishness. There is NO REPLACMENT for the gun in the police's hands right now, and I suspect that there will NEVER be a nonlethal alternative to a firearm.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Instead of asking how to stop someone when they're at the end of an obviously bad journey, why not ask what could be done to stop them from starting the journey in the first place?
Talk about the injustice towards minorities, the rampant racism in society as evidenced in the current republican presidential candidate campaigns, the extreme inequality between the 1% and the rest of the country, the erosion of good paying jobs as they are outsourced to third world economies with little protections for the workers, the living conditions of those in the "slums", ...
We have been busy making this bed since the 1980s loosening gun laws, making it easy to offshore jobs, structure society so all money and influence flows to the top with the only thing trickling down is sh*t.
So sure, you can talk about how to use non-lethal methods for the cops to stop someone, but that's not going to stop the flood of those "someones" in the wings.
Instead if you dealt with the institutionalized problems facing the world, if you had a system where everyone was treated fairly and equally, where the money and influence were correctly spread across all members of the society instead of the top 1%, well then you'd be dealing the cause of the problem rather than one of the symptoms.
If someone is charging you or reaching for a gun out of a pocket or glove box, just spray instant-expanding foam at them. Bam! Instant immobilization! Sort things out later.
Simple science tells us that a weapon carried by a person cannot "knock someone over". Otherwise, they themselves would be "knocked over". People being sent flying backwards by a shotgun or a .44 only happens in the movies. Otherwise, the shooter would also be sent flying.
It's that whole, "equal and opposite reaction" thing.
Those justifications are crazy.
Except it isn't signs on the doors that are banned, Mr kid kill from the NRA, it's actual physical measures and restrictions that are banned.
The Texas NRA paid for lawmakers, that want to ban actual measures to prevent the guns entering the schools and universities.
Florida battled with Disney at one point, because Floridas corrupt NRA lawmakers made a law requiring businesses to let their employees bring in guns to work, and Disney didn't want guns in its theme parks. Disney worked hard to make its theme parks free from firearms, and Florida tries to ensure a large supply at easy hand for any psycho to use.
It shows you how the gun lobby, the tiny minority that caused the US to be flooded with guns, people like you, are the problem with your lies and misdirections and bought and paid corrupt lawmakers.
With non-lethal weapons, police are vastly more likely to use them at the hint of any trouble.
Guns are much better because actually firing on someone requires a lot more thought.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It does not matter what the form it takes. Lethal force in the form of a hand held mechanism is not going anywhere. It is here to stay. Sometimes the only appropriate answer to someone trying to do harm is to shoot 'em dead. It isn’t just cops that should realize this. If you are of the capable capacity you should consider being armed for you and your community's sake. When seconds count the police are only minutes away.
... why would they want to whip out some half assed non lethal weapon? As far as they're concerned the person is going for a gun and they want to stop them before the weapon is turned on them.
It worked well for a long time. Escalate to the gun only when necessary.
The nightstick was really only obsoleted when we started having cops who are unfit to be cops, thus requiring an easier more deterring approach.
In 1996, a man named Martin Bryant became the worst killer in Australia's history. After walking into a cafe in Port Arthur, Tasmania, he killed 35 people and wounded 23 others with a semiautomatic rifle and another semiautomatic assault weapon. As a result, Australia enacted one of the largest gun reforms in recent history — and gun deaths plummeted. The changes remain the gold standard for advocates of gun control today.
Correct one is what technology will protect the public? Answer is less paramilitary training of cops. Less training to twitch react and kill somebody. Less freedom to put themselves in the way as an excuse for lethal force. A LOT more training on how to use firearms. A lot of training and expectation to defuse situations that a firearm is their last resort.
Accept that slightly more cops will die while far more of the public will live. That is part of their job that they chose to do. They should be held to a higher bar regarding using force for their personal safety than the public not a lower one. The butcher's bill for cops shot in the line of duty is 26 this year. Comparatively cops in the US kills far far more people than all other first world countries combined at approx 3 a day. The UK had 4 fatal shootings by officers in 4 years. Canada killed 14 people in 2014. In contrast police have killed 2 17 year old girls "in fear for their lives" one through the side door of a stolen car and one with a butchers knife in the PD's lobby.
No sir I dont like it.
This should incapacitate someone pretty quickly. It worked on South Park.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Why are you asking us here at Slashdot? There are billions to be made for a nonlethal weapon that works well enough to not jeopardize the lives of officers in cases where the suspect has an actual gun (you know, the whole "don't bring an X to a gun fight" thing). With this much money on the line, people a lot smarter than us in the world of weapons technology have spent untold hours researching and testing this problem.
Better known as 318230.
Rocket Launcher!
The armed forces have been spending big bucks on researching this sort of thing for a long time. They, too, do not actually want to kill people, especially when it is some brainwashed kid sent out on a suicide mission. While obviously prepared to kill, their ideal is a complete victory with no casualties on either side. So they have spent a lot of money on researching pain rays, stopping foams etc.Unfortunately with essentially no success. It seems that anything capable of stopping somebody armed and ill-intentioned has a high probability of killing them.
Which make sense. The human body is not a single co-ordinated machines, but a number of semi-autonomous subsystems working on a team job - of making the body of which they form part a success in the world.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
Every damn time you want the government to "solve" some problem, you're requiring police to enforce that "fix".
Even if your "problem" is people deciding to drink sodas that YOU think are too fucking big.
It's an arms race. Police in other countries generally don't need to be so heavily armed because the populace is generally less armed, hence only the most serious crimes involve guns.
Whenever I read "if guns are outlawed only criminals will have guns" I think of how successful other countries have been in driving up the bar to there being a gun involved in crime. In places where gun control is enforced a typical 7/11 robbery does not involve a gun, they are reserved for high end bank jobs and the like because they are simply too hard to obtain and the penalty for using them can be made correspondingly high.
Nullius in verba
We should praise and reward policemen for defusing situations calmly. Maybe if the police regularly said "Hello How are You?" to people (all people even scary mentally ill ones) things might go a little better.
Granny used to use rock salt and bacon rind.
In other words, a BFG (Big Fucking Gun). Only idiot thugs get shot, get over it.
n/t
Real programmers use "copy con program.exe"
I hear a sign - red circle with a slash through it and a picture of the undesirable object or behaviour behind the slash - is extremely effective.
Isn't every crime involving a firearm in the US already punished with far more severe penalties than crimes without? Doesn't seem like that's been a very effective disincentive.
non lethal alternative is for me to shoot someone in a less than lethal area but realistically if you are doing something that warrants me shooting you then I probably would be thinking about shooting you any other way other than lethally since you didn't put enough thought into deciding not to do something that endangered me in the first place.
I mean, we were talking about progress here, right?
You forgot accidental tazing and tazing 'because its fun'.
In Germany, the police have extensive training. They are about the equal of someone with a master's in criminal justice over in the states.
In the UK, the police have at least two years of training on dealing with people, hand to hand combat, and many other ways.
Here in the US, we run our police through an academy which gives basic skills for the job... but little more.
Why don't we here in the US have better officer training (no, not "sensitivity training", but actual training of knowing laws, dealing with situations with less than lethal means, and that.)
Of course, the other part of the change: For the FTP types (and no, I'm NOT meaning anything to do with the file transfer protocol), we should get either raise the bar, or get rid of police brutality as a charge.
Germany doesn't have "police brutality", and neither does the UK. In return, Europeans have actual respect for police, which makes their job less daunting (and thus less paranoid and less likely to feel like drawing the sidearm is necessary.)
I say, more advanced training across the board, and once we start getting true professionals (a police officer is a true profession in European countries), then we should have charges like lying to a police officer. (Again, in Germany, if a cop asks how many drinks a person had, they say none, but alcohol is on the breath, that is a criminal offense.)
No, the US isn't Germany, nor Europe, but it would be wise to borrow from them and upgrade our police forces' training from "Keystone Kops" level to a better level of training. At the minimum, police are the ones who should know the law.
Not much chance of seeing this anytime soon, but it would be interesting...
http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=119
Well, by the summary I would assume you're talking about how the US should address this (well, I'm in /., the right place to assume anything, specially if I'm wrong), so I would say: ask most European police forces what being a real Police Officer means and how they handle situations. Apparently guns are rarely used by police officers in most European Countries, and some don't even carry guns: England, Scotland, Wales, Iceland, Norway, and apparently in Ireland some Police Officers aren't even trained in using firearms! Oh, and one third of the population of Iceland carry arms, and still no problem, so I guess education and mentality plays a large role as well... yeah, that was sarcastic obviousness, for those wondering.
The "poo-stick" ala upright citizens brigade,
Guns are not "used to immobilize a target", use of force is the amount of effort required by police to compel compliance by an unwilling subject. It is a continuum from verbal command upwards using only the force necessary to obtain compliance. So is the question are there alternatives to deadly force or is it is there a one size fits all tool?
Mod parent +5 funny! It's a good joke. Wait, it is a joke, right? Right?
SJW n. One who posts facts.
There are plenty of non-lethal options already available, it's just that cops still bring a gun to every confrontation. 99% of the time it's the only gun at the scene, and massively increases the chances of either officer or suspect getting killed.
Police officers should be required to leave the gun behind AND have an armed buddy stand back away from the heat of the confrontation to cover their back, call for help and importantly provide accountability.
Duh. The Phaser. Granted it won't take long for the general public to learn how to set them to disintegrate.
If the officer is in serious life threatening danger, he is probably going to die anyway. So how about a gun that fires a bullet towards the perp/threat and one out the back into the officer. Okay it is violent, but the results will always be a tie. After all, currently if an officer kills someone in a legitimate situation, there is a good chance his life will be ruined especially if he is found not guilty.
Life is in a state of dynamic equilibrium, it both blows and sucks
Guns are used when lethal stopping power is required. Nothing non-lethal does that.
Some cops just like to stick their fingers in other people's orafaces on the side of a public road. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSTMX7oM2Qs
Most departments across the US have officers patrolling solo. Radioing for backup is not always possible or practical. Increasing budgets to the point that officers work in pairs is by far the safest for all involved. An officer's biggest fear is being overpowered and shot with their own weapon, this fear is what motivates most of their behavior during an encounter. The best prevention against this scenario is a backup officer.
If you want officers to use lethal force less often, make the officer feel safer. Look at some of the recent officer shootings, and asked how they would have turned out had a second officer been there from the start of the encounter.
There are no non-lethal tech that can stop someone immediately without chance of killing them.
A worse case scenario that an officer would be confronted with is a muscle bound druggie, jacked up with pcp/bath salts/etc, coming at them with murderous intent. Tasers, 12 gauge beanbags, tear gas, etc. will not work. The only way to immediately stop someone like this is with lethal force.
As far as sci fi solutions go, even the most imaginative writers of our time cannot separate risk from policing with access to any fantasy tech or magic possible.
Nope, you're going to have to go the brainwashing/programming route.
By that theory, an modern civilization which has less violent crime, less killings by police, and less killing of police is impossible (without brainwashing). How do you explain the non-US parts of the world?
Sure, we cannot make everything perfect, but "better than what we have here" is is terribly low bar to step over.
Play these and watch entire legions tremble in terror.
Not quite. Cops carry a gun to kill. Death is, indeed, a possibility of being shot, but it is not the *goal*. The goal of an LEO using a gun is to *stop* the threat. It's the best tool available for stopping a determined violent attacker. It's significantly more reliable than mace/pepper spray, tazers, etc., but even then it's not particularly consistent about the time it takes to do it's job.
A soccer referees whistle.
1) There are less-than-lethal, not non-lethal. For example, the taser is generally non-lethal but it does on occasion kill people.
2) None of the non-lethal technologies currently deployed are replacements for guns. They're in addition to. Cops have pepper spray and tasers now and look for every opportunity to use them (instead of say talking and communicating and trying to de-escalate the situation) but they still also have guns, which they also seem rather fond of using.
Education and community/individual outreach. Both by, for, of and to the police officers themselves - current and prospective - as well as of, to, for and by the public at large.
That's all.
It's not a quick fix, it's not an easy answer, and it's not one that will work unless the individuals who want reform are willing to get off their butts and do something to make it happen, as opposed to wailing and gnashing their teeth and expecting someone-/everyone-else and/or "the government" to do it for them. It won't work or happen overnight, either, but it is, unquestionably, the only reasonable, workable, and practical answer that will have any positive impact on crime as well as both public and officer safety.
"Inveniemus Viam Aut Faciemus" 'We will find a way... Or we will make one!' --Hannibal of Carthage
Rather than giving the police something new, we should remove their sidearms. Giving them something new that is non-lethal will just result in them using the new non-lethal thing widely as a form of torture or compliance against people who are slow to cooperate or say something that angers the police officer.
If police officers did not carry side arms, they would have to be more polite.
Is it too late to vote for the Fart Gun from Despicable Me?
The question asked was "What non-lethal technology out there has the best potential to be more effective at immobilizing a target and/or protecting a cop than a gun?"
As stated, the answer is nothing.
While less-lethal devices certainly have their place, ultimately a police officer needs to be able to use deadly force to protect himself and others.
Black, very sticky balls, that rapidly expand on impact. It immobilized Mr. Incredible, which is saying something.
But that presumes an operator that isn't "in fear of their life" all the time. Frankly, I'm concerned that the police are trained to be in constant fear of their life, so non-lethal options aren't realistic until that changes.
Prosecute them. Hold them to a HIGHER standard than the rest of us, not a lower one.
And who are you going to get to take a job like that? Certainly not you or most of the other whiners here who feel that being a policeman (or soldier) is beneath them already.
The lower classes may be poor and less educated but they aren't stupid enough to take a job that's a no-win situation.
We've already been through this with the now-widely-issued Taser, and I should hope some lessons have been learned.
The Taser was originally sold as a non-lethal replacement for the service pistol, as a defensive weapon. Instead we've seen Tasers widely used as compliance devices -- in other words, as a replacement for the billy club. Instead of thumping or choking an uncooperative subject, now you can zap him until he cries uncle! Rather than issue Tasers as a replacement for firearms, it's now common to see a cop with a Taser on one side of his belt and a Glock on the other -- and when they need to actually defend themselves, the Glock is what they reach for.
"Most cops are not out to kill someone" this premise is only half true.
Most cops are not out to kill someone and get in trouble because of it. They don't want to fight off murder or manslaughter charges.
Most cops fantasize about fitting a set of circumstances together so they can end someone's life with their firearm. Cops get off on power fantasies, and they view you as a threat. It doesn't take much brainpower to put 2 and 2 together; they fantasize about gunning people down.
"Suspect did (a bunch of bad things) so I had to put them down for officer safety." Eventually (a bunch of bad things) is going to include making eye contact with a police officer, walking within 5 feet of a police officer or simply wearing the wrong clothes.
Fuck every cop, every single one. There is no such thing as a good cop when they stand by and watch all the bad cops continue to be bad cops.
throw cash at people to distract and mollify them.
so how do you go about disarming a couple 100million people? realistically? how do you effectively disarm 100 million people?
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. This works for a whole country as well...
Officers don airtight headgear, and spray a 2-liter canister of thioacetone on the suspect. That should prove most effective.
Nothing will replace "the gun", unless it is a phaser type weapon. Get rid of the firearms, take them away from the law enforcement offices, soldiers etc...and you think the criminal element, will just give them up also? About as nutty as trying to keep idiots who want to shoot up a bunch of people, out of a gun free zone.
Why will making guns illegal be any more effective than making drugs illegal has been?
sig: sauer
You are so funny, Mexico has extremely strict gun laws. A peaceful gun-crime free paradise, isn't it
When I travel in asia there are a couple nice peaceful countries with a fraction of the crime rate of USA but the cops have submachine guns.
In Europe there are also gas pistols, which very closely resemble a Walther PPK or a stubby revolver, but fire cal.380 blanks which contain compressed tear gas and capsiacin (pepper powder). It makes the target unstoppable foam at eyes, nose, mouth for 20 minutes, but the effective range is only about 5-6 paces.
Most of the rubber-bullet and gas pistol varieties are actually made in Turkey, but sold under german, russian or hungarian brand names. Other european countries like Czech-Slovakia, Italy, Germany, Finland don't know about these, because they have a lot of lethal firearms in the citizens' hands.
In most of Britain, street patrol and first response police constables don't carry firearms, only body armour, CS spray and rubberized batons. There is 7x24 "flying squad" backup on the radio, with lethal H&K MP5, sitting in high-speed BMW cars with kangoroo grid and also a SWAT unit with helicopter that can be called to rappel in should the situation get really bad. This way police among the people are not seen as threatening and Blighty being an island, it is hard to escape for a cop-killer criminal. Police are usually only attacked if the criminals really wants to "shut the door loud" before leaving. This attitude is now changing because much tenor activity is coming from an anglo-american darling, the Saudi wahhabite kingdom.
What could be easily adopted for police use in the USA is rubber-slug ammo for shotguns as a less-than-lethal weapon. Traditionally, it can be fired from unmodified break-barrels (double-barrels), but in recent year newer cartridge designs appeared which can be cycled reliably in pump-action and (semi)-auto shotguns. A short (sawn-off barreled) double shotgun could be carried even by on-foot or mounted patrols, while full-lenght shotguns are already trivial for US police/sheriff car patrols.
BTW, the above comment was the only informative one pertaining to the topic, among the 364 or so, yet the hashbara commando is working to bury it. This shows how even the alternative media is at the mercy of zionism. Anyhow, as long as In-Kal Secuity and the like continue to train and indoctrinate american police, white constables will continue to kill negroes. They learn from the chosen race that arabs and all coloured are descendants of Ham and they are cursed, unworthy of life, they don't matter.
I live in an upper middle class suburb. Occasionally somebody gets upset about a ticket for rolling through a stop sign. Otherwise we don't have much controversy. The police even responded when somebody stole a toy car from my porch. I imagine that most of the officers have never even drawn their weapons. On the other hand, there are places not so far away where, if I were a cop, I'd want to walk around with my weapon constantly drawn. Those of us in the suburbs do know how to behave and to comply with police orders. If they are unlawful we'll deal with it later. Of course most of us also know deescalation techniques that we would use if the cop was having a bad day. But that's partly because the secondary consequences (ruined careers mostly) of an arrest are so severe that we aren't going to challenge authority. If somebody's life is already hopeless they aren't going to respond in the same way. And those people live in high crime areas. I really don't think police can solve this problem.
So your telling me police in countries like Mexico, or Columbia do not need guns at all? If you look at just the homicide rate alone the US is not even that bad. No I know what countries I'm not going to plan a trip to.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate
It's like the line in Austin Powers II when #2 says "Virtucon alone makes over 9 billion dollars a year!".
If you're some idiot with a grudge that's more important to you than your own freedom and well-being, maybe guns still matter. But all the smart self-serving criminals have found ways to take more than their fair share and just payed congress and the courts to make it legal. And I bet the distribution of wealth now is far more skewed than any time since guns became useful tools of death and intimidation.
By and large the US can enforce its laws, so can western European countries, so can Australia. There are any number of reasons why we're not Mexico. It's a numbers game. Reducing the numbers and types of problematic guns in problematic places in the hands of problematic people will make things better (not perfect, better). I think there's significant upside to that, it's certainly worth research and trial.
Nullius in verba
All the whiners and moaners out there are full of it. How in the hell is a police officer supposed to survive his / her shift? Oh I know! Suspect puts hand in jacket, even after being told repeatedly to keep hands in plain sight, police officer does as suggested on here and waits to see what weapon is going to be drawn. Suspect pulls out a handgun and shoots officer. Officer is amazed that it wasn't a cell phone and dies.
Unless you have been out on the street and dealt with the lowlife pieces of sh!t that have no respect for the law, you have no right to comment. No police officer goes to work and decides that today is the day I will use deadly force on a nice law abiding citizen.
Cops are not out to kill someone.
Then why do they become cops in the first place, hmm?
Nothing beats a WiFi jammer. Your neighbour is a a****e? Students in the next flat are making too much noise? Say bye bye to Youtube. ]:->
It's called a Lasso.
Proper training? Educating them that they are NOT at war with everyone "not a cop?" Maybe waiting to actually SEE a gun before firing their own? I'm just sayin'...
In a situation where lethality is required, you need a lethal weapon. It does not matter if it is a firearm, a butter knife, or a pointy stick. Making the assumption that all human beings are reasonable and capable of responding appropriately when confronted will end in the wrong lives being lost.
Ya gotta love what ya do.
They are better armed and equipped than I was, for the most part, while I served in the military.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Brave New World had the right idea.
Police work is not particularly dangerous. It's not even in the top ten, coming in well below professions such as fisherman (>8x as dangerous), logger (6x), garbage collector (2x), roofer (>2x), and airline pilot (>4x); none of whom are so prone to going on 'roid-raging power trips and murdering people as the police are.
Sources:
http://www.bloomberg.com/graph...
http://www.bankrate.com/financ...
http://www.businessinsider.com...
Imagine all the people...
...to use deadly force to defend others. You're correct that there is no legal obligation to protect others. That does not prevent police from doing so and lethal force may be needed to do so.
The quote is now "Most cops are not out to kill someone". I think most cops initially join the service because they want to help people. I suspect they get jaded after years of dealing with people at there worst. The other problem is the "most" apparently necessary in that sentence, implying some cops DO want to kill people. My need a system to identify and remove those cops from the field. Put them behind a desk where they don't have much opportunity to kill people.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
The Telescreen.
Tighter gun controls - so neither the police or the criminals are armed. Works in 90% of the civilised world - USA being the big exception. The average person does not want or need a gun, the only reason this is allowed to happen is because money comes first - money from the gun lobbyist who only serve their own interests and their own interests, is not security it is money, profits from selling guns - they don't care how they are used or who gets killed.
You guys think your still in the wild west - the world has moved on - time for you to catch up.
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/ar... Boy you are going to need a thicker sheet of foil now.
As long as the bad guys have guns, cops will need guns. Sure, most of the time something less than lethal is needed, but for those times when you're facing a bad guy with a gun, only a gun will do.
Women's education. It's not a technology, necessarily, but it will fix most societal ills that lead to the use of guns, both by the good guys and the bad guys.
This company has the right idea with their new product. As it is, it looks like they can replace cops in most minority conflicts without presumption of prejudice.
"Why will making guns illegal be any more effective than making drugs illegal has been?"
You won't find anybody willing to swallow a gun, not even if you put it in 2 preservatives.
"When I travel in asia there are a couple nice peaceful countries with a fraction of the crime rate of USA but the cops have submachine guns."
Yes and each time one of those submachine guns is used the result is dead tourists a mile away, like so many times already.
"No I know what countries I'm not going to plan a trip to.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/..."
Exactly! If you want to live, Monaco and Lichtenstein with 0 murders are the go-to-countries then.
screw that .....
They have shown they cant be trusted with a gun in public.
Arm the public and make a cop ask other citizens for help.
See that attitude of theirs change real damn quick.
Crooked cops routinely use Tasers to torture uncooperative suspects (or suspects that are dangerously blackish or brownish), so the only non-lethal weapons to even be considered must be effective, but cannot be used for torture.
Yep, I can explain why some places have lower violent crime and such. It /is/ a sort of brainwashing, but it's very long term and unguided; it's the impact of growing in a given area and being subject to it's mores and cultural specifics. This is the route that we'll need to go to actually make it safe, shown as possible by demonstration of these other less violent cultural groups. In short, when it's considered culturally unacceptable to use violence or commit crimes, we'll push the stats down far more than with laws and punitive punishments.
Remember though, the goal here is to come up with something that replaces the gun and is better at protecting police and 'immobilizing people' without hurting them. Assume all guns are removed from the hands of law enforcement. Now, how do you achieve the above objective without forcing some freedom-stripping compliance?
Sadly, there is no good mechanism for forcing a specific culture on a group of people in a polite way. The only way it's ever worked in the past is via conquering and forcing it at the end of a metaphorical (and all too often, literal) blade. You can pick psychological or physical force, but one way or another, it comes down to the elimination of personal choice and whether it's justified for the good of the ruler or the good of society, it's all the same in the end to the man on the street.
Like I stated before, you're gonna need to force change on the culture, and the only manageable way to select for the preferred outcome is, indeed, by force.
Exactly as I said above:
Sarcasm aside, guns are not meant to 'immobilize a person'. They're meant to kill. The goal of a LEO using a gun is to eliminate a threat, by killing it. That's not only to protect the LEO, but also others. As far as that goes, guns are pretty good. Not great, but not bad.
MAD works amazingly well. Not a single nuke fired in anger or accident in over 70 years.
Once idiots expect to be killed for messing with the police an armed population the smarter ones learn to behave, the dumber ones self select for removal from the gene pool. In the long run this is what is called a win-win.
Full disclosure: I live in Russia. But I see that power spoils everywhere, not only in Russia.
Do NOT give the police anything non-lethal including the traditional rubber batons.
When the cops use the lethal weapon they always know that their illegal activity may produce the evidence in form of a dead body (or at least some gun wounds that are required to be reported by doctors), and then there WILL be a due process where they should prove that the dead body has been produced legally. If there is some method to incapacitate people without killing them and producing corresponding evidence - the cops WILL use this method against any suspect.
2 Simple rule changes. All officers must wear body armor. No officer may initiate force greater than used against them. In other words. You may not touch someone until touched. You may not hit someone unless hit. You may not fire on someone unless fired upon. There were 126 officers killed in 2014 and police killed 1107 people. So who is really at risk here. We the people suffer much more harm from the cops than the cops do from us. A significant number of the police deaths could have been prevented if they had worn body armor. Proper armor would reduce the need to "protect themselves" by killing a kid with a pellet gun. Yes these rules would make policing more difficult. Instead of killing people shoot/spray/dust them with tracking aids. Then chase them slowly relentlessly until they give up or become aggressive and force must be used. The idea is to train the cops to talk people into giving up peacefully instead of needing to resort to violence. If the cops knew they could not push people around the job would not appeal to the wrong kind of people. Probably not a workable idea but it would be nice to try.
That sticky foam has a lot of potential but will surely cause a few deaths in use. Imagine a gunman barricaded in a home and the foam sprays in and fills the room right to the ceiling. No air is more than a trivial problem. Smaller canisters of foam are bound to go off inside squad cars now and then just as mace and pepper spray have caused lethal wrecks inside squad cars.
works every time
Yes, RoboCop notwithstanding, remote-controlled robot go-betweens could cut down considerably on the amount of gun deaths and injuries caused by police.
Why are the police in the USA always so hair-trigger ready to tase/tackle/shoot someone? Because they are worried (sometimes with justification) about being shot or injured themselves. Whenever they see something that triggers their threat alarm, they have a few hundred milliseconds to decide whether the threat is real, and if so, how to defend themselves -- and if they get it wrong, they could end up dead, or alternatively end up killing an innocent person. Humans being what they are, it's no real surprise that both types of mistake get made, with the latter happening more than the former.
But what if, hypothetically, the policeman was immune to all damage? Then he wouldn't even need to carry a gun; he could just calmly walk towards someone who was emptying a clip into him, and when all the bullets had been shot, handcuff the guy and take him to jail.
Of course that's not practical, but the next-best thing is, or will be at some point in the not-too-distant future: instead of the policeman sending himself into harm's way, he'll send his unarmed bot over to investigate. Via the bot, he'll be able to talk remotely to the people in the (car/building/whatever) and determine whether or not they are a threat. If they are co-operative he can tell them what he needs them to do to resolve (or at least, secure) the situation; if not, he can call for backup. In no case does he have any fear for his own safety, and thus he has no (rational) reason to shoot anyone.
In the worst-case scenario, someone shoots the robot, in which case the police department has to repair it or buy a new one, but by that time the shooter's name, face, and license plate have already been captured and uploaded, so it's just a matter of time until the shooter is caught anyway.
We already use this sort of technology for bomb-refusal and hostage situations, it's just a matter of time before it becomes practical for everyday interactions. Robots aren't quite fast or dextrous enough yet, but in a few years they will be.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Herkimer Battle Jitney. 'Nuff said.
Almost every single posting here uses words that blame the police. "When I was a kid, cops were different". "Cops are dicks". "Cops are just itching to use force". "They're waiting for the situation to go south".
What about our people and their attitudes towards the police? We as a society have become so self absorbed that it is impossible for us to admit we are wrong. By extension that we're doing anything wrong and that we need to adjust our behavior. In fact, it has become so amazing that whole blocks of our nation believe it proper to confront the police at the site of any arrest or even field interview. If your job is to arrest a misdemeant, book him for no more than a night and then expect he will be released with a court date, do you go into the situation expecting to be spat upon, assaulted or the target of mob rage? Now, add that increasing threat to your safety and see what happens? Believe me, when a crowd is confronting you and suddenly believes it acceptable to touch or move you, the use of force is going to escalate very quickly.
With the exception of a few "what on earth just happened?" moments, the guy who is being arrested or the idiot in the crowd were not killed for jaywalking. They were killed for taking an action that either placed the officer that fired the shots in fear for his life or the life of someone nearby. Instantaneous accusations of excessive force or a demand for a trial are simply camera play. There is a process. The process works. There is a reason that grand juries don't generally charge officers - the officer acted prudently. The legal community uses a standard line in dealing with a grand jury, "I could indict a ham sandwich". For an attorney to make such a broad statement and officers to routinely walk away from a grand jury should mean something to those that aren't screaming the company line of prejudice.
Yes, I said prejudice. The people screaming about brutality, murder and demanding a trial for the "crime" are prejudiced. They have made up their minds, without evidence.
This is the United States of America. We have a Constitution, generally two sets of fairly specific laws that govern an area and perhaps a common heritage. You have the right to film and confront the police. You have the right to demand redress in the courts. You absolutely do not have the responsibility. It is not your personal niche in life to make sure that there are no arrests and that the police are doing exactly what you agree with. They do not work for you directly. You are not judge, jury, police commissioner and district attorney. Shut up and get out of the way. Film the "injustice" of the arrest if you must. Lord knows, the whole thing will be quarterbacked every mondy between now and the trial anyway.
There is no substitute for lethal force. Anyone who believes in such a thing might as well look for unicorns. Our society has adopted lethal force as the new normal. Guns are not the only weapons, but they are the only ones that are effective in the time frame necessary to keep someone from slitting a throat or stabbing. This is especially in a world filled with prison trained fighters, MMA enthusiasts and tweakers. Give the police some new tools that can quickly incapacitate and they will gladly use them. Short of a TV remote like "Off" switch to keep a perp from doing harm, the gun will remain on the belt.
What happens when you are approached by the police is up to you. Calmly speaking to the officer, making no furtive movements and keeping your hands in view will keep you alive. If you are going to be taken into custody, for the sake of your life, comply. Your freedom ends when the cuffs come out. Your rights do not. But seriously, which do you prefer: to be a righteous corpse with a candlelight vigil or to be a wronged guy with a tort case? As soon as you begin swinging so as not to be taken into custody, you are taking your life in your hands.
And for the love of God stop doing Meth, Heroin, Cocaine and Bath Salts.
Ropes and nets can work for hunting, too.
It's too late for a ten year old boy though.
http://www.sltrib.com/news/305...
Another approach would be to REMOVE ALL PENALTIES FOR SHOOTING ANYONE THAT IS CARRYING A GUN. That would be an incentive for police to use other methods since they wouldn't be excluded. They apparently can use fear as justification for shooting - others experience fear too.
Also, gun ownership should bring automatic signup for the draft. Can you say Syria?
Gun owners, vendors, and manufacturers should also be held liable, and required to be heavily insured if they aren't rich.
Use Nukes.
Non lethal my ass.
Guns are lethal.
aaaaaaa
it varies wildly year per year: but per year in america the police interact with around 150-200 million citizens a year, out of those 150-200 million interactions they make 15-20 million arrests, ( http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/aus9010.pdf )
of those 15-20 million arrests, around a thousand result in a death.
http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/ard0309st.pdf
of those deaths, a little over half are "homicide" as in, caused by the officer in some manner. note that, for the uninformed "homicide" is not "murder" though "murder" is "homicide"
murder is the premeditated, unjustified taking of another humans life. homicide is a human causing the death of another human.
of those six hundred "homicides" the vast majority are straightforward, idiot with a gun or knife trying to not go to jail.
of the ~30-40 a year, which are NOT straightforward and direct, the VAST majority are dealt with cleanly and aboveboard with only a handful being dealt with deceptively or incorrectly. and on those 3-5 a year where something BAD happens, we need to be screaming bloody murder.
But 3-5 a year, out of 200 million interactions is amazingly good statistics. for example the malpractice numbers in america make the murder rate in mexico look like a playground party =)
i see a lot of rhetoric in other responses about how it's the police's fault you go to jail for smoking a joint, or for not stopping at a stop sign, or other idiocy.
Well, you don't "accidentally" smoke a joint. you know it's illegal, and you do it anyway. by breaking the law, intentionally, knowing that it's illegal, you are the only person responsible for the action and the punishment for that action.
instead of breaking the law and crying foul when you get caught and punished you need to be working to Change the law you don't like. breaking the law because you don't like it, violent or not, makes you a criminal. and our society deals with criminals by arresting them, fining them the cost of their journey through the legal system and applying punitive measures in the form of fines or imprisonment as a means for paying for the crime you've committed, and as an incentive not to continue breaking the law.
instead of getting angry at the 1,000,000 or so good police officers in america who are forces for good, instead of being ignorant and uninformed and eating the media bias and rhetoric, look at statistics and facts then step back and wonder "Why am i being intentionally uninformed by our media, and why was i so stupid as to not do my own research"
As for the OP, Nothing. nonlethals don't penetrate leather or thick clothing, or body armor, or vehicles, or glass. there is no nonlethal solution to "stopping police violence" and "police violence" is a falsehood being used to control your mind and heart.
I agree with you; it's our culture that needs to improve. We need to lose the "Clint Eastwood" mentality of "I can fix this by killing the bad guys"; in real life, that trick never works. For one thing, we're really bad at figuring out who the bad guy is. Also, bad guys deserve a trial not a summary execution.
But I think it's more complex than you seem to imply. Southern towns in the mid-1900s were very friendly, peaceful places full of gentle people who loved their families... until someone dark-skinned was accused of a crime. Then the ropes were thrown over a tree limb.
And today, the police officer who puts his live on the line to protect kids from a shooter may be the same one who shoots an unarmed dark-skinned suspect. We're all full of prejudices which we cannot see and hotly deny. Europe is much less violent than the US, except that recently the immigration issues are causing peaceful people who love their families to commit violence (often because they somehow think this protects their families).
I don't know the perfect solution, but "more guns" doesn't seem to be it. "Fewer guns" seems to help but is not enough on its own.
A megaphone. Use the megaphone to tell the guy that if he does not drop the weapons, he will be sprayed with the non-toxic chemical (that was developed in Israel). That non-toxic chemical is an editble chemical that smells worse than a skunk's spray, and persists for days.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
The best less-lethal weapon is the human brain. "Less-lethals" like tasers are just being used as torture devices, see for instance cops in Georgia who in January used a taser to genital torture a mentally ill black man to death, on video. Disarm the police or abolish them entirely. They're supposed to be civil servants, not foot soldiers in a ground war against minorities and poor people.
They shoot non-toxic foam that expands, and is sticky, then hardens into soft and rubbery in 10-20 seconds.
Cop shoots perp who soon is covered, sticky and cumbersome as the foam builds up. If he fell over = stuck to the ground.
He might overheat, since foam is an insulator. It would be soft enough to manually remove from mouth/nose.
Biggest problem would be the mass a cop would have to carry. At 1 pound per cubic foor he could easily carry 20 pounds, plus the 10 pound ejector.
A car could carry lots = good crowd control weapon.
clean up = a problem.
The need for a gun is indicative of failure.
I liked the concept of "Binding Foam" and "Sick Sticks."
There was also the tech in "Continuum" where the cop injects the perp with a drug that becomes unbearably painful in a couple of hours unless s/he reports to the precinct for lockup.
Read Manna (by Marshall Brain) http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm
Ventebrain not only would allow you to interact with the web and virtual worlds seemlessly, but it would also prevent your mind from telling your body to pull the trigger if the gun your holding is pointing at someone. The cops would be virtual, there would be no need for physical police at all, since the computer would simply direct your body NOT to do criminal acts. Think about doing them all you want, but you would be prevented from actually DOING them.
Now, I'm NOT going to go into all the ramifications of such a system (there's lots of material there for some really good sci-fi).
But it's food for thought, and Manna is a good read even if it is a little far-fetched.
The term you are looking for is "less lethal". Any incapacitating device can cause death in a some.
It's painfully obvious what replaces the gun. Teaching, nurturing, and environment.
Many people are absolutely trustworthy, even with nuclear weapons at their fingertips. Other people are so dangerous they have to be locked in cages, with extremely limited, controlled levels of contact with others.
Granted, some of the difference is related to dysfunctional brain processing, such as genetic defects, or psychological / physiological trauma. Another problem is unnecessary stress. Many animals will begin lashing out at those around them if enough stress is introduced into their environment.
The only argument for a gun ban (the goal of all gun control efforts) is that guns are immediately available, and most killers claim that, had they been able to "cool down" they would not have acted. That's true most of the time after a homicide -- no doubt the pressure cooker perp in Boston would say the same thing. Or the knife, club, and stone crowd. A lot of animals feel confused after a lash-out incident. Generally, they weren't expecting the cascade towards rage to creep up on them in such an insidious way.
The worst solution -- as usual -- is the one being proposed by the progressive democrats and the gun control advocates. It's childish flailing at a serious issue, the worst possible way to find a solution. Gun control always "progresses" to a ban, and they keep denying their true intentions -- they are liars. Gun control is rarely, if ever, a factor in murder of any kind. It's easily bypassed, as seen in the myriad nations that have complete gun bans, or with the substitution of another tool, such as a stone, club, or box cutter. Other nations with total gun bans often have homicide rates far in excess of any level seen in the US.
The US homicide rates are as low as they were in the 1950's, well before NICs, and well before the peak seen during the reign of Bill Clinton and Oprah, when the people of the deep blue, democratic party strongholds were lashing out at each other in record numbers. As we saw the other day, the current President blames all of America, not the perpetrator. This is a common trait among progressive democrats.
Mental illness -- at least the easily detectable kinds -- are also a negligible issue. Many mental health professionals have warned that sensationalising these stories, and blaming the mentally ill, just makes things worse. In the midst of the Confederate flag absurdity, two doctors said that it was a statistical coin toss -- about the same as the general population -- as to whether any of their patients would harm another person. The NICs system, developed in the 1960's by the two parties, and the NRA, already has several paths to removal of the 2nd amendment right. Somehow, the progressive democrats believe that more is better.
Far more likely is the sad reality that we are living in a time of a primitive, 6 B. strong human primate infestation of the planet. Most have never seen a science book, or any book, other than a religious text. The interpretation of the teacher is often anti-science, anti-reason, and anti-America. Many human primates are being pushed and prodded to compete, sometimes violently, and consume greatly, for the benefit of a small group of self-proclaimed wealthy elites.
If we can find a way to destress the human primate population with low-cost, widely available food, sex, and interesting activities, a lot of stress of any kind would go away. Widespread food production, easily obtained sexual gratification, interesting activities for human primates (posting opinions on slashdot, etc) should dramatically reduce the desire to lash out on the innocent. Not to zero, but a great improvement. Welcome, Internet.
The sad truth is we've spent trillions on "great society" programs, we have a horrifically expensive education monopoly, we have junk products everywhere, poverty rates that have remained stagnant or increased for every demographic other than the elderly since the mid-1960's, angry groups and individuals lashing out with w
There is not such thing as "Non-Lethal". They are now called "Less than Lethal" but that is not so good a term, either.
A weapon capable of stopping a large animal or human, before they do serious damage, is going to have a possibility of lethal results.
And even when we have better technology, it will probably still be true. Just less likely, hopefully.
I think the police should carry something besides a gun, but when people are afraid of each other it will always be dangerous.
I also think that people tend to think nothing will ever harm them, particularly when they are young. That makes them do stupid stuff that is dangerous.
There might be no cure for stupid...
That's a loaded question.
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A problem can be where if even one of the bad cops is so politically connected that testifying against them does nothing other than end the careers of those who tesitfy. I've seen that and all the honest cops could do was keep their heads down for nine years until a change in government meant that the corrupt could finally be put on trial and imprisoned.
All very nice little personal definitions but if you want to communicate effectively I suggest using what the dictionary provides to avoid confusion and ridicule.
Not as such and repeating this personal definition just makes you appear like that guy that writes about a dozen senses because he calls each combination a new sense without any reference to the way that other people describe things.
Exactly... and, aren't drugs like meth and heroin (and even weed) illegal? AFAIK, it isn't very hard to obtain any of them (so I have heard, I personally do not partake). Laws do not pertain to criminals. And the lawful aren't a threat. So, I just do not understand the logic behind disarmament of the American citizen, other than some conspiracy-theory end-game oppressive Federal government takeover. Though I dare Feinstein and Obama to practice what they preach, and make all of their personal safety squads gun-free. They won't, of course.
bugs2squash is making references to "how successful other countries have been in driving up the bar to there being a gun involved in crime", without any citations. Most of those "studies" have been proven to be backed and cherry-picked by the anti-gun establishment. Not that the pro-gun crowd is any less innocent in this manner...
Look at the highest gun crime areas in the US: Detroit and Chicago being two of the biggest offenders. Both cities have strict anti-gun laws and neither have concealed carry. Proof that disarmament and laws do not help stop gun-related crimes, and may even increase the number of them. Unexpected consequences.
Meanwhile back in reality police and supermarket staff do not implement such stupid shit for plastic knives despite whatever that utterly clueless person who put together that FAQ wrote. I'm an Australian, not someone like you raving on about a fantasy Australia out of "Mad Max", and that proof of age thing does not apply to cutlery although I have seen it applied for chef's knives. So no chef's knives for kids but if you are over 18 you can buy a fucking great big sword if you want to (http://www.warsword.com.au/).
Your own link contradicts you
Such dishonesty of link spamming with links that contradict the point they are pretending to reinforce, presumably in the hope that people will trust you instead of following the link, is somewhat disgusting.
I really do not get why people such as yourself lower themselves to such a level of dishonesty over what should be a trivial issue.
It looks like you gambled on nobody from Australia contradicting you and then gambled on nobody following the link put up as "proof".
I'm sure your parents raised you to be a better person than this. Stop that backsliding and make them proud instead of this pointless dishonesty over a mere hobby.
It's because human nature is very much a "us vs them" evolutionary strategy. You can even see it in the school yards. We are one of the few species on the planet that have trust between thousands of individuals. Chimps, dogs, etc... have a social structure that is based on individuals knowing each other personally. Humans have the unique ability to have a chain of trust from one person to the next to the next so that you have entire communities where there is a mutual level of trust. Any time "something bad" happens, in order to maintain that circle of trust, it is human nature to go on a witch hunt and decide what made this person different and immediate exclude them from your group so as to maintain the illusion of safety.
Sarcasm aside, guns are not meant to 'immobilize a person'. They're meant to kill. The goal of a LEO using a gun is to eliminate a threat, by killing it. That's not only to protect the LEO, but also others. As far as that goes, guns are pretty good. Not great, but not bad.
Most cops would prefer to have a suspect come quietly. They don't want the danger or the paperwork that comes with shooting a gun. If they had an effective way to magically put the suspect safely cuffed into the back of their car then they would prefer to use that to using their gun.