Less Than Lethal Weapons

 For this week's topic that follows my blog of technological advancements in law enforcement, I'd like to take a look at some of the sophisticated weaponry available to police departments today, that are known as "less than lethal weapons".

 First off, notice the term "less than lethal", this term was coined for these weapons as an alternative to deadly force used to subdue a subject. The term used to be known as "non lethal" however, it was replaced as many automatically assumed that non lethal weapons should not cause any harm to the subject. The fact of the matter is although these weapons shouldn't kill you, they could cause serious injury.

 One of the most common piece of less than lethal weaponry is in the form of a bean bag shotgun or rubber bullet shotgun. This is used in instances of crowd control when crowds get rowdy. Bean begs and or rubber bullet/pellets are fired from the shotgun striking an individual. If used correctly the side effects should simply be a large welt on the non-compliant individual. Below is a picture of a beanbag shotgun and its rounds. The beanbag shotgun has been criticized for causing severe injury in people when the round goes array and hits a critical feature of their body. All too often people blame the weapon and not the user. The weapon is designed to do the job it's supposed to do, however its path of trajectory is totally dependent upon the operator.

 In the past decade one of the most popular less than lethal weapons is the electronic taser. The taser has been widely criticized and researchers go back and forth on whether or not the taser was the cause of death in instances where people have died from being struck with the weapon. The taser was developed as a modern day electronic "stun gun". There are two ways to deploy the taser, you can drive the weapon into the subjects upper thigh area, known as a "drive stun" or you can deploy two metal probes (think fish hooks), into the non compliant subjects body area, which creates two current points for the electric current to travel. Either way, the taser is designed to deploy a short burst of high voltage electric current that will leave the subject momentarily incapacitated. This allows for officers to take control of the subject and handcuff him/her in the proper manner. I personally have seen the taser work in a situation where I responded to a house burglary. The subject came from the house as I approached, I confronted the suspect who refused to show me his hands. Given the magnitude of the crime, and his refusal to obey my commands further putting me in fear that he had a weapon, my partner deployed the taser, temporarily incapacitated the suspect and handcuffed him. Found on his person was a loaded subcompact pistol.

 These two weapons are only two of the most common used less than lethal weapons available to law enforcement today. Do a search for less than lethal weapons on the Internet and there are all sorts of products out there today. Although some of them are criticized, until you use them in a real life situation where it actually saves your life as well as the suspects life, criticism should be limited.