Sweeping stun guns to target crowds (for use against protesters?)

[The Sushi Bandit]

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996014

Weapons that can incapacitate crowds of people by sweeping a lightning-like beam of electricity across them are being readied for sale to military and police forces in the US and Europe.

At present, commercial stun guns target one person at a time, and work only at close quarters. The new breed of non-lethal weapons can be used on many people at once and operate over far greater distances.

But human rights groups are appalled by the fact that no independent safety tests have been carried out, and by their potential for indiscriminate use.

[indepat]

1. Welcome to BushWorld

[Coventina]

2. Yeah, the Chinese gov't would have liked to have had those

Immobilize all the protesters in Tiennaman Square, then roll over them with tanks.

These things sound like a BRILLIANT invention!
:puke:

[whistle]

3. Oh boy, will our top gun president George Bush....

...get to fire the first crowd zapping shot in New York during the convention? These are far from non-lethal even when used on individuals. A sweeping lightning-like beam of electricity across a crowd could do irreparable damage to those struck.

The (painful) body electric
January 15, 2004, 4:00 AM PT
By Michael Kanellos

In case you've ever wondered, a blast from a Taser--the electronic gun police use to stun criminals--hurts.

It's like having nail guns applied to your hands and feet while you're being dunked in a vat of boiling water. I learned this the hard way, during a live demonstration at the Computer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, which ended Sunday. (Taser International showed up, because it is bringing a model to the consumer market, for personal protection, in July.)

Worse, you remain fully conscious. So for the single second the 50,000 volts from the gun coursed through my system, I could hear myself shout, "AAH! STURG! AAH!" at the top of my lungs in the crowded Las Vegas Convention Center.

At least I didn't fall to my feet, or so I thought.

"I was holding you up," said Mark Johnson, government affairs manager at Taser. "Don't you remember? At the end, you were on the ground." "Do it again. The shutter didn't click," the guy who had agreed to take my picture said. "Yeah, do it again," the 30 people who had gathered around the booth to watch me writhe yelled. A typical blast goes on for a paralyzing 10 seconds but can last up to a full minute.
I refused.

In the tech world, there are companies developing products that will do things for you, but there's also a small but growing number promoting products that will do things to you.

Medicine, many say, will be revolutionized in a few years, as silicon is combined with manufacturing techniques into testing equipment. Sensant, for example, has developed tiny silicon drums that can produce better-defined ultrasound images of tumors than traditional techniques can. Verimetra is promoting chips for catheters that can monitor blood temperature.

And then there are those bridging the body-machine gap in the consumer market. Among them:

Taser International
The Taser "personal energy weapons" coming to the consumer market are similar to the ones the U.S. military in Iraq and cops all over the United States are using. In a nutshell, the gun shoots a metal pointer that trails up to 15 feet of metal wire.

When the pointer hits a conductive surface like a body, 50,000 volts of electricity flow. A typical blast goes on for a paralyzing 10 seconds but can last up to a full minute. A concealable 7-ounce model will cost about $999, while bulkier home models will sell for about $500.

Long-term health impacts have yet to be found, Johnson said. Police have had to use these weapons on a 7-year-old kid, on a 93-year-old man and on people with pacemakers, as well as in other situations. No one has died, according to Taser. Confetti-like tags spring out of the gun when it's shot, too--so it can be traced, if used in criminal activity. Still, do you want a nonlethal gun in the same home as a 13-year-old boy?

[AtTheEndOfTheDay]

4. I laughed at your last comment.

Ask my parents about their son shooting a tear gas gun in the house when he was that age, yes, yours truly. It was present for weeks afterward. Fun.

[Thor_MN]

5. I can't help but think that most of these could be defeated in a crowd

situation by have some well placed grounding rods. I suppose they would just tear gas you away from the defensive area and then stun you...

I read something about a projected microwave beam that activates your pain nerve cells, but is supposedly harmless. That one makes me think that aluminum foil undies really do have a place in the world...

[Mr.Green93]

6. it could set one's dental fillings on fire

[loudsue]

7. I would like to REMIND our law enforcement people that it is IN THE

CONSTITUTION AND BILL OF RIGHTS that "the people" have a RIGHT, no, A DUTY to rise up and overthrow our government, when it ceases to represent our wishes.

It's IN THERE! Read it!! (Oh, I forgot! Repukes don't read!)

:kick::kick::kick::kick:

[number6]

8. Welcome to Bush(POLICE STATE)World

:( :( :(

[bobthedrummer]

9. Well the USMC has just deployed the first ever Non-Lethal military unit

to Iraq-they have all kinds of horrible directed energy devices and systems. These can easily be lethal, btw-as the Moscow theater hostage situation proved. Here's a list of some of the arsenal.

Non-Lethal Terms and References (USAF/1996)
http://www.adacomp.net/~mcherney/nonlethal.html

[Guaranteed]

10. Our local ACLU chapter is currently fighting the police department's plan

to buy $100,000+ worth of stun gun equipment to use against protestors.

[Carolab]

11. Just in time

For the Repug convention in New York...

[mmonk]

12. Wonder what would happen

if the protesters carried stun guns for their protection? That would be whacked out (if there was a shootout of stun guns). I also wonder what would happen if stun guns became readily available to the wrong people.

[Nihil]

13. Too much time spent playing games?

> Instead of using fibres, the $9000 Close Quarters Shock Rifle projects
> an ionised gas, or plasma, towards the target, producing a conducting
> channel. It will also interfere with electronic ignition systems and
> stop vehicles.
>
> "We will be able to fire a stream of electricity like water out of a
> hose at one or many targets in a single sweep," claims XADS president
> Peter Bitar.

Just like the "hosepipe" in "Half-Life" ... fry the sh*t out of people
until the batteries run out ...

> XADS is also planning a more advanced weapon which it hopes will have
> a range of 100 metres or more. Instead of firing ionised gas, it will
> probably use a powerful laser to ionise the air itself.
>
> This intense pulse - which is said not to harm the eyes - ionises
> the air, producing long, thread-like filaments of glowing plasma
> that can be sustained by repeating the pulse every few milliseconds.
> This plasma channel is then used to deliver a shock to the victims
> similar to a Taser's 50,000-volt, 26-watt shock.

I'm glad that a repeating laser pulse (500-1000 pulses per second),
each pulse of which has enough intensity to ionise the air for 100m or
more, somehow fails to harm any eyes that it traverses.

Each pulse lasts 0.4 picoseconds and is equated to a momentary power
of more than 10 TeraWatts.

Gee, the wonders of modern technology ...

Hmmm ... Oh I see! As they're using a UV laser then it can't affect
our eyes as we can't see UV! </sarcasm>
FWIW, the letters were etched into the human hair in this photo using
a (medical) UV laser.

[dbt]

14. Where ARE the debunkers?

If you had posted something like this a year ago, the DU Truth Squad would've been all over you, pelting you with phrases like "tinfoil hat" and "conspiracy theory." You would have seen plenty of "scientific evidence" that such devices "couldn't possibly work and here's why."

The more bu$hco takes us Through The Looking Glass, the less the Debunkers have to say, it seems.

:freak:
dbt