New Rifle Tech Offers Variable Muzzle Speed 443
Ponca City, We love you writes "A gun that fires variable-speed bullets that can be set to kill, wound, or just inflict a bruise is being built by a Lund and Company Invention, a toy design studio that makes toy rockets powered by burning hydrogen obtained by electrolyzing water. The company is being funded by the US Army to adapt the technology to fire bullets instead. The new weapon, called the Variable Velocity Weapon System or VWS, lets the soldier use the same rifle for crowd control and combat, by altering the muzzle velocity. It could be loaded with 'rubber bullets' designed only to deliver blunt impacts on a person, full-speed lethal rounds, or projectiles somewhere between the two. Bruce Lund, the company's CEO, says the gun works by mixing a liquid or gaseous fuel with air in a combustion chamber behind the bullet. This determines the explosive capability of the propellant and consequently the velocity of the bullet. 'Projectile velocity varies from non-lethal at 10 meters, to lethal at 100 meters or more, as desired,' says Lund. The existing VWS design is a .50 caliber (12.7 mm) rifle weapon, but Lund says the technology can be scaled to any size, 'handgun to Howitzer.'"
Set rifle to stun! (Score:5, Insightful)
Great, a rifle with a stun setting!
I would not want to be the guy that tests the low setting (or the high one for that matter) to make sure it isn't fatal!
Phazers set to stun... (Score:5, Insightful)
So... hopefully no one forgets to flip the switch from kill to stun.
Overuse again... (Score:5, Insightful)
We had those growing up -- we called them BB guns.
4 pumps would not hurt a girl.
10 pumps to use on family members.
15 pumps for neighbor's kids
20 pumps for the kill.
Seriously though, I shudder with all of the implications of "nonlethal" technology in police hands. It rapidly leads to overuse. Remember the bean bag to the head that killed the girl celebrating the Red Sox victory? The current rash of taser (over)use?
Oops (Score:5, Insightful)
While this may seem like a great idea, I think the concept encourages the use of weapons in crowd control more. When that weapon used in crowd control can become lethal through carelessness, you're just waiting for disaster.
There have to be better means of crowd supression rather than using weapons that can be lethal.
Re:Wikileaks says Army prototype has 16 settings: (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems appropriate: safe non-lethal weapons are pretty much science fiction.
Oh, good. (Score:4, Insightful)
More 'non-lethal' force options - to use against 'undesirable' expressions by the domestic populations of 'liberal democracies' - that have lawfully assembled against the wishes of their 'representatives'. [guardian.co.uk]
This is worse than the sub-harmonic puke-ray, or the microwave brain-fryer.
Welcome to the movie, "Brazil."
Sorry (Score:3, Insightful)
Opps, my bad
I thought I had it on stun...
I can see it now... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Oops (Score:5, Insightful)
is it still a gun with all those bells & whist (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Phazers set to stun... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, this kind of gun is an accident just waiting to happen.
So much for "don't point your gun at something you don't intend to kill."
Re:Oh, good. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Overuse again... (Score:5, Insightful)
taser misuse is drastically overstated. i'll grant there is probably isolated cases of cops abusing their powers, but they would do that taser or not. they are just bad cops, taking the taser away changes nothing.
I disagree. For example, in the instance of the elderly woman in the retirement home that made a big splash in the press, I seriously doubt the cop would have hit her with a baton or shot her with a pistol. The fact that is was a taser and just for "disabling without hurting" probably made a large difference in the way he made his choice.
That is not to say I don't think non-lethal options such as a taser are a bad idea or cause more harm than good; only that we should consider whether this new technology will cause more harm or good and whether training will change that.
Re:It's interesting... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm sure they were given the whole 'you will be helping to secure America' bullshit / assuaging.
Much more likely they were given the whole 'you will be given a whole heap of money' line.
croud control (Score:2, Insightful)
So we aim at you, you don't know what comes out it's other end
G
Impossible to identify non-lethal attacks (Score:5, Insightful)
With such a weapon the supposed target would never be able to distinguish between lethal and non-lethal attacks, and any mistake can turn out deadly -- you will either have a cop unknowingly shooting lethal bullets, or fleeing person returning fire with a regular gun, believing that cops are trying to kill him. Or both at the same time. The right thing to do is to go into the opposite direction -- making lethal and non-lethal weapons so different that it will be impossible to take one for another even from a distance. Like the difference that exists now between a gun and a club, or between uniforms and equipment of soldiers (who always shoot to kill) and riot police (that is expected to never use anything deadly).
Re:Oh, good. (Score:5, Insightful)
Or, more realistically, more force options, to be used properly and improperly as befits human beings who are far less than perfect.
Something abused != Something bad. That is the more tired and idiotic argument of the 'all weapons should be lethal' crowd.
This is going to be an interesting innovation if it works as advertised. Should especially make the more dangerous situations (capture alive and hostage) easier to deal with since the soldiers will have guns that can shoot to kill or injure, allowing them to fire into situations they normally couldn't.
Spud gun (Score:3, Insightful)
So essentially it's a fancy potato launcher?
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Oh, good. (Score:4, Insightful)
So basically, you think people you disagree with have no right to free speech?
I remember that story... (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't have a link to the story, but the old lady was in a wheelchair. She had no weapons. The policeman hit her with a taser because she was upset.
Honestly, I think that the police need to be held to account for EVERY use of their weapons, lethal or otherwise. They account for every bullet. They should have to account for every taser zap, and there should be a commission of citizens that judge cases of police misconduct in every precinct, the way some do now.
Nothing new here (Score:3, Insightful)
Liquid and gas-propelled projectiles are not new and have been used in a variety of weapons for over ninety years. The drawback to this scheme is hydrogen's energy density. It is not even remotely close to single or double-base smokeless propellants. This is unlikely to go anywhere.
Re:Overuse again... (Score:5, Insightful)
...all police get to experience the taser and pepper spray before they are issued the gear, so they know it hurts like a motherfucker.
Sorry, but this is completely untrue. I know a number of police officers and my brother used to be one. I just double checked with him. He was issued police grade pepper spray but neither he nor any of the other cops he knew had tried it on themselves. A couple of them had tried stun guns on themselves, but just horsing around, not as part of training.
i can't find the specifics of the case you are talking about, but i'm assuming since you didn't state she died, that she didn't. until you post a link to a news article i'm going to point out even old grannies can wield a knife.
Strangely I assumed typing "elderly woman taser" into Google would bring up the article. Instead it seems to bring up articles about dozens of different incidents. a good one [local6.com] is this one here. The woman was in a wheelchair and was wielding weapons, but since she was elderly and immobilized, without tasers they could have simply waited her out or used a different non-lethal solution instead of tasering her over and over again until she died. Read that article and tell me if you honestly think the cops would have killed her if they did not have tasers.
i will say one thing though. private security shouldn't be issued tasers. all the cases i can find where it was really misused has been private security guards.
Amnesty international's report on taser abuse lists hundreds of deaths, but the vast majority seem to be police (not private security) using them on people who did not pose an immediate threat to the officers or others.
Really, I think tasers can be a great benefit to law enforcement. I just think they have been deployed without proper training or guidelines for when they can be used, and this has lead to overuse and abuse. The same problem is a very real concern with other, new, less-lethal technologies.
Re:Wikileaks says Army prototype has 16 settings: (Score:3, Insightful)
Rule #1 of Marksmanship (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I remember that story... (Score:1, Insightful)
Interesting, but perhaps not what it seems. (Score:4, Insightful)
This technology really doesn't see best suited for hand weapons. A single external pack of liquid or gaseous propellant really doesn't seem like a good idea for an infantry weapon. At best it adds a further degree of complication to cleaning and maintaining the weapon, and at worst makes it more dangerous to use than current designs.
Police use? The money would be better spent on more training, I'd suspect.
Now a tank or naval gun might be a very interesting environment for a system like this. Because the propellant would be pumped separately from the projectile, shells would be smaller/lighter than conventional shells of a similar caliber. The autoloader could be smaller and lighter, thereby making the turret smaller. Likewise, it would be easier to compartmentalize the propellant separately from the fighting compartment. The tanks could conform to available space, taking up less interior room. Guns could fire in either a flat or arcing trajectory as well, making them more flexible.
The problem of having the propellant under pressure could be a serious fire hazard, of course...
Re:Oh, good. (Score:5, Insightful)
You still don't point them at someone who is complying with the law...
Once you have enough laws you can point them at anyone.
Re:Oh, good. (Score:4, Insightful)
Which means our military is increasingly seeing it's own populace as being the target, not an enemy nation.
Either that, or they expect to fight enemies that embed themselves in civilian populations and use human shields. You know,
Re:Oh, good. (Score:5, Insightful)
You might be right for soldiers since they tend to have different objectives and priorities, but I'm not as sure about this for civilian police forces. Most police forces which I know of are trained that if they're going to shoot at all, they should be shooting to kill. There's generally good reasoning behind this too, because you probably shouldn't be shooting someone at all unless you or someone else is in immediate and serious danger from them. If that's the case, why put the outcome in doubt by trying to be non-leathal about it and making it much harder to avoid screwing up?
Irrespective of the mode, you're still propelling a projectile at someone. It's either going to kill them, hurt and stop them, hurt them without stopping them, or not affect them at all. If you're trying to tune things to get a specific outcome (hurting and definitely stopping) instead of one of the extremes, it'll be much harder to get it right and you're at a higher risk of screwing things up. The speed of the projectile certainly won't be the only deciding factor.
Re:Oh, good. (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a problem with "non-lethal." The problem is that, such as with Tasers, they are used far more often than philosophically intended. If Tasers were only used as proscribed, (i.e. as a substitute for a gun) they'd be great, but because of the "non-lethal" label, they get overused in situations when a gun would never be appropriate (such as when escorting a political protester from a public gathering, or shutting up a smart mouthed and cuffed suspect).
Re:I can see it now... (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually I don't think the military cares about using this gun for crowd control. It has been pursing caseless ammunition for years because of cost and logistical advantages. I think the 'variable force' is just icing on the cake.
Re:Oh, good. (Score:1, Insightful)
The prob with 'nonl-lethal' weapons is that they are more likely to be used.
The fallacy in the claim of non-lethality is... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Oh, good. (Score:3, Insightful)
"Yeah. Our military is moving from war fighting to crowd control.
Which means our military is increasingly seeing it's own populace as being the target, not an enemy nation."
That's a pretty big leap to say that because you think the military is moving away from war fighting and towards crowd control, that the military is seeing it's own people as the target. If you look at the past couple of conflicts/wars/skirmishes that our military has been used in, the time actually fighting is starting to decline, and we are starting to perform a more nation building/police function. For instance, when troops were brought in to Bosnia, yes, they did some fighting, but they ended up staying for quite some time as part of the NATO peace keeping force, where one of the activities would be crowd control in certain situations (in a foreign country).
Our military has no desire to provide "crowd control" for our population (let alone it's illegal. That's why a state governor must always request assistance from the DoD to get assistance from anything but their state "militias" (national guard/air national guard). The active duty military can't just role into your town and start bossing you around.)
Keep in mind it's very easy to think of the "military" as one big bad/evil organization, but in reality the military is made up of so many individuals from so many different walks of life/political views/etc. They would never allow the "military" to be abuse for something like that.
(And I'm sure someone will say that they've let W abuse them with regards to Iraq, etc. That may be, but keep in mind that W did win his re-election popular vote, so out of the voting populace, a majority of them wanted to let him stay in pwoer)
Re:Oh, good. (Score:3, Insightful)
Your talking about conspiracy theories, fascist governments, totalitarian regimes, etc.
THAT is not even the biggest concern with a weapon like this. No really. Not even close.
A weapon like this relies on *mechanical* means to vary the amount of force. Add the user's responsibility to check which setting it is *supposed* to be on and you have a recipe for disaster.
I guarantee you it will be LESS than a year after this is put on the streets that you will have the first case of an officer swearing up and down that he had it on non-lethal when he shot that 16 year old kid who was tweaking.
You have to plan for failure in EVERY system that is designed. A weapon like this will always have a percentage chance of malfunctioning. Now I don't think we want malfunctions to be able to occur when an officer is intending to bring non-lethal force. This just has bad idea written all over it. Lethal and Non Lethal weapons should be different pieces of equipment, preferably even colored differently. I think it is just too dangerous otherwise.
I understand your feelings, but the people who wish to suppress the "undesirables" will be able to do so with or without this weapon.
Re:Oh, good. (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm glad that you've been modded up. Granted, it's easy to ascribe mob mentality to "the Slashdot crowd," but it still makes me want to cry "shenanigans" when the same group of people who enthusiastically defend peer-to-peer file-sharing because of its myriad legal uses condemn less-lethal weaponry because some (not all) police officers will use them unethically.
Life or Death Violation of K.I.S.S. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm going to assume that the military is looking into this simply because they look into everything, not because they actually plan to deploy it. It's a terrible idea.
1. See the incident [google.com] a few weeks ago where a soldier was firing machine gun blanks into a crowd during a demonstration. He swapped mags--but unfortunately, the fresh mag was not filled with blanks.
2. A tactical shooting instructor I once had, a cop, told us about the bean-bag shotgun he kept in his patrol car. The barrel was wrapped with blue tape, and there was a strict policy, as "leave without pay and a reprimand in your file", against ever loading it with anything other than beanbag rounds. In a crisis, if you grabbed the blue barrel, you had to be certain you would be firing beanbags, not lead.
3. When you point your gun at a person and pull the trigger, you must be very certain about what the gun will do. This adds a whole 'nother level of complexity to what should be a simple, reliable design. Not only will soldiers and cops inadvertently fire this thing on "kill" not "stun", but there's also a question of whether or not it will fire at all--just as bad if the cop needs to make a bad guy stop.
4. When a bad guy sees a gun pointed at him, he needs to be certain that if he doesn't do as he is told, he will die. I don't want bad guys to see this gun, and decide to take a gamble that it's only set to stun.
5. Americans have, and should have, a deep suspicion towards inappropriate force being exercised under color of law. The way to deal with this is through the Second Amendment, which properly exercised results in soldiers, cops, and civilians[1] regarding each other with mutual respect and caution. If you can't trust your military or police, the answer isn't to give them weak weapons--the answer is to disband them, by force if necessary, and organize trustworthy forces.
[1] NB: Technically, the police are civilians (see for example Robert Peel #7 [magnacartaplus.org]), but I hope this gets my point across. I wish I knew a word for "out of uniform, unbadged civilians", but nothing comes to mind.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Phazers set to stun... (Score:3, Insightful)
Am I hopelessly old fashioned, or are there other people still alive who feel that there's something morally suspect about intending to kill people in the first place?
Sorry, I'm not familiar with the period in history to which you refer. Exactly when was it that guns weren't for killing people? There's nothing new about people killing each other. Morality is a whole 'nother issue.
Re:Oh, good. (Score:5, Insightful)
Tasers are also intended to be used as a substitute for nightsticks. Shocking someone is generally considered quite a bit safer than beating them into submission using a heavy stick. Considering the wide range of uses they cover, I believe they're use is a good thing.
This compares in stark contrast to these new VWS. They sound significantly more dangerous than a taser, and the chances of shooting someone with the wrong setting or ammunition is quite a bit higher.
Pick up a taser and you know the result. Pick up one of these and the results may be quite a bit different.
Re:is it still a gun with all those bells & wh (Score:3, Insightful)
you buy m-16s, sniper rifles, and pistols because of the specialized applications - I don't buy the one size fits all thing - a pistol is about 2 lbs, and a sniper rifle is good out to a kilometer or so - I doubt anything can fill both roles. Regardless, soldiers want reliability - I wouldn't trust a single complicated device to save my bacon
I can think of at least 2 places, where the military might like to have a multi purpose gun, Iraq and Afghanistan, just toggle it to 'stun' and fire away without worries that it wasn't the right guy, if you need lethal force because they're firing back at you, then you can switch the setting while hiding behind a building.
I doubt the locals will grok the whole non-lethal thing - they'd be totally justified in trying to kill some asshole who's shooting at them. Hell, if a cop just started shooting at me, I'd assume he was trying to kill me and shoot back.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Rule #1 of Marksmanship (Score:3, Insightful)
I think I know why the military, specifically the Navy, is interested in rail guns. A nuclear powered ship is never short on electrical power. They are always short on storage. Take out the need to store gunpowder and you gain storage space. The reduced fire hazard is a major bonus.
Anything that wishes to compete with the rail gun must be able to run on electricity (or perhaps steam) to be compatible with the "electric navy" plan. Have selectable power/range. Also have size/weight/cost comparable with rail guns.
With that in mind I can see a variation on this idea can be desirable for the Navy. One possibility is to make the gun run off the same fuel as the engine for smaller, diesel powered, ships. (There are still plenty of these, BTW, and likely to stick around for a very long time.) To get a gun to fire off of fuel oil would require mixing with an oxidizer, a fire hazard that an electric weapon does not need.
Use of a weapon like this in a tank or self-propelled artillery may be an easy sell. Have the projectile with the oxidizer and primer attached and the fuel from the vehicle as propellant. That way the range/power can be adjusted by the amount of fuel added. One problem I see is that the military like to see a weapon fire even with massive failure of support equipment. Having a pump fail would render the weapon useless where a standard gunpowder weapon can be manhandled into position and fired with a spring loaded striker. No external power required.
I guess the short story is that even though it has many pros, it may not be enough to make it better than what they have or what rail guns, directed energy weapons, etc. can offer.
Apples and ordnance (Score:5, Insightful)
the same group of people who enthusiastically defend peer-to-peer file-sharing because of its myriad legal uses condemn less-lethal weaponry because some (not all) police officers will use them unethically
Don't you think weaponry should be held to a higher standard of scrutiny than file sharing?
I mean, when P2P is misused, what's the worst that can happen? A copyright holder misses out on a few bucks that he may or may not have ever gotten anyway. He lives on to fight another day, and he can even sue the pirates for damages if he manages to track them them down.
If a police officer misuses "less-lethal" weaponry, however, someone ends up in the hospital -- or the morgue. His family might have some legal recourse, but that won't ease his suffering or bring him back from the dead.
Re:Oh, good. (Score:3, Insightful)
But it's not cheaper from a political embarrassment viewpoint. If the protesters in say, Egypt, could be put down by bullets without the word "protesters killed" in the local papers, it would happen.
You only need 2 settings.... (Score:3, Insightful)
What do we need in between those two settings?
Re:Oh, good. (Score:4, Insightful)
What more reason do we need? I don't mind other countries getting ahead, I don't want to go out of my way to hold anyone back, but, I certainly don't want to give anything up as far as my lifestyle so they can get ahead. I'm sorry, I'm just not that altruistic. I kinda doubt anyone is.
Re:Oh, good. (Score:3, Insightful)
Well entire religions (well, one specific religion) and it's adherents deny their critics right to life.
Google "asma bint marwan", read what happened, and then we'll see if you're consistently prepared to defend freedom of speech or not. In other words, do you forbid people from having islam as a religion, knowing that it forbids freedom of speech, or do you allow people to use violence (and thus all imams to incite this violence), and even murder, against freedom of speech because of "it's their religion" or not ?
Re:Oh, good. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's a problem that is caused by the ideology of the Egyptian state (a certain religion, 3 guesses which one, same reason they refuse to let atheists get a job), not by the guns used the egyptian state uses to enforce it's religion on it's victims.
In saudi arabia the "morality police" who have been accused of anally raping people with sticks for not going to the mosque one of the 5 required times per day will probably get access to these guns.
The problem is the ideology, not the guns. As was aptly demonstrated yesterday, a bulldozer can be an effective weapon too, you can't forbid weapons. And yes, at least with these guns those people, even those oppressed, will live to see another day as opposed to dieing.
Just great . . . (Score:3, Insightful)
Now, instead of "I didn't think it was loaded!", or "I thought the safety was on1", it will be "I thought it was on the non-fatal setting!". Better to keep standard guns and non-lethals completely separate IMHO just for simplicity's sake. An actual firearm (regardless of what you think is in the chamber or what safeties or settings you think are on) should always be treated as if loaded and ready to kill whatever it's pointed at. When people failed to do that, there are always consequences.
Re:Oh, good. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Oh, good. (Score:4, Insightful)
Then as someone who was unjustifiable beaten by the cops in their own home I can safely say you hang out with scum who should never have been given authority and the right to hurt another person on a wim and their illustrious word that the perp deserved it.
Great... you can use this method of thinking for absolutely anything. Examples:
1. A police officer does something wrong means they are all scum.
2. One jew does something wrong and this means they are all scum.
3. One child does something wrong and so they are all scum.
4. One human being does something wrong and so they are all scum.
5. One organism does something wrong and so every organism on the Earth is rotten to the core.
See how this works?
Anyone that had an iota of sympathy with you after being unjustifiably beaten would have lost that sympathy halfway into your first sentence, because you are a cretin.
Re:Oh, good. (Score:5, Insightful)
Your exchange with GP brings to light an interesting issue. The biggest difference between you, "jahudabudy", and GP "maypull" is that maypull knows a bunch of cops and you apparently don't. I think that has a lot to do with your differing perspectives. Maypull has seen police officers in all sorts of situations other than that of an arrest, traffic stop, questioning, etc. (let's ignore that he was a cop for illustrative purposes), whereas you have not. More importantly, the cops know maypull and have seen HIM in all sorts of situations other than that of an arrest, traffic stop, questioning, etc.
I guess what I'm saying is this: as long as police officers are nothing more than law enforcement whose main interaction with the public is when a call goes out or when they see something they don't like, the image you have (of a power imbalance that can screw up your life on first contact) will be the prevailing one. If the police officers are active members of the community who get to know the citizens in their jurisdiction, the uniform becomes much less of an unwelcome presence--you see instead a friend (or acquaintance) who can help you out when you need it, and they see someone they are familiar with and are less likely to need to bring their authority to bear.
There is undoubtedly resistance to the idea of just walking up to an officer and having a chat, at least where I live. Some of that, I think, stems from the fact that the cops are usually in their cars rather than on foot. More comes from our modern lack of community where we live surrounded by strangers. I don't think there's an easy answer to uprooting the mistrust in police, but I'm betting that what I described above is the biggest part of the problem.
Re:Oh, good. (Score:3, Insightful)
"because you are a cretin."
Nice, you had a good point up too there, what did my post point hit to close to home? BTW the police make fun of groupies like yourself on their forums.
A few quick points
1) Once is to much
2) I was continued to be hit while in cuffs
3) There were three officers, none of which stopped the incident
So am I biased, sure just a bit. Do they all deserve to be called scum, probably not but since that is my experience, that is also my perception. If it hurts well tough.
These people are given providence over us, the ability to mame, injure, or kill with little or no repercussion since their word and the words of their fellow officers are held as better then those they protect even when they lie, break the law themselves, or commit unjustified harm.
Besides the detectives which are trying to solve cases, the police force can be trimmed but a good margin & is nothing but a bloated government institution of meter maids & county tax collectors in uniform, given the authority to make civilians lives miserable all in the interest of bringing revenue to the state, and before you say "but when they come to your aid...." If the shit hits the fan I won't be calling 911.
If you need a hero to look up to call the local vet organization tell a combat vet "thank you" they deserve it, or better yet hug a fireman at least they do no harm.
DP
Re:Oh, good. (Score:2, Insightful)
Americans are mostly opposed to globalization because they don't understand it. Job loss is always bad for the person who loses their job, but it isn't always bad for the country. No one complains that there are fewer bank teller jobs than there were before ATMs or fewer telephone operators now that calls aren't manually routed, because we can achieve the same (or better) end result with less cost thanks to technology. Somehow Americans seem to think it's ok for technology to replace American jobs, but not poor people in other countries.