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Technology

New Tech Puts the Brakes On Bullets Fired From Police Sidearms 369

Posted by Soulskill from the spectrum-of-lethality dept.
Zothecula writes: Police officers are trained to shoot for the center of mass, not necessarily to kill, but to stop – although the end result can often be one and the same. "The Alternative" is designed to give officers a less lethal option in the form of a clip-on "air bag" for semiautomatic pistols that reduces the velocity of a standard round to make it less lethal. At the front of the bright orange carrier is a hollow sphere made of a proprietary alloy that catches the bullet and firmly embeds it as it leaves the barrel. The ball and bullet fuse, slowing the round by 80 percent. At this speed, the ball-encased round is less likely to penetrate flesh, but it will transfer enough kinetic energy across a wide surface to knock a suspect down with less chance of a lethal outcome.
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New Tech Puts the Brakes On Bullets Fired From Police Sidearms More

New Tech Puts the Brakes On Bullets Fired From Police Sidearms

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  • Hey, it sounds wonderful! It's less lethal, and in some imagined scenario it might be. In the real world, cops have to make split-second decisions to fire or hold fire. They don't have the luxury of time to analyze the threat. The device probably works as advertised - yet it will get cops killed. Does it alter way the semi-auto mechanism operates? Will that next round load, or will it jam? Will the slide lock in battery or just slightly open so the weapon won't fire? No thanks.

    • Re:No thanks (Score:4, Insightful)

      by khasim ( 1285 ) <brandioch.conner@gmail.com> on Friday September 11, 2015 @06:37PM (#50506627)

      From the pictures in TFA, this looks like a SINGLE SHOT mod. So not much problem of jams or such.

      But, how many times do cops fire a single round? Not often.

      How many times do cops firing multiple rounds miss? A lot.

      This is a stupid idea.

      • Rubber Bullets (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Roger W Moore ( 538166 ) on Friday September 11, 2015 @07:05PM (#50506795) Journal
        Why not just use rubber bullets [wikipedia.org] or baton rounds? The technology has been around since the 70s and you are not limited to one less-lethal shot. In fact rubber bullets seem like a far better idea - with this solution what happens if the first shot misses?

        • Re: Rubber Bullets (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward

          This is a new technology for the purpose of making money selling a cheap mod nobody needs.
          Seriously if you want slower bullets they already make slower bullets. Less powder in the cartridge = slower bullet. They have been on shelves since bullets have been.

        • The problem is there are times when they need to use ammunition with more stopping power. For example if a car is driving at them or someone is shooting at them. They don't have time to switch ammunition or wouldn't want to mix up clips in a life threatening situation. There are also times when they need the more powerful ammunition to put down animals (after being hit by vehicles for example) but obviously there's not the urgency isn't there. There's just the need for the present ammunition so they cou

    • also, Newton's 3rd law says it doesn't (Score:4, Interesting)

      by raymorris ( 2726007 ) on Friday September 11, 2015 @07:38PM (#50507047) Journal

      > it will transfer enough kinetic energy across a wide surface to knock a suspect down with less chance of a lethal outcome.

      Does the recoil of a pistol knock th shooter down? No. Newton's third law tells us that the kinetic energy of the projectile is equal to the kinetic energy energy of the recoil. So the claim made in the summary is utter BS.

      It IS enough kinetic energy to get your attention, however.

      • Metaphor [wikipedia.org]

      • Thanks, i was looking for a post along these lines before I was going to post it. Bullets don't knock people down like they do in the movies. The surprise of being hit may cause someone to fall down, but knock down, no.

      • And to knock you down if you're not braced for it, coupled with the massive burst of pain from the impact of the pullet tearing flesh and possibly bone.

    • They should have the luxury of time to analyze the threat, because they should know exactly what they face before they go in. Firefighters don't just run into buildings without a plan and proper safety protocols. Neither do cops. Well.... Neither SHOULD cops.

      Mind you, I'm all in favor of less than lethal options. Tazers and beanbags work. Also, I'm in favor of cops DE-escalating situations, instead of escalating them. And when there's a gun involved? If they didn't know, they should retreat. If they DO kn

  • Some 'air bag' that is only good for the first round? Yeah, OK...you go with that. You might even make a substantial amount of money selling to some city.
    The police won't use it (and I don't blame them), but this is worse than useless.

  • "Knock them down"? (Score:3)

    by Goldenhawk ( 242867 ) on Friday September 11, 2015 @06:45PM (#50506665) Homepage

    How will this knock them down if the bare bullet won't knock them down? Same kinetic energy, and it's been proven more than a few times that a bullet hitting a human does NOT have enough energy to knock them down, all gun-related movie and TV tropes notwithstanding.

    http://www.forcenecessary.com/... [forcenecessary.com]

    • I think the idea is to make it like being hit while wearing a bullet proof vest. The vest usually stops the bullet but doesn't stop the energy. It just spreads it out over a larger area so it still is going to hurt you.

    • It won't knock them down, nor will it stop a real threat. This idea is crap. It will only put officers at risk.

  • 1) Police already have better non-lethal options, such as tasers and beanbag rounds.

    2) Police are trained to fire multiple times if they have to shoot at all.

    3) If it's not fatal, it's not as effective at stopping, and sometimes, stopping someone is all that matter. If it's on all the time, it wastes a precious second or two when it counts. If it's not, it will never be used at all.

    4) Isn't an orange tip to the barrel an indication it's a toy gun?

    5) It looks stupid.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by DaHat ( 247651 )

      1) Police already have better non-lethal options, such as tasers and beanbag rounds.

      Unlike your video games when you can press a single button to quickly toggle between two weapons, it takes most people a good bit longer to holster one item then bring to ready another.

      2) Police are trained to fire multiple times if they have to shoot at all.

      This item would require a bit of training yes... fire once with the less than lethal option, examine the situation for a split second or two then potentially continue fi

  • Bullets don't knock people down (Score:5, Informative)

    by SpaceManFlip ( 2720507 ) on Friday September 11, 2015 @06:47PM (#50506685)
    This is stupid because a normal bullet doesn't even have the kinetic energy to knock over a person. That is all Hollywood make-believe.
    There's a whole series of tests done on Mythbusters that debunked the concept.
    So these bullets are going EVEN SLOWER than normal ones, and it's supposed to "knock down" a person?
    Think about this: a typical 9mm round will be 115 grains or 124 grains in weight. One grain is 1/7000 of a pound. We're talking about a projectile going in the ballpark of 1000 fps that weighs only about 0.0177 pounds for the 124 grain bullet. There simply is no knock-down potential.

    Now, on the other hand, if you are seriously injured by one of those projectiles, you'll probably fall over in pain. Or you might also just fall over dead.
  • Firing a bullet out of a gun at someone seems so much safer now.

  • Yet another Gizmag article on a hair brained idea (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Obscene_CNN ( 3652201 ) on Friday September 11, 2015 @06:57PM (#50506747) Homepage
    Looks like some idiot an Gizmag was talked into doing an article by some hair brained inventor again. Neither party understands physics so they both think its great. As mentioned a few times here by others before me that firing a bullet into another ball isn't going to increase its knock down power (Conservation of momentum). The stupidity from there grows by training a law enforcement officer to use the gun as a first resort instead of a last one. Also for when lethal force is called for it means that the officer will have one less effective bullet and their follow up shots will be done with them dealing with the recoil from their first useless shot. Bad idea all around!
  • by a cop: if you are at the point where you are shooting someone, you shoot to kill. Period. Center mass is where your vitals are, and it's a relatively easy target since you can't really move it around like your head. BTW, "less than lethal" has come to mean "I can use this with relative impunity."

  • Just stop shooting people haphazardly.

  • The problem with "non-lethal" weapons (Score:5, Insightful)

    by JustAnotherOldGuy ( 4145623 ) on Friday September 11, 2015 @07:11PM (#50506835) Journal

    The problem with "non-lethal" weapons is that when given to police, they tend to use them more often and with less provocation than with a firearm.

    Look at how taser-happy the police have become- FFS, they'll tase you for just standing nearby watching what they're doing.

    When I was growing up the police were much more reasonable and much less likely to go ballistic/aggressive when questioned...now if you dare to question them, out comes the pepper spray, baton, and taser. If that doesn't immediately make you "comply" (i.e. go away, stop watching, stop filming, whatever) out comes the gun and handcuffs.

    I've seen it myself. Today's police officer has a gun (often 2 guns), a baton, a knife, a taser, pepper spray, steel-toed boots, a ballistic vest and a radio. And yet police today are the biggest pussies I've ever seen. They dress like extras from RoboCop and yet they're scared shitless and feel "threatened" by a teenager wearing a t-shirt and shorts. When did cops turn into such pants-wetting pussies? When did they become such chicken-shit cowards?

    • Re:The problem with "non-lethal" weapons (Score:5, Insightful)

      by PopeRatzo ( 965947 ) on Friday September 11, 2015 @07:26PM (#50506959) Journal

      I've seen it myself. Today's police officer has a gun (often 2 guns), a baton, a knife, a taser, pepper spray, steel-toed boots, a ballistic vest and a radio. And yet police today are the biggest pussies I've ever seen. They dress like extras from RoboCop and yet they're scared shitless and feel "threatened" by a teenager wearing a t-shirt and shorts. When did cops turn into such pants-wetting pussies? When did they become such chicken-shit cowards?

      I believe it has something to do with the end of the draft.

      When were younger, the police were made up mainly of people who had been in the military. But they had been drafted into the military so the chances were good that a lot of them were just regular people who needed a job and wanted to serve and protect. Today, an even higher percentage of police are ex-military, but these jackoffs volunteered to go to some third-world country to massacre brown people. They probably got turned down by the Blackwater/Xe/Academi type outfits where they could make some real money menacing people, and instead ended up on local police forces, thinking of themselves as some kind of liberating/occupying force in residential neighborhoods. They don't think of serving the public as much as they do fighting the public

      There were always bad/brutal cops, but today, it's de rigueur to be bad/brutal.

      Having said all that, I live near the Chicago Police Academy, and they're starting to get higher-quality recruits. But the bad/brutal jackoffs are now brass, trained in the First Gulf War, and think every policing issue requires the use of armored vehicles and snipers. So that's how they get trained. I'm hoping the next generation is a little better.

    • It changed when they went from being peace officers to law enforcement. Enforcing laws against peaceful people is a different mindset. It's not defensive and protective but aggressive.

    • Dead men don't sue. And the law says if you feel like your life is in danger, then you are justified to eliminate the threat. Cops know this, and will always say they feared for their life.

  • The nonsense portrayed on Hollywood and TV is false, a handgun bullet does not have enough momentum to knock a person down or even push their body backward, it's LESS than what the shooter feels as some momentum lost to air.

    Now there are guns, that humans cannot hold, that can knock a person down (or blow them completely apart).

    This "invention" is rubbish, is dangerous to cops and citizens who need protecting.

  • About the only time I can see a police officer willing to put this thing on their gun is if they are facing a barking dog, cat, deer, or similar creature.

    For people, they are not going to risk the time necessary to put it on. Hm. Well maybe against a heavily impaired person - drunk, mentally challenged, etc. But no way against a person smart enough to recognize a gun.

  • And almost certainly less accurate. That's the simple unfortunate truth of making a bullet slower. I'd rather not have the guys protecting us shooting less accurately than the other guy.
  • Or they can just load 1/2 power cowboy rounds for 1 and 2. The 3rd shot is full power. Or beanbag shots, or saltshot from a pistol. This is dumb.
  • They've basically invented an expensive, unreliable rubber bullet?

  • No Way (Score:3)

    by Jim Sadler ( 3430529 ) on Friday September 11, 2015 @09:54PM (#50507775)
    That will get cops killed. If someone fires at them suddenly the cop is going to have to get off more than one shot to make sure they are not turned into a dead cop.

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