Non-lethal weapon
Non-lethal weapons, also called nonlethal weapons, less-lethal weapons, less-than-lethal weapons, non-deadly weapons, compliance weapons, or pain-inducing weapons are weapons intended to be less likely to kill a living target than conventional weapons such as knives and firearms with metal-projectile ammunition. It is often understood that unintended or incidental casualties are risked wherever force is applied; however, non-lethal weapons minimise the risk of casualties as much as possible. Non-lethal weapons are used in policing and combat situations to limit the escalation of conflict where employment of lethal force is prohibited or undesirable, where rules of engagement require minimum casualties, or where policy restricts the use of conventional force. However, these weapons occasionally cause serious injuries or death due to allergic reactions, improper use and/or other factors; for this reason the term "less-lethal" has been preferred by some organizations as it describes the risks of death more accurately than the term "non-lethal", which some have argued is a misnomer.
Non-lethal weapons may be used by conventional military in a range of missions across the force continuum. They may also be used by military police, by United Nations forces, and by occupation forces for peacekeeping and stability operations. Non-lethal weapons may also be used to channelize a battlefield, control the movement of civilian populations, or to limit civilian access to restricted areas. Similar weapons, tactics, techniques and procedures are employed by police forces domestically in riot control, prisoner control, crowd control, refugee control, and self-defense, where the terminology of "less-than-lethal" is often used.
History
Military
In the past, military and police faced with undesirable escalation of conflict had few acceptable options. Military personnel guarding embassies often found themselves restricted to carrying unloaded weapons. National guards or policing forces charged with quelling riots were able to use only batons or similar club-like weapons, or bayonet or sword charges, or fire live ammunition at crowds. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Non-lethality Policy Review Group at U.S. Global Strategy Council in Washington and other independent think tanks around the world called for a concerted effort to develop weapons that were more life-conserving, environmentally friendly, and fiscally responsible than weapons available at that time. The U.S. Congress and other governments agreed and began an organized development of non-lethal weapons to provide a range of options between talking and shooting.Recognizing the need to limit the escalation of force, research and development of a range of non-lethal weapons has since been undertaken internationally by governments and weapons manufacturers to fill the need for such weapons. Some non-lethal weapons may provide more effective riot control than firearms, truncheons or bayonets with less risk of loss of life or serious injury. Before the general availability of early military non-lethal weapons in the mid 1990s, war-fighters had few or no casualty-limiting options for the employment of scalable force and were continually at risk whenever lethal force was prohibited during sensitive missions.
In 2001, the United States Marine Corps revealed its development of a less-than-lethal energy weapon called the Active Denial System, a focused high frequency microwave device said to be capable of heating all living matter in the target area rapidly and continuously for the duration of the beam, causing transient intolerable pain but no lasting damage. The skin temperature of a person subjected to this weapon can jump to approximately in as little as 2 seconds depending on the skin's starting temperature. The system is nonlethal.
In 2004, author Jon Ronson cited an unclassified military report titled "Non-Lethal Weapons: Terms and References" 21 acoustic weapons were listed, in various stages of development, including the Infrasound ", however no such effects had been achieved.
In 2010, the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate Non-Lethal Weapons Reference Book was created. The weapons in this book are currently in development.
Police
Until the development of non-lethal weapons, police officers around the world had few if any non-lethal options for riot control. Common tactics used by police that were intended to be non-lethal or less lethal included a slowly advancing wall of men with batons, officers on horses trained to deal with policing situations, or a charge into a riot using the flats of sabers. Other reasonably successful approaches included shotguns with lower-powered cartridges, "salt shells", using bean-bag rounds and ricocheting shots off of the ground. In the mid-20th century, with the integration of fire-control systems into major cities, police found that high-pressure fire hoses could be effective in dispersing a crowd. Trained police dogs were also commonly used to scare and disperse rioters and apprehend individuals. In the 1980s the development of high-tensile plastics like Kevlar and Lexan revolutionized personal armor and shields, and led to new tactics for riot squads and other special-purpose teams. Officers could now stand up against violent rioters throwing dangerous projectiles without having to resort to lethal methods to quickly disperse the danger. Coupled with the introduction of effective non-lethal chemical agents such as tear gas and offensive-odor canisters, and non-lethal impact rounds such as rubber bullets and "bean bag" flexible baton rounds, riot tactics were modified to rely less on violent response to attacking rioters than on a return to the slowly advancing wall, with supporting officers firing non-lethal ordnance into the crowd to discourage advance.Police officers on patrol were traditionally armed with batons or pistols or both, and non-lethal methods of subduing an attacker centered on hand-fighting techniques such as jujutsu and baton use. In the 1980s and 1990s officers began deploying non-lethal personal sidearms such as pepper sprays, and eventually electroshock weapons such as tasers, which were developed for use by police and also found a market in self-defense by private citizens. However, these weapons were developed for non-lethal resolution of one-on-one conflicts.
During the 1990s and early 2000s, interest in various other forms of less-than-lethal weapons for military and police use rose. Amongst other factors, the use of less-than-lethal weapons may be legal under international law and treaty in situations where weapons such as aerosol sprays or gases defined as chemical are not.
Between the years of 1987–1990, after a three-year field study by the FBI's Firearms Training Unit; In 1990, the use of oleoresin capsicum was approved and used by the FBI, the first official law enforcement agency to do so.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, police began to adopt a new pepper spray delivery system based on the equipment used in paintball. A specialized paintball, called a "pepperball", is filled with liquid or powdered capsaicin, the active ingredient in pepper spray, and is propelled by compressed gas using a paintball marker similar to those used for the sport but operating at a higher pressure. The impact of the capsule is immediately painful, and it breaks open on impact, dispersing the capsaicin with similar effect to aerosol-delivered pepper spray. However, to be most effective, pepper spray must contact the eyes, nose, or mouth of the target; pepper spray on clothing or tougher skin has a much reduced effect.
Effects
Non-lethal weapons have a design intent to provide an effect to reliably elicit a degree of incapacitation but without the typically lethal or permanent lasting effects of conventional weapons. This design intent has often made them a weapon of choice for use by law enforcement during civil protests, etc. Effect modalities vary by the technology being employed: kinetic projectiles function by blunt impact which actuate pain receptors to elicit a behavioral change, lights affect visual perception, acoustics affect hearing, etc.Notwithstanding their design intent, non-lethal weapons can still cause harm. This is particularly true with certain technologies that interact with appropriately vulnerable regions; an example is kinetic munitions on the head, neck, eyes, abdominal and urogenital regions of the body. As a result, some analysts describe "non-lethal" as a misnomer and recommend defining them as "less-lethal", whereas other sources identify "non-lethal" as representing a goal of minimization of producing fatalities or permanent injuries while not literally requiring minimization to a zero probability thereof.
Mechanics
Non-lethal weapons are intended to minimize injury or death. While people are occasionally seriously injured or killed by these weapons, fatalities are relatively infrequent. Causes of death from non-lethal weapons are varied and occasionally uncertain. Misplaced or ricocheting shots, pre-existing medical conditions, inadequate user training, repetitive applications and intentional misuse have been implicated in different cases where death has occurred.As different parts of the body differ in vulnerability, and because people vary in weight and fitness, any weapon powerful enough to incapacitate may be capable of killing under certain circumstances. Thus, "non-lethal force" does have some risk of causing death: in this context, "non-lethal" means only "not intended to kill".
Several groups maintain there is great room for improvement in non-lethal weapons and procedures for their use. Claims for the relative safety of such weapons are usually contingent on their being used "properly". For example, the rubber bullets developed during the 1960s were supposed to be fired at the ground and hit the target only after ricochet, and other non-lethal bullets are designed to be fired at the lower body; they can be lethal if fired directly at the head.