Growth in the Less Lethal Industry

With large protests continuing to get out of hand police and military are looking for alternate means of crowd dispersion.  Less lethal ammunition has been around for a long time with varying results and public acceptance.  With proper training and used under the right circumstances this ammunition can stop a threat greatly limiting death.  It is called less lethal though as it still has the potential to kill. In recent years deaths at protests either from improper escalation of force or accidental means have further enraged protesters. This increases danger to police, military and the people in the area.

Security Devices International (SDI) has come up with an interesting 40mm less lethal round. Enter the SDI BIP or Blunt Impact Projectile. The design of the round is that silicone is encapsulated with a Styrofoam cap.  When it hits the target the cap breaks and the silicone expands.  This allows it to not penetrate but still deliver a solid knock.  They claim its similar to getting hit with a rubber hammer.  There are also variants designed to disperse OC, markers and even skunk stink to add a bit of insult to injury. Having been hit with various less lethal/non lethal devices in our lives, more than one of us can honestly say if we got pegged with one of these we'd probably feel like complying — though we're not going to volunteer as guinea pigs to find out.

The larger surface area looks to be preferable to rubber bullets and even bean bag rounds.  This combined with the different payloads should help both identify later and help mitigate violence at protests.  You can see below what the marking round looks like under black light.  It is designed to stay on the skin for weeks making it easy to prove someone has been hit by the round at a later date.

Its interesting to see where this market is heading.  We're all for means to help protect peoples life on both sides of the fence, but we'll leave you with this thought:

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. 

You have the right to peaceful protest but when things go south get out of there and comply with police.  It takes a few bad apples and for some reason pack mentality starts to take effect and people burn businesses, flip cars and huck bricks at police.  If you're caught playing stupid games and win a stupid prize, well…you've earned it.

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