/ close enough
Posted on 07/12/2012 2:58:30 PM PDT by marktwain
Get fired upon and instantaneously be rendered unconscious by the Department of Defense’s newest non-lethal, but beefed up, stun gun.
This Nano-second Electrical Pulse Stun Gun (nsEP) is one of several projects that the Department of Defense showcased on June 22 at the Non-Lethal Weapons Industry Day in Quantico, Virginia.
It is in the early prototype stages, per the Pentagon’s PDF, and the nsEP gun is currently being tested on animals (ouch) to see if it will be safe for human utilization. They say the Nanosecond Electrical Pulses (nsEP) have the potential to cause a non-lethal disabling effect, and that the electrical parameters bring about durations of hundreds of nanosecond and peak potentials of tens of kilovolts under load.
What this means is that the government enforcement agent carrying one of these stun gun whoppers will be able to direct hundreds of volts of more powerful electricity than your standard stunner at a human being for fractions of a second so that they are incapacitated but not permanently damaged (as Darth Vader would say).
The Pentagon has plenty of lethal weapons on file, so they are now looking into the non-lethal variety. The new pulse gun is a lightweight device supposed to be an improvement over the existing — and often limited — stun guns, says Defense News.
Forget the current stunners (that have run rampant in the attack on Occupy Wall Street camps), because those allow the victim to recover as soon as the electricity stops zapping. The nsEP stun gun will render that enemy (activist?) unconscious for several minutes, making detainment far easier than it is right now. Having worked with high voltage electricity before, this sounds like it hurts (but I could be wrong).
The evolution of weapons never ceases to amaze.
Non-lethal until it isn’t.
Aye, Kiptin, it was set on stun! I swear it!
Electroshock therapy for the masses...
Hmmmm... This could become the Home invasion weapon of choice. Both by the police and the ‘professionals’ in the trade.
It’s a kidnappers dream.
Sounds like a small high voltage capacitor charged up by a voltage multiplier circuit and then discharged into the subject (victim)
Not sure how quickly a cap like that would discharge since there is a lot of resistance on the surface of the skin. Across a dead short the pulse would be very short.
Perhaps they overcome the skin resistance by using small barbed needles like some stun guns do. Or perhaps small projectiles that are tipped with a carbon doped sticky substance.
The only way to induce momentary unconsciousness is for the discharged pulse to be across the head. It need not be from temple to temple, it just needs to be an inch or more apart.
ECT is most often administered only on one side of the head and not across the head as in the old days. It’s well known that a single strong short duration pulse to the head from a ECT machine results in momentary loss of consciousness and memory disruption.
There was a case years back where a stupid intern discharged a defibrillator across his head. He was knocked out for a moment but recovered fully. (how embarrassing)
What’s the standoff range? Or did I miss it?
Mr. Beretta has a respectable standoff range. He’s lethal, granted.
The standoff range would be either the length of the leads to the device OR the stun gun might charge a small object that contains the charged capacitor and which would discharge on impact with the target.
I wrote a paper detailing a system somewhat similar to what is described. If built it would have launched small bean-bag like projectiles that had the circuitry inside and were covered with small sticky patches that adhere to the skin and were also the electrodes for the electrical discharge. The cost was modest as the system incorporated only simple low-cost elements.... not complicated at all.
Oh, in the paper I also described a low-cost but totally effective counter measure for the system. Chain mail sacks...just pull it over your head for protection. The electrical pulse harmlessly shorts out across the chain mail surface and you have no problem seeing right through the sack...just like looking through a screen door.
A cheap and simple counter measure.
Yup, can't be killing our slaves now, can we. We need all our Taxpayers...undamaged!
And if not then, soon after the dozen shots necessary to make it through hit.
Non-lethal weapons mean attackers don’t have to be afraid of dying. They can keep coming, and stomp you to death.
IN any case, this look like just another taser gun. So added “limited shots” and “limited penetration” to the uselessness of the device.
/ close enough
A lesson that the Brits learned in Northern Ireland was that “less than lethals” didn’t really stop the fight. Folks didn’t go home and take up knitting after being hit by plastic bullets, etc. Instead, they got even MORE pissed off, and took up long range methods of retaliation.
Non-lethal = used more.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.