Firearms
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Taser Demos Shotgun Fired Stun Weapon
Posted by Jamie on 14 Jul 2007 | Tagged as: Firearms, Law Enforcement, Less Than Lethal, Military
Pretty intimidating, huh? This is the XREP or eXtended Range Electronic Projectile. Fired from a standard 12ga. shotgun, the XREP offers stand-off distance capability. Once the projectile strikes the target it releases a 20 second (GAH!) burst of electricity.
As David Hambling points out, this weapon raises a lot of questions about where it fits within the force continuum, although I’m sure a few departments will whip together a policy and start sending big, fat Homeland Security Grant checks ASAP.
At present, less-lethals are seen as a supplement to lethal weapons. XREP might see the start of less-lethals being used as an alternative. In the example of room clearance — where insurgents, civilians, or friendly troops can be around the next corner — a shotgun round like XREP can mean the difference between firing first and getting shot. And it means that accidental shootings are a matter of apologizing to the victim rather than burying them.
On the civilian front, there is also the question of how dangerous such rounds are. Getting hit by XREP is not like getting hit by Taser darts. Rick Smith, Taser’s CEO says describes it as “delivering blunt impact similar to other impact rounds” – presumably he means the ‘bean bag’ nonlethal rounds fired from shotguns. These will bruise and can break ribs and cause other injuries; when Baton Rouge Police Department introduced them in 2005 for use against violent suspects, their press release said that “The bean bag round is designed to cause injuries in order to save lives.”
He also raises some interesting questions about the eventual transition of this technology into the civilian world. Will we be safer when criminals start using stun bullets loaded into shotguns?
At first XREP and its competitors and imitators will be confined to the police and military. But, like Tasers, they will branch out into the civilian world. Home defense will be a lot safer with non-lethal projectiles. And what about armed robbers? Are we going to do everything to stop them from getting hold of electric bullets…or would it actually be a step forward if they routinely used stun bullets rather than lethal ones? Should sentencing reflect this?
