Bold Emphasis Added
A License To Not Quite KillSitting idle, the Taser Shockwave looks like a waist-high rack of square green teeth. But press a button, and those teeth--six electrified cartridges tethered by 25-foot wires--shoot out in a 20-degree arc. Inch-long probes emitting 50,000 volts of electricity pierce through clothing and skin. If a human being is in their path, his or her muscles immediately flex and lock involuntarily.
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Shockwave, set to be deployed sometime in 2009, is one of several powerful new "less-lethal" devices coming closer to being used in the real world, as opposed to just test situations. And it's not the only experimental toy soon to be sold by Phoenix-based Taser International (nasdaq: TASR - news - people ). Other products being tested by the company include a taser shell that can be fired from any shotgun and a taser laminate film that can electrify the surface of a traditional riot shield.
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Taser International, of course, isn't the only one developing new, controversial less-lethal weapons. The military's Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Program (JNLWP) is testing a variety of new ways to stun and incapacitate enemy combatants including "flash-bang" grenades that create noise and light to disorient targets, as well as a two-foot diameter laser that can temporarily blind a vehicle's driver at around 600 feet. The so-called Active Denial System, a heat ray that can make targets feel as if their skin is catching fire without actually inflicting damage, is also under development.
But even the military, which has used traditional tasers in the field since 2004, has doubts about Taser International's new toys. "We're doing a lot of testing to make sure they don't kill people," says John Keenan, the JNLWP's director of science and technology. "We have to understand the health effects associated with them. If we're calling something a non-lethal weapon, we have to make sure it's not lethal."
Brigade homeland tours start Oct. 1But this new mission marks the first time an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment to NorthCom, a joint command established in 2002 to provide command and control for federal homeland defense efforts and coordinate defense support of civil authorities.
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“Right now, the response force requirement will be an enduring mission. How the {Defense Department} chooses to source that and whether or not they continue to assign them to NorthCom, that could change in the future,” said Army Col. Louis Vogler, chief of NorthCom future operations. “Now, the plan is to assign a force every year.”
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They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control or to deal with potentially horrific scenarios such as massive poisoning and chaos in response to a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive, or CBRNE, attack.
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Correction:
A non-lethal crowd control package fielded to 1st Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, described in the original version of this story, is intended for use on deployments to the war zone, not in the U.S., as previously stated.