[MLB-WIRELESS] Electric shock weapons could go wireless

[Tracey.Simon at csiro.au]

> http://www.newscientist.com/hottopics/tech/article.jsp?id=99993749&sub=Sec
> urity%20and%20Defence
> 
> Electric shock weapons could go wireless 
> By David Hambling 
> A weapon that delivers a debilitating electric shock to its victim without
> the need for wires is being developed in Germany.
> New Scientist has seen video stills of a prototype of the "Plasma-Taser"
> in action during firing-range tests. The pictures were shown at the
> European Symposium on Non-Lethal Weapons in Karlsruhe, Germany, two weeks
> ago. 
> In the first image, a spray of dark gas is seen approaching a human-sized
> target. In the next, taken a fraction of a second later, there is a
> lightning-like flash of electrical discharge intended to incapacitate the
> targeted person.
> The Plasma-Taser, developed by defence company Rheinmetall W&M in
> Ratingen, is similar to the Taser weapon used by US police forces. In an
> ordinary Taser, a pair of darts are fired at a target from a distance of
> about seven metres, and a high-voltage electrical pulse is delivered
> through lightweight metal cables to the darts. The 50,000-volt electric
> shock stuns the intruder by temporarily shutting down their nervous
> system. 
> "Pain and spasms" 
> The Plasma-Taser will not need any wires because it fires an aerosol spray
> towards the target, which creates a conductive channel for a shock
> current, claims Rheinmetall. The company refused to comment on exactly how
> the weapon works, but it says the aerosol material is non-toxic. 
> Like Taser manufacturers, Rheinmetall describes the effects of its weapon
> as "pain and spasms". The advantage? A Taser is a single-shot weapon of
> limited range: the Plasma-Taser can fire repeated shots over greater
> range. 
> "It certainly looks shocking and intimidating," says Brian Rappert of the
> University of Nottingham, UK. "But there is a big difference between a lab
> demonstration and a working weapon. The history of non-lethals is littered
> with novel, widely praised but ill-conceived ideas." 
> Steve Wright of the Manchester-based Omega Foundation, which monitors
> non-lethal weapon technology, is concerned about the potential misuse of
> electric shock weapons. "Such new technologies enable systematic human
> rights abuses to be more automated, so that one operator can induce pain
> and paralysis on a mass scale," he says.
>  <<...OLE_Obj...>> 
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> 

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