If I am in the rare scenario where I have to shoot I will use the lethal option. Even if the chance is only 1% where the non-lethal does not kill. Because if I have to shoot than my life is in imminent danger.
No. If my life is on the line, I'm not going to use anything that gives my attacker a fair chance. The e-shotgun looks stupid fun, though, and I'll probably get one for shits and giggles.
16J is pretty high, around air rifle levels of power so you could probably kill someone depending on how those discs damage people and how close you were.
I suppose you’re safe if your attackers are watermelons. But a watermelon is not a good substitute to understand what it’d do to a person. It only give an indication of damage.
note that in their demonstration video, they're very careful not to show you the butt of the gun - I will bet that it's plugged in. I seriously doubt they've got sufficient power supply in that profile.
First, there just isn’t a ton of energy in that “round”. They’re claiming <16J - a .22LR, the smallest common caliber, comes in at around 275J. This thing is substantially less powerful than many BB guns.
Second, the disk shape of the projectile means that it’s going to be impossible to aim effectively. That thing is going to have significant vertical dispersion even at very short ranges.
> I’d argue it’s less dangerous than, for instance, a 5” racing quadcopter.
Semi-related, as I looked into drones here again a bit (my last adventure was a self-build from 2011, different times): The EU thought so too, it defines the difference between toys (that you do not need to register nor have any license for) are those which develop no more than 79 joules of impact energy when dropping, which couples it automatically to the weight of the drone and the ceiling height you can/want to fly with it.
The law assumes that you need to calculate at minimum 30 m of ceiling height, to avoid shops being able to sell 2.5 kg drones when you ensure while winking that you fly it at 1 m at max.
So the most common variants are 250 gr. which works out at 30 m allowed ceiling height you can fly with it, at least if you're not in a restricted flight zone, like some cities and naturally airports are.
It does matter what projectile is made from and it's shape. Something automatic with some good cameras and AI driven that targets only soft parts of the body could do some nice damage.
Human body has amazing resistance to blunt force and lacerations. Piercing damage - very little could fuck you up very badly. Arteries, kidneys, eyes.
Joules are defined as kg * (m/s)^2. Weight is already factored in.
Shape does matter, though! A dart might be lethal if it hit a major artery or the heart. I'd have to do a test to see if it could punch through mass equivalent to the bones of the skull. Unsure, but I'd put money that it wouldn't.
This weapon looks to fire discs, not darts. No way that's going to be a lethal round at 16J.
I'm not sure about those particular air rifles, but there are .177 and .22 caliber air rifles capable of 50J or more. A half gram .117 pellet at 1600fps is 60J. They should definitely be treated as weapons.
All of the weapons indicated in that article have muzzle energies well above 16J.
If the projectile was some kind of sharpened dart, 16J might be enough to be lethal in a headshot. Maybe. I'd have to do a test to see if it could punch through mass equivalent to the bones of the skull. But a disc or a ball? Unlikely. Could take out an eye, sure, but that's about it.
At least in the UK the legal limit for air rifles is below 16J you do of course get higher powered weapons but they need to be held with a FAC. Air pistols have an even lower limit. These are detailed in the article.
Also at least two of the weapons detailed was below 12 ftlbs which means it was definitely below 16J. Further when you get on to the discussion you will note it says all the weapons were within legal limits. So your reading of the article is incorrect.
The actual legal limit for “lethality” as it pertains to defining a firearm in the UK is 1.35J.
> Also at least two of the weapons detailed was below 12 ftlbs which means it was definitely below 16J. Further when you get on to the discussion you will note it says all the weapons were within legal limits. So your reading of the article is incorrect.
I re-read, and you are correct!
I'd still be surprised if this was a common occurrence with projectiles of such low power, but if ballistics against key targets (heart and brain through the skull) show consistent penetration at that power level with a steel ball, I'm happy to update my assumptions as to power and lethality.
(I'd be surprised if they did, but it'd definitely change my mind should the results be consistent)
I'm assuming this is a prototype and later versions will be more powerful.
Have you seen the demolition ranch video for it? On max settings it was going through a medium sized pumpkin. I would not want to be on the receiving end of it.
Edit: I do agree with you, I would only buy one for fun, in it's current state
Honestly if someone breaks into my house they'll be getting a cup of tea and a blanket. Robbery must be an awful way to make a living. They're probably in a life of abuse and addiction.
I have many times. About 20 years ago someone who had previously robbed me at knifepoint ran into me, recognized me as someone he knew and I was able to convince him that we played on a sports team together as children. I bought him lunch and we stayed in touch.
At the time I had aphorisms on my bathroom mirror. My favorite one was
"I need not convince that humanity is necessary, only that it's possible"
What if you come out with a baseball bat and the thief has a gun?
What if you come out with a gun and there's a second thief that you don't see and he fires first?
What if you come out and fire at the "burglar" and it turns out to be your neighbor's drunk teenager walking into the wrong home or police doing a no-knock warrant on the wrong address?
There's always risks. The actions you take and the risks you choose to be guided by are entirely a function of the deep values you actually hold and act on.
Many Americans (uniformed or not) like yourself really do have a bloodlust about them. Just itching for the day when they can legally get away with shooting somebody.
This discusion of de-escalation tactics (ridiculed by a US deligation) is rather enlightening.
Sure. While the US has a higher murder rate than most (say) European countries, its overall rate of violent crime is lower than many European countries. For example it has fewer police-recorded assaults than Britain, Israel, Germany, Finland, Chile, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Iceland, Australia, Portugal and France.
So, the explanation for the US' high murder rate is perhaps less likely to be "they encourage bloodlust" and more likely to be "they make it very easy to own guns".
As someone who has de-escalated threats up to and including a knife to the throat (and never pointed a gun at anyone), you’re kidding yourself if you see no reason but bloodlust to want to have the upper hand instead of being at the mercy of a completely unbalanced person you’re trying to talk down.
Yikes - nationalistic flamebait like this will get you banned on HN, regardless of which country you have a problem with. No matter how right you are on the underlying issue, or feel you are, you can't set HN threads aflame like this. We want just the opposite here.
Can you please not post unsubstantive comments or flamebait to HN? You started a pointless flamewar with this, and we're trying for the opposite sort of discussion here.
Fortunately your substantive comments have been good, so this should be easy to fix. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
LED flashlights don't go up to 100k lumens to my knowledge.
If you need extreme intensity, you'll have to use a solid state laser.
A 10w handheld laser would be an effective defense, but you should wear bandstop glasses at the laser frequency. A beam spreader would also make it easier to aim and still nearly as effective.
That flashlight has 18 LEDs, so 36k lumens at the most.
Also, for the rated brightness, each LED has to be run at 12VDC 2.4 amps or ~30 watts. The thing has 8 21700 cells at ~3.7v each 4Ah. So the cells are probably wired in a 2x4 configuration giving 7.5v and a total of 32Ah. Current draw for the LEDs is higher at lower voltage, so it's 12/7.5*2.4A = ~3.8A per LED or ~70 amps total draw. So yeah the numbers show it's feasible to run the 18 cells at full current for about 25 minutes and get the 36k lumens.
The heat dissipation will be about half a kilowatt, so quite likely the flashlight will get too hot to hold fairly quickly, even with its heat-pipe cooling.
I'm not an EE, I'm just channeling my long ago physics class on circuitry, so I could be egregiously wrong in places.
They usually run them through power regulation circuitry (a boost converter or the digital equivalent) and overdrive the LEDs, maybe into the 24v+ range. The "turbo" mode usually only runs for a few seconds at most, and is where they derive the high lumen numbers from.
With this kind of flashlight you have to use unprotected lithium ion cells because they far exceed what the protection circuitry will let you do. Also related to their tendency to go kaboom if set up wrong.
When I googled the energy of a Nerf dart I saw 4 joules, but this is from a 200g Nerf dart in a hypothetical question. When I calculate it for a 1g Nerf dart at around 21m/s it comes out to 0.2205 joules
> 3. Internet: it is combined with big data and it can be tracked during the whole process
The site feels like satire. Some of the Q&A answers just make little sense.
Also, they claim it's non-lethal. After the example videos, I cannot see how that is the case. It looks like it could easily shred through some stomach lining or nick an artery or completely blind someone.
I don't have a lot to say about the functionality or specifications here, but I feel like there's a new conceptual issue raised by non-lethal, or notionally non-lethal weapons.
Constitutional arguments are about the right to self-defense. That's not necessarily the same as killing someone, and you don't necessarily have a right to killing in and of itself, but only as a means to an end for self-defense. I suppose it depends on what flavor of defense of the second amendment you favor, but it seems like self-defense can be associated with incapacitation, need not necessarily depend on the capability of killing.
If that's true, access to weapons for the purpose of self-defense that aren't capable of killing would seem to open up a lot of possibilities for regulating traditional firearms. If (I said if!) there are equally effective alternatives for the purpose of self-defense, then that constitutional right can be satisfied without the need for traditional firearms that are capable of killing.
Insofar as they can replace traditional firearms, I find that promising, but obviously this brings a fair amount of unintended complexity; for instance non-lethal self defense may open up entirely new dimensions of cruel maiming and non-lethal suffering, it's may create complexities relating to whether something's actually non-lethal, it may have an effect of increasing the sum total of use of force by introducing non-lethal force into lower and lower stakes situations leading to a net increase of physical coercion, and there may be cultural resistance to the idea ever becoming mainstream because it would be too reformist and therefore liberal.
I think these all have to be navigated, but I think the trade-off is worth considering. I also think that strong gun regulation is worth considering, and personally just don't endorse wide distribution of guns in any form whatsoever, so I consider this a workaround peculiar to the culture of America.
My understanding is the US constitution’s second amendment has also been interpreted somewhat literally when it refers to a “well regulated militia”. From that perspective being able to have lethal weapons is still important, though given the fact that we don’t allow private citizens to have the gear to go toe to toe with a modern military I’m not sure exactly where that ends and more mundane self-defense begins.
Perhaps while we are making some attempt to not just go complete scorched earth on them they can, but if and when there is a threat they don’t have a whole lot they can do about an air strike or drones. I wouldn’t ever want to be on the opposing side of a world super power military…
You’re thinking of it from a normal military perspective - which is why normal militaries always consistently lose these
types of conflicts. British, Russians, Americans in Afghanistan. Americans, French, Chinese in Vietnam, etc.
For a counter example, look at Britain in India.
The more people you kill (regular folk), the more the population turns against you, and less likely you’ll actually be able to stay long term, and the more you get stuck in an endless morass of guerrilla attacks. Because it motivates suicide bombers, desperation, hate.
Even more true in a civil war.
If you co-opt leadership while nominally supporting the locals and making their lives better, it can help instead. Or go full scorched earth, but that generally doesn’t work in a civil war unless there is only a small region rebelling.
A scorched-earth campaign would prompt a lot more blue-on-blue attacks and assassinations from people who don’t like having their homes and mothers incinerated.
Because scorched-earth counterinsurgency never works. It doesn't usually work tactically amd it never achieves long-term goals strategic or political unless you want the place to stay a smoking crater. This is basically the reason why the communist guerilla tactics pioneered by Mao and used by many others were so effective.
In the 18th century the phrase "Well Regulated" had a different meaning, for example a "well regulated clock". It's a misconception that it refers to regulation as we understand it in a modern sense.
This isn’t really a new issue as non-lethal weapons have been a norm for ages. It would be interesting to look at how the introduction of pepper sprays and tasers changed police behaviour worldwide as they’re pretty ubiquitously carried now.
The notion that non-lethal (or less lethal) weapons might be considered functionally equivalent to their lethal counterparts is, I believe relatively new.
It's also problematic for another reason: the intent of 2A was to enable citizens to force a regime change even when said regime is resistant to verbal criticism. Lethal means would be required to safeguard that.
That seems to be an oft-repeated argument, that may or may not be true but is certainly believed by some and is therefore relevant here. I don't personally care.
“ The Second Amendment, ratified in 1791, was proposed by James Madison to allow the creation of civilian forces that can counteract a tyrannical federal government. “
> the intent of 2A was to enable citizens to force a regime change
No it was not and this is a common myth that is repeated by the 2A crowd. The primary intent of the 2A was to allow the individual states to field militias (the only land army available to the new nation who was still in conflict with its former rulers) without going broke. It was more about a fear of a standing army balanced against a fear of British invasion than it was a means for citizens to rebel against their own government.
Is the militia not any able bodied citizen capable of fighting for defense of self or state?
The militia argument was completely broken in 2008 with DC vs Heller that specially said 2A is not a collective right, but absolutely an individual right.
So, wether you can read the intention of people who just used guns to rebel against their government and form a new one was really to make sure that only the government could rule on appropriate arms - or not - it is moot now.
The 'militia' is an outdated concept with as much relevance to modern life as the muskets they once used, but it was always intended to be a popular (as in 'of the people') manifestation of the state. As far as Heller goes, Scalia conjured that one up from thin air and no amount of weasel words from a justice can change historical fact. The 2A was never an individual right until Scalia declared it to be so, and this change is unlikely to last as long as many 2A proponents think it will.
Right, except for all the reasons it was outlined to be exactly that for 240 years before you came along to say it wasn’t. Perhaps try the Federalist Papers, Jefferson, and Adam’s writings on the topic.
You are free to disagree all you like, you are within all rights to call a majority decision wrong and the opinion of weasel words… your feelings change nothing.
The militia argument is completely dead. 2A is an individual right. End of story until that decision is overturned. You are 13 years late to be upset over it.
One way to think about rebellion is as an act of self defense against a tyrannical government.
Most of the pro-2A activity that I see these days seems to revolve around self defense arguments as opposed to earlier arguments (1980s or so) revolved around hunting/sporting.
I'm not saying rebellion isn't a commonly cited part of the 2A, but it's probably one of the least persuasive arguments and doesn't get trotted out much in polite company.
They are absolutely about rebelling against a tyrannical government. The founders were obsessed with safeguarding democracy against tyranny. That’s why there is the whole bit about the right to form a militia. The self defense aspect is just the logical extrapolation of that idea from from a population level to an individual level.
> I've heard a few times that they're about rebelling against a corrupt government
That's a relatively modern myth. The intent of 2nd Amendment is primarily the defense of the State. This is clear from the text itself and from other writings of the framers.
In fact, in the Pennsylvania Whiskey Rebellion of 1794, Americans tried to use their firearms in just this way; to resist what they considered to be a tyrannical tax and imposition on their way of life. Washington called up the militia and put down the rebellion with overwhelming support of Congress, which contained many of the original framers.
The leaders of the rebellion were tried and found guilty of treason.
This is definitely an interesting line of thought worth exploring, but I do take issue your central point: There is no such thing as a non-lethal weapon, and even good less lethal weapons struggle to effectively stop determined assailants.
A human truly determined to inflict harm on someone is astoundingly difficult to stop. The starkest examples I've come across are two officer-involved shootings: First was in Oregon, where a soldier going through a nasty divorce kidnapped his kids, got pulled over for speeding, got into a gunfight with the officer, injured the officer who proceeded to land a shot through his heart, then he continued shooting back, got back into the car, drove half a mile, pulled over, said goodbye to his kids, and died. The second was a man that got into a gunfight with multiple officers and didn't stop until he had about thirty bullets in him, so of course everyone assumed he was hopped up on PCP until the coroner report came back with negative results on the drug panel.
Tasers are about as good as it gets right now if you want something that can decisively stop a person, but even then they're badly hampered by any kind of heavy clothing and rain. Their direct lethality is heavily debated, but people getting head injuries when getting zapped is pretty common, not to mention deaths tied to heart conditions and being under the influence of stimulants. Their ability to stop an assailant behind any kind of barrier is completely nonexistent as well, and if you do find a technology that can decisively stop someone through a sheet of plywood it will definitely be able to kill.
Even trying to physically restain someone has a lot of room for injury and death, regardless of training and manpower, so I'm not confident that a weapon that can both compete with a gun in its ability to stop a threat and is guaranteed to not kill will happen before Tesla full self driving exits beta.
> people getting head injuries when getting zapped is pretty common
This scares the shit out of me, more than getting shot by a cop. Cops use tasers a lot more freely than guns, very frequently using them when there is no plausible threat to themselves or anybody else. They're allowed to get away with it because tasers are "less lethal." All it takes is one bad fall to turn you into a brain scrambled imbecile who can't tie your own shoelaces anymore but much of the public doesn't seem to understand this and are unsympathetic to these sort of concerns. At least with guns, people understand the gravity of the matter.
This is why I’m kind of surprised to see the use of stunners (taser with out the gun part, and usually with longer, usually spring loaded for safety, electrical contacts, yea you have to be closer. But you also are now in range to ensure the delivery of the electric shock and to grab them in order to ensure they don’t hurt themselves when they collapse. Walk in arms up doing the de-escalation stuff and then if shit hits the fan try and quick draw the stunner and jab them in the chest like it’s a knife. Just as non-leather as a taser but with much less risk of injuries to the person being shocked and also much less risk of failing to work since up close making physical contact is something you can train someone to do well, no inherent inaccuracies involved.
Stun guns are pain compliance weapons and won't incapacitate like a Taser will. They do have their place, and like you said give you more control over placement, but can be completely useless against people that don't care about pain because of adrenaline or drugs.
Oh your right about adrenaline and drugs changing the effectiveness, but I could have sworn they made stun guns that were designed to function as takedown devices exactly how tasers are.
They will disrupt muscles the same, but the contacts are only a few cm apart and apply voltage for a second or two while a proper Taser will send the current through several hundred cm for 5 to 30 seconds. They're in completely different leagues.
The jargon du jour is "less lethal" for this reason.
And since every weapon from a stick to a stun gun is possibly lethal, your adversary can claim "self defense" when he shoots you dead with an actual firearm.
I would be afraid to carry only "less lethal" weapons because they can get you killed faster than being completely unarmed.
Fair point, though after working with the full range of options, there are situations where carrying pepper spray is perfectly adequate. It depends on what threats you need to deal with.
>The jargon du jour is "less lethal" for this reason.
Exactly. The point is that a really motivated person with an automatic rifle and that same person with a butterknife represent completely different levels of danger.
I think the "anyone motivated to kill will kill" narrative collapses instantly for this reason.
> open up a lot of possibilities for regulating traditional firearms
I'm not a constitutional scholar, but I suspect this argument wont fly. From what I can see the only arms that are prohibited are ones that don't have a legal use (ie sawnoff shotguns)
I don't think one can technology one's self out of cultural issue. Sure its an enabling technology, but so are stun guns and tasers. However that has not allowed the USA to create a somewhat more normal gun regulation regimen.
> From what I can see the only arms that are prohibited are ones that don't have a legal use (ie sawnoff shotguns)
Not really, the sawnoff shotguns thing is an anachronism. The National Firearms Act (NFA) which restricted sawnoff shotguns (not completely banned) was originally intended to restrict all handguns, presumably because they're concealable and useful for crime. To make a handgun ban meaningful, it was going to also restrict short barrel shotguns and rifles. The handgun restrictions got dropped from the NFA for political reasons, but the short barrel shotgun and rifle restrictions remained.
You can still acquire/manufacture a short barrel shotgun or rifle, but you have do paperwork for it and from what I've seen nobody really values short barrel shotguns enough for this to be common. However if you did do all the paperwork and made or bought one, then subsequently used it for self defense, that would be legal.
> I'm not a constitutional scholar, but I suspect this argument wont fly. From what I can see the only arms that are prohibited are ones that don't have a legal use (ie sawnoff shotguns)
A couple things I could unpack there but to keep it simple…
The most recent take by SCOTUS was 2008 Heller and 2010 McDonald that set up the language for guns that may be regulated as “dangerous and unusual”. The AND is very important. Dangerous is not to the target, they’re all dangerous to the target, but rather I read it as in hard to control or wider effecting or camouflaged or potentially harmful to the user. Unusual is easier to understand. A gun that might be dangerous and unusual is a 50BMG handgun or a machine gun or something generally not effective for defense of self/state or a cane gun. It’s hard to seriously rationalize that if gun control exists at all that an M240B LMG should have the same exact regulations as a Glock. We clearly have more use for the latter as a society, although there is vigorous debate that of varying reason.
The other is that sawed off shotguns are not illegal. The DOJ at one point did want to ban guns, and tried to ban all guns with barrels less than 18” knowing full well this would be all handguns. They failed but did come away with a consolation prize of barrel length limits for rifles and shotguns. 18” for shotguns and 16” for rifles basically for no reasons that make sense. You can saw a shotgun barrel down all you like up until you get to 18”, where 17.9” is an SBS, short barreled shotgun, and still not illegal but does require a $200 tax to be paid. Funny though, this only applies to “shotguns” which is a smooth bore gun with a stock. A “shotgun handgun” is not a shotgun, and also not a handgun, but rather a “firearm”. But only if it was made that way. You can have or saw down any shotgun barrel to any length so long as it doesn’t have and wasn’t made with a stock. This gun http://primusdatabase.com/images/d/d3/Sawed-Off_Shotgun.jpg is legal if the tape is covering a grip that hasn’t been modified, but illegal if it’s covering that someone sawed the stock off as well. You can buy a version of this gun with no stock and saw it down if you like. There is a world of stupid ATF NFA that you do not wish to know. https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-1db1617798849b0d0a7d7b...
That's already how this works in some countries. If someone attacks you with a baseball bat or fists and you shoot them dead you might be sentenced for overstepping a reasonable self-defense. The same crime at gun-point and at knife-point carries much harsher punishment. This encourages reasonable (de)escalation instead of just going for 120% from the start. And saves lives.
End result is - even in countries with relatively easy access to guns for hobby - nobody carries them for self-defense (criminals included), because they don't expect to need them, and in case of a self-defense situation they are more likely to cause problems than to solve them.
Since the guy carrying the gun winds up alive, while those around him wind up dead, seems like the obvious conclusion is that "carrying a gun is dangerous for everyone else who isn't carrying a gun".
That's a popular leftist talking point, but untrue. It didn't work for the murderers of Armad Aubrey (as it should not have), for one recent high-profile example.
If we were referring to _Police_ in America, I'd agree with you.
This exact cheat code was successfully used by the killer in another recent high-profile example.
"If I would have let [the person shot four times] take my firearm from me, he would have used it and killed me with it and probably killed more people."
If it were a cheat code, by definition, it would be available to anyone and everyone without prejudice or variance. I didn't say it never happened. To paint it as a cheat code is simply biased anti-2a sentiment - and inaccurate, at that.
If it were a cheat code, by definition, it would be available to anyone and everyone without prejudice or variance. I didn't say using "I was scared" as a lethal force justification never happened. Painting it as a cheat code is simply biased anti-2a sentiment - and inaccurate, at that.
Not so sure about that, it was the anti-gun folk who were against finger-print-to-unlock firearms, because they thought having better security would result in more guns being owned.
Attempting to defend yourself with something like this is going to get you killed. People are strong beyond most people's ability to understand -- some people can still be a threat with severe bullet wounds for incredibly long periods of time. It's going to take something much more compelling than this to bring up any serious discussion about less-lethal options.
I think you're misunderstanding the second amendment and self-defense. The second amendment doesn't enumerate the right to self-defense. Self-defense is an affirmative defense to a criminal charge (in this instance) which is within the purview of the states and not the federal government due to the tenth amendment.
Heller held that the second amendment protected an individuals right to keep and bear arms for traditionally lawful purposes, which was later incorporated into the states in McDonald. One traditionally lawful purpose is self-defense, but the states get to define self-defense; of which there are already many differences between the states. I suppose the right of self-defense could be found in the fourteenth amendment - it certainly has a legal history going back thousands of years. Even so, it would be distinct from the second amendment. Think of it more like emergent behavior stemming from interactions in our dual sovereignty system of government.
All that to say that no, I don't believe this would factor into any analysis when it comes to second amendment regulation cases. The second amendment would protect against regulating these less lethal weapons if Caetano is any indication though.
God so many of the comments here make me wonder if HN is crawling with bloodthirsty psychopaths. I mean why has a freaking shotgun got to the hn front page?! Maybe it's Americans up in the middle of the night playing Last of Us 2 and having lost a sense of where the virtual and real part from one another?
Please don't call names in HN comments or take HN threads into nationalistic flamewar. It's not what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for.
I haven't looked closely at the post but since the article is claiming some sort of technical innovation it's not hard to see why some readers would find it interesting. If you don't find it interesting, that's fine—nothing interests everybody, and there are plenty of other things to read here.
I was once in a session with a concealed carry license instructor and at the end of his session he made a couple surprising points. 1) if you’re going to shoot somebody, shoot to kill or prepare for a lawsuit. 2) There is a gun lobby, a taser lobby, a knife lobby, but no baseball bat lobby so don’t keep a baseball bat under your bed because when you injure somebody you’ll be sued and nobody will help defend you. 3) Buy pepper spray. I took his advise and bought pepper spray instead.
My point here is there is also no rail gun lobby, so if you injure somebody, prepare to be sued.
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[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 221 ms ] threadNevertheless, still a very cool concept and slick implementation.
Advertising this for self-defense is rather reckless, considering that people may rely on that.
First, there just isn’t a ton of energy in that “round”. They’re claiming <16J - a .22LR, the smallest common caliber, comes in at around 275J. This thing is substantially less powerful than many BB guns.
Second, the disk shape of the projectile means that it’s going to be impossible to aim effectively. That thing is going to have significant vertical dispersion even at very short ranges.
It’s a toy.
An extremely dangerous toy.
I’d argue it’s less dangerous than, for instance, a 5” racing quadcopter.
Semi-related, as I looked into drones here again a bit (my last adventure was a self-build from 2011, different times): The EU thought so too, it defines the difference between toys (that you do not need to register nor have any license for) are those which develop no more than 79 joules of impact energy when dropping, which couples it automatically to the weight of the drone and the ceiling height you can/want to fly with it. The law assumes that you need to calculate at minimum 30 m of ceiling height, to avoid shops being able to sell 2.5 kg drones when you ensure while winking that you fly it at 1 m at max.
So the most common variants are 250 gr. which works out at 30 m allowed ceiling height you can fly with it, at least if you're not in a restricted flight zone, like some cities and naturally airports are.
https://www.easa.europa.eu/domains/civil-drones/drones-regul...
Human body has amazing resistance to blunt force and lacerations. Piercing damage - very little could fuck you up very badly. Arteries, kidneys, eyes.
Shape does matter, though! A dart might be lethal if it hit a major artery or the heart. I'd have to do a test to see if it could punch through mass equivalent to the bones of the skull. Unsure, but I'd put money that it wouldn't.
This weapon looks to fire discs, not darts. No way that's going to be a lethal round at 16J.
Muzzle energy isn’t the only factor in lethality.
If the projectile was some kind of sharpened dart, 16J might be enough to be lethal in a headshot. Maybe. I'd have to do a test to see if it could punch through mass equivalent to the bones of the skull. But a disc or a ball? Unlikely. Could take out an eye, sure, but that's about it.
Absolutely unsuitable as a weapon.
Also at least two of the weapons detailed was below 12 ftlbs which means it was definitely below 16J. Further when you get on to the discussion you will note it says all the weapons were within legal limits. So your reading of the article is incorrect.
The actual legal limit for “lethality” as it pertains to defining a firearm in the UK is 1.35J.
I re-read, and you are correct!
I'd still be surprised if this was a common occurrence with projectiles of such low power, but if ballistics against key targets (heart and brain through the skull) show consistent penetration at that power level with a steel ball, I'm happy to update my assumptions as to power and lethality.
(I'd be surprised if they did, but it'd definitely change my mind should the results be consistent)
Have you seen the demolition ranch video for it? On max settings it was going through a medium sized pumpkin. I would not want to be on the receiving end of it.
Edit: I do agree with you, I would only buy one for fun, in it's current state
Yes, I'm a total psycho, I already know this.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
At the time I had aphorisms on my bathroom mirror. My favorite one was "I need not convince that humanity is necessary, only that it's possible"
I'll not be taking that kind of chance...
What if you come out with a baseball bat and the thief has a gun?
What if you come out with a gun and there's a second thief that you don't see and he fires first?
What if you come out and fire at the "burglar" and it turns out to be your neighbor's drunk teenager walking into the wrong home or police doing a no-knock warrant on the wrong address?
There's always risks. The actions you take and the risks you choose to be guided by are entirely a function of the deep values you actually hold and act on.
This discusion of de-escalation tactics (ridiculed by a US deligation) is rather enlightening.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Scotland/comments/rcglza/us_delegat...
So, the explanation for the US' high murder rate is perhaps less likely to be "they encourage bloodlust" and more likely to be "they make it very easy to own guns".
https://www.civitas.org.uk/content/files/crime_stats_oecdjan...
I agree entirely, but frankly it's a distinction without a difference.
If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
Fortunately your substantive comments have been good, so this should be easy to fix. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
They claim 16J. Well, a typical - Germany Legal - Airsoft gun has 7.5J, so we're talking about toy-level of energy.
Now, looking at some 9mm ammo, you have around 500-570J depending on type - Ball vs. Hollow Point.
Yeah, it's very clear to me, what I want to use if I have to defend myself.
A five-year-old in a pillow fight will put substantially more than 16J into your body.
A pillow and a point of a stick can apply the same amount of force, with completely different effects.
If you need extreme intensity, you'll have to use a solid state laser.
A 10w handheld laser would be an effective defense, but you should wear bandstop glasses at the laser frequency. A beam spreader would also make it easier to aim and still nearly as effective.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LED_incapacitator
$600 isn't too bad, could do wonders for noisy neighbors, too!
That flashlight has 18 LEDs, so 36k lumens at the most.
Also, for the rated brightness, each LED has to be run at 12VDC 2.4 amps or ~30 watts. The thing has 8 21700 cells at ~3.7v each 4Ah. So the cells are probably wired in a 2x4 configuration giving 7.5v and a total of 32Ah. Current draw for the LEDs is higher at lower voltage, so it's 12/7.5*2.4A = ~3.8A per LED or ~70 amps total draw. So yeah the numbers show it's feasible to run the 18 cells at full current for about 25 minutes and get the 36k lumens.
The heat dissipation will be about half a kilowatt, so quite likely the flashlight will get too hot to hold fairly quickly, even with its heat-pipe cooling.
I'm not an EE, I'm just channeling my long ago physics class on circuitry, so I could be egregiously wrong in places.
With this kind of flashlight you have to use unprotected lithium ion cells because they far exceed what the protection circuitry will let you do. Also related to their tendency to go kaboom if set up wrong.
On the gripping hand, holding a laser potentially makes you more of a target than if you use a flash-suppressing sniper rifle.
It's best not to be in the situation in the first place.
The site feels like satire. Some of the Q&A answers just make little sense.
Also, they claim it's non-lethal. After the example videos, I cannot see how that is the case. It looks like it could easily shred through some stomach lining or nick an artery or completely blind someone.
Constitutional arguments are about the right to self-defense. That's not necessarily the same as killing someone, and you don't necessarily have a right to killing in and of itself, but only as a means to an end for self-defense. I suppose it depends on what flavor of defense of the second amendment you favor, but it seems like self-defense can be associated with incapacitation, need not necessarily depend on the capability of killing.
If that's true, access to weapons for the purpose of self-defense that aren't capable of killing would seem to open up a lot of possibilities for regulating traditional firearms. If (I said if!) there are equally effective alternatives for the purpose of self-defense, then that constitutional right can be satisfied without the need for traditional firearms that are capable of killing.
Insofar as they can replace traditional firearms, I find that promising, but obviously this brings a fair amount of unintended complexity; for instance non-lethal self defense may open up entirely new dimensions of cruel maiming and non-lethal suffering, it's may create complexities relating to whether something's actually non-lethal, it may have an effect of increasing the sum total of use of force by introducing non-lethal force into lower and lower stakes situations leading to a net increase of physical coercion, and there may be cultural resistance to the idea ever becoming mainstream because it would be too reformist and therefore liberal.
I think these all have to be navigated, but I think the trade-off is worth considering. I also think that strong gun regulation is worth considering, and personally just don't endorse wide distribution of guns in any form whatsoever, so I consider this a workaround peculiar to the culture of America.
For a counter example, look at Britain in India.
The more people you kill (regular folk), the more the population turns against you, and less likely you’ll actually be able to stay long term, and the more you get stuck in an endless morass of guerrilla attacks. Because it motivates suicide bombers, desperation, hate.
Even more true in a civil war.
If you co-opt leadership while nominally supporting the locals and making their lives better, it can help instead. Or go full scorched earth, but that generally doesn’t work in a civil war unless there is only a small region rebelling.
"10 USC Ch. 12: THE MILITIA" https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title10/sub...
“ The Second Amendment, ratified in 1791, was proposed by James Madison to allow the creation of civilian forces that can counteract a tyrannical federal government. “
This seems to be what OP was alluding to.
No it was not and this is a common myth that is repeated by the 2A crowd. The primary intent of the 2A was to allow the individual states to field militias (the only land army available to the new nation who was still in conflict with its former rulers) without going broke. It was more about a fear of a standing army balanced against a fear of British invasion than it was a means for citizens to rebel against their own government.
The militia argument was completely broken in 2008 with DC vs Heller that specially said 2A is not a collective right, but absolutely an individual right.
So, wether you can read the intention of people who just used guns to rebel against their government and form a new one was really to make sure that only the government could rule on appropriate arms - or not - it is moot now.
Right, except for all the reasons it was outlined to be exactly that for 240 years before you came along to say it wasn’t. Perhaps try the Federalist Papers, Jefferson, and Adam’s writings on the topic.
You are free to disagree all you like, you are within all rights to call a majority decision wrong and the opinion of weasel words… your feelings change nothing.
The militia argument is completely dead. 2A is an individual right. End of story until that decision is overturned. You are 13 years late to be upset over it.
Why is that? It sounds like you are saying that even if you don't need lethal force for self defense, you would need it for regime change?
Most of the pro-2A activity that I see these days seems to revolve around self defense arguments as opposed to earlier arguments (1980s or so) revolved around hunting/sporting.
I'm not saying rebellion isn't a commonly cited part of the 2A, but it's probably one of the least persuasive arguments and doesn't get trotted out much in polite company.
That's a relatively modern myth. The intent of 2nd Amendment is primarily the defense of the State. This is clear from the text itself and from other writings of the framers.
In fact, in the Pennsylvania Whiskey Rebellion of 1794, Americans tried to use their firearms in just this way; to resist what they considered to be a tyrannical tax and imposition on their way of life. Washington called up the militia and put down the rebellion with overwhelming support of Congress, which contained many of the original framers.
The leaders of the rebellion were tried and found guilty of treason.
A human truly determined to inflict harm on someone is astoundingly difficult to stop. The starkest examples I've come across are two officer-involved shootings: First was in Oregon, where a soldier going through a nasty divorce kidnapped his kids, got pulled over for speeding, got into a gunfight with the officer, injured the officer who proceeded to land a shot through his heart, then he continued shooting back, got back into the car, drove half a mile, pulled over, said goodbye to his kids, and died. The second was a man that got into a gunfight with multiple officers and didn't stop until he had about thirty bullets in him, so of course everyone assumed he was hopped up on PCP until the coroner report came back with negative results on the drug panel.
Tasers are about as good as it gets right now if you want something that can decisively stop a person, but even then they're badly hampered by any kind of heavy clothing and rain. Their direct lethality is heavily debated, but people getting head injuries when getting zapped is pretty common, not to mention deaths tied to heart conditions and being under the influence of stimulants. Their ability to stop an assailant behind any kind of barrier is completely nonexistent as well, and if you do find a technology that can decisively stop someone through a sheet of plywood it will definitely be able to kill.
Even trying to physically restain someone has a lot of room for injury and death, regardless of training and manpower, so I'm not confident that a weapon that can both compete with a gun in its ability to stop a threat and is guaranteed to not kill will happen before Tesla full self driving exits beta.
This scares the shit out of me, more than getting shot by a cop. Cops use tasers a lot more freely than guns, very frequently using them when there is no plausible threat to themselves or anybody else. They're allowed to get away with it because tasers are "less lethal." All it takes is one bad fall to turn you into a brain scrambled imbecile who can't tie your own shoelaces anymore but much of the public doesn't seem to understand this and are unsympathetic to these sort of concerns. At least with guns, people understand the gravity of the matter.
The jargon du jour is "less lethal" for this reason.
And since every weapon from a stick to a stun gun is possibly lethal, your adversary can claim "self defense" when he shoots you dead with an actual firearm.
I would be afraid to carry only "less lethal" weapons because they can get you killed faster than being completely unarmed.
Exactly. The point is that a really motivated person with an automatic rifle and that same person with a butterknife represent completely different levels of danger.
I think the "anyone motivated to kill will kill" narrative collapses instantly for this reason.
I'm not a constitutional scholar, but I suspect this argument wont fly. From what I can see the only arms that are prohibited are ones that don't have a legal use (ie sawnoff shotguns)
I don't think one can technology one's self out of cultural issue. Sure its an enabling technology, but so are stun guns and tasers. However that has not allowed the USA to create a somewhat more normal gun regulation regimen.
Not really, the sawnoff shotguns thing is an anachronism. The National Firearms Act (NFA) which restricted sawnoff shotguns (not completely banned) was originally intended to restrict all handguns, presumably because they're concealable and useful for crime. To make a handgun ban meaningful, it was going to also restrict short barrel shotguns and rifles. The handgun restrictions got dropped from the NFA for political reasons, but the short barrel shotgun and rifle restrictions remained.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Firearms_Act#Backgrou...
You can still acquire/manufacture a short barrel shotgun or rifle, but you have do paperwork for it and from what I've seen nobody really values short barrel shotguns enough for this to be common. However if you did do all the paperwork and made or bought one, then subsequently used it for self defense, that would be legal.
Also they're legal in Canada: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sawed-off_shotgun#Canada
A couple things I could unpack there but to keep it simple…
The most recent take by SCOTUS was 2008 Heller and 2010 McDonald that set up the language for guns that may be regulated as “dangerous and unusual”. The AND is very important. Dangerous is not to the target, they’re all dangerous to the target, but rather I read it as in hard to control or wider effecting or camouflaged or potentially harmful to the user. Unusual is easier to understand. A gun that might be dangerous and unusual is a 50BMG handgun or a machine gun or something generally not effective for defense of self/state or a cane gun. It’s hard to seriously rationalize that if gun control exists at all that an M240B LMG should have the same exact regulations as a Glock. We clearly have more use for the latter as a society, although there is vigorous debate that of varying reason.
The other is that sawed off shotguns are not illegal. The DOJ at one point did want to ban guns, and tried to ban all guns with barrels less than 18” knowing full well this would be all handguns. They failed but did come away with a consolation prize of barrel length limits for rifles and shotguns. 18” for shotguns and 16” for rifles basically for no reasons that make sense. You can saw a shotgun barrel down all you like up until you get to 18”, where 17.9” is an SBS, short barreled shotgun, and still not illegal but does require a $200 tax to be paid. Funny though, this only applies to “shotguns” which is a smooth bore gun with a stock. A “shotgun handgun” is not a shotgun, and also not a handgun, but rather a “firearm”. But only if it was made that way. You can have or saw down any shotgun barrel to any length so long as it doesn’t have and wasn’t made with a stock. This gun http://primusdatabase.com/images/d/d3/Sawed-Off_Shotgun.jpg is legal if the tape is covering a grip that hasn’t been modified, but illegal if it’s covering that someone sawed the stock off as well. You can buy a version of this gun with no stock and saw it down if you like. There is a world of stupid ATF NFA that you do not wish to know. https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-1db1617798849b0d0a7d7b...
End result is - even in countries with relatively easy access to guns for hobby - nobody carries them for self-defense (criminals included), because they don't expect to need them, and in case of a self-defense situation they are more likely to cause problems than to solve them.
Perhaps they were encouraged by the fact that Rittenhouse was trying to avoid conflict and run away?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2Rqv2tIg4E&t=319s
The only "cheat code" here was used by the prosecutor to bring this case to trial.
If we were referring to _Police_ in America, I'd agree with you.
This exact cheat code was successfully used by the killer in another recent high-profile example.
"If I would have let [the person shot four times] take my firearm from me, he would have used it and killed me with it and probably killed more people."
https://www.economist.com/united-states/2021/11/20/the-acqui...
Heller held that the second amendment protected an individuals right to keep and bear arms for traditionally lawful purposes, which was later incorporated into the states in McDonald. One traditionally lawful purpose is self-defense, but the states get to define self-defense; of which there are already many differences between the states. I suppose the right of self-defense could be found in the fourteenth amendment - it certainly has a legal history going back thousands of years. Even so, it would be distinct from the second amendment. Think of it more like emergent behavior stemming from interactions in our dual sovereignty system of government.
All that to say that no, I don't believe this would factor into any analysis when it comes to second amendment regulation cases. The second amendment would protect against regulating these less lethal weapons if Caetano is any indication though.
I haven't looked closely at the post but since the article is claiming some sort of technical innovation it's not hard to see why some readers would find it interesting. If you don't find it interesting, that's fine—nothing interests everybody, and there are plenty of other things to read here.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
> 4. Who is the target user of e-shotgun?
> 1. Players: lovers who like to play with guns.
Am I reading this right? The number 1 target user is BDSM kink players?
[1]: https://e-shotgun.com/qa/