Dystopia watch: a roundup of the DOD's new less-lethal weapons

The ‘variable kinetic system’ seems likely to make it into production; if only because it’s a commercially available tacticool paintball gun.

Some of the others do seem more at risk of dying either in project management hell or on contact with reality(I’m sure, say, that the ‘pre-emplaced electric vehicle stopper’ will terrify car and truck bombers once they realize that finding a beater old enough to have a carburetor will give you additional time as the Americans stare in shock at a vehicle without an ECU…)

Unfortunately, the one that is least vaporware seems like a potential problem. Even if ‘micro-­pulverized burning irritant’ is rules lawyered into the status of ‘not chemical weapon’ for CWC purposes; using weapons that look and feel like chemical weapons unless you wait long enough to determine that they were, in fact, not all that toxic after all, is a fairly obvious way to give a suitably jumpy adversary the impression that you are using chemical weapons, potentially inspiring them to respond in kind; which would go downhill quickly for everyone.

Best case, that particular list item is just an ‘MPs purchase hardware used by police forces’ snippet that had enough buzzwords attached to be given futuristic-listicle status.

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