non-lethal

What’s better than packaging an incapacitating, “less-lethal” electric shock device in a shotgun shell so it can be fired from a conventional firearm? If you answered a bigger, longer-range electric shock device that can be fired from a 40-millimeter grenade launcher, then you and the Pentagon share similar sensibilities.

Here at Popular Science, we work under the assumption that ray guns are cool. But you know what's even cooler? A flying ray gun. And thanks to an $8 million dollar funding bump from the Air Force, a flying ray gun is closer to production than ever.

The defense company Raytheon unveiled the beam weapon in 2001; back then they mounted the device on a Humvee. Now, the military's Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate has requested an upgrade to the weapon that would allow the JNLWD to attach it to helicopters and other aircraft.

Weapons manufacturers don't typically enjoy boasting about a shotgun's non-killing power, unless that manufacturer is Taser International. But even as the leading name in "less-lethal" released a new stun cartridge for 12-gauge shotguns with a range of over 100 feet, some journalists point out that safety and field tests have yet to disclose public results.