Non Lethal Weaponry

To reduce accidental deaths during civil disturbances, firearms manufacturer FN Herstal has developed a gun that not only fires less-than-lethal elastomer projectiles, it has a digital smart sight that can recognize human heads and refuse to fire at them.

​​Although they're generally safer than guns, conducted electrical weapons still have been implicated in deaths by cardiac arrest. In an effort to keep that from happening, researchers recently altered a CEW so that it could both deliver an electrical charge, and monitor the victim's heart rate.​

"The Alternative" is a clip-on "air bag" for semiautomatic pistols that is designed to give officers a less lethal option by reducing the velocity of a standard round. The device is designed to improve the chances of imparting a stopping force on a target without causing lethal damage.

WatchStander is a radar system that's designed to pick out small boats, such as the low-slung skiffs often used by pirates. It then tracks the vessels, and deters them if it looks like they're going to attack.

The Sierra Nevada Corporation is a year away from building a prototype of the MEDUSA crowd dispersal ray gun - a controlled beam of microwaves that creates an unbearably loud noise audible only by those in the line of fire.