Non-Lethal

Over the past few months, I've been trying to come up with an effective, non-lethal way to stop attackers/intruders. Such a device would also be helpful to law enforcement officers who would rather not kill a suspect if another, equally viable choice was available.

(I understand the Rambo kill-'em-cause-they-need-to-die argument, but there are a lot of cops who have mental and psychological issues after they kill someone, even if that homicide is totally justified. I've never killed someone, but I can imagine it would be a pretty traumatic event. With our technology, we should be able to disarm and paralyze someone without resorting to such choices unless absolutely necessary.)

We need a device that causes a HUGE amount of pain, yet causes very little physical damage after the fact. At a certain pain threshold, the body is forced to instinctively react to the pain and instantly stop whatever activity we are currently carrying out. For example, I believe that if boiling water were thrust into someone's face, they would instantly drop their gun. That, however, would cause too much damage.

I think that intense, searing heat is the answer. Think about those times you accidentally burned your hand- how bad it felt, and how quickly you moved your hand away. Research tells us that when we touch something hot, the sensation actually reaches a point on our spine when we jerk our hand away- our brain isn't actually involved in the process until some time later. That's how instinctive the urge to get away from pain is.

There should be some way we can superheat a bullet/dart that will pierce the flesh and then latch on to the suspect, so that it becomes impossible to remove unless the suspect wants to rip off a good portion of his flesh. Then, while he is writhing on the ground, the cops can apprehend him and use a "key" to unlatch the projectile- much like those keys they have at department stores to take off security tags.

The benefits would be instant stopping power and little practical injury to the suspect- the searing heat would instantly cauterize the wound.

The biggest engineering problem is how to heat the bullet safely and quickly. I don't see how this couldn't be resolved quite easily. If we can heat up a cigarette lighter in a few seconds to such a high temperature, we should be able to do so with a bullet. The material would have to be one that would retain its heat for a while, though. We wouldn't want the suspect to "cool off" until police had a chance to apprehend him.

Think about it, though- if you were hit with a dart/bullet that embedded two inches into your skin, latched on, and approached temperatures as hot as a fire, would you really have the wherewithal to fire back? Somehow I doubt it. As an experiment, have a buddy of yours hold a cigarette lighter to your ear while you try to raise and aim your gun. (Just kidding, although I'd bet you wouldn't even be able to raise and fire your weapon, much less hit anything.)

And yes, I agree that cops should continue to carry lethal weapons, as some situations would not be appropriate for non-lethal use (multiple suspects, suspects on a drug that makes thim numb, etc.) But we should have an effective, non-lethal weapon in our bag of tricks.