Showing posts with label Weapons. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Weapons. Show all posts

Friday, February 10, 2012

Stephen Coleman: The moral dangers of non-lethal weapons

An interesting Ted Talk... in this one, Stephen Coleman discusses the problems of non-lethal weapons. He tells how one police department introduced non-lethal weapons as an option between "shouting and shooting." The data shows that the non-lethal weapons did not replace the handful of shooting deaths, but rather created a whole new category of confrontations with over 2,000 uses of pepper spray.

Another key point is that the perfect non-lethal weapon, one that is "nasty enough that people don't want to get hit with" it, but "doesn't leave any lasting effects," is also perfect for abuse.