Police adopting Pepper Guns for less lethal needs, what about you?
Across the country, even though many law enforcement agencies are distancing themselves from handheld pepper sprays, some are movingback to the technology after coming to grips with a new delivery system: the pepper gun. Further, these devices are available to civilians as well, but do they have a use?
Back in the 1980s law enforcement ran screaming to the OC spray projector, commonly just referred to as ‘pepper-spray’ as an intermediate ‘less-lethal’ weapon system that fell into the use of force model between open/closed hand techniques and use of a baton or impact tool or firearm. OC worked because its extremely potent oleoresin capsicum (OC) ingredient (found in cayenne peppers) only closed the eyes an turned whoever was hit with it into a snot monster for 15-30 minutes.
However, agencies moved away from it for several reasons. (One) being that it is messy and the officer and third parties normally got chemically immobilized to some extent as a by-product of its use, and (two) that it’s hard to deliver accurately at a distance further than a few feet away. This meant that when Taser projectors came on the scene in recent years, they largely replaced OC cans, as they were more effective.
Well the pepper gun has appeared as an answer to that.
Read the rest in my column at Firearms Talk.com
