Glenn E. says:

Well I was trying to stimulate a line of thought. Rubber bullets have been around for a long time now. A friend of mine, who once worked at John Hopkins. Told me that some mental patiences and violent types on PCP, can get shot by a lead bullet and still keep on coming at you. Assuming the bullet doesn’t hit a major blood vessel, or organ.

But a rubber bullet can deliver enough shock force to an arm or leg to dislocate joints. So even those that can ignore a gun shot wound. Can’t brush off a dislocated knee or hip joint. But you never hear about this, because the gun lobby, and I believe the legal and political system too, doesn’t want people to start using rubber bullets, instead of the lead ones. For one thing, they have NO ballistic markings. So they can’t be traced to the gun that fired them.

The authorities don’t like Tasers and shock devices in the public’s hands, for the very same reason. These alternative defense weapons have been outlawed in some paranoid States and cities.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taser – see Legality

Spray Mace has been banned as too toxic. As if lead is any better. So now only pepper spray is allowed for civilian use. But there was opposition against that too, by the US military. Yet they’ll tear gas your ass, in a moment’s notice. I had to attend gas mask training once. And they used tear gas. I hope to God I never taste that sh*t again! I’d prefer pepper spray, any day. At least you can breathe, with pepper spray. Tear gas can suffocate you to death. As many Syrians are now finding out. But the Army didn’t want you to have pepper spray. Even though the FBI’s testing ok’d it. Ask yourself why?

It seems to me the authorities would rather people got morally wounded by lethal bullets and knives, than just knocked out by something else. And while the former things might kill you, more often than not. At least the authorities can use whatever they can recover from your cold dead body, to make a legal case against the assailant(s). Which suits their careers just fine. The non-lethal alternatives, when used in crimes, would not make it so easy to build a case.

It all comes down to politics. Being “tough on crime”. Locking away as many suspects as possible, during an election year. Making every crime a death penalty case. Can’t have non-lethal weapons use screwing that up! Citizens might actually feel sorry for robbery suspects, who use only non-lethal weapons. Political and legal authorities want clearer definitions of criminal behavior in the public’s mind. And only lethal projectiles will do.

So there’s a lot of “FUD” about things like rubber bullets. Just to scare people from using them. Yes, they can kill, if you shoot someone in the throat, for example. One website I looked at basically says “kill them, or be sued by them later”. So you see there’s fear propaganda at work against most non-lethal home defense alternatives.
http://tinyurl.com/7kuoha2

I believe the authorities vastly prefer our society to be plagued by the most lethal forms of weaponry. As long as there’s tax dollars to be had, from the consequence of their use. The level of death and destruction they may cause is of secondary concern. Legal and political careers can’t be built on cases of people firing marshmallows at each other.

Notice how you don’t hear anything about the Guardian Angels, these days. It’s as if they don’t exist, but they still do. The “Man” just don’t want you to think they do. Because the G.A. are another alternative to deadly force. And they’re stealing the tax payer paid police force’s fear and respect.

The G.A. are a lot less likely to blindly obey some government directed civilian control act, than the police are. So even if the G.A. may not be saints. I’d worry less about being gunned down by them, than the police, because of some mistake on a “terrorist watch” list. Most police have willingly become a tool of big government.