GERMANY - A company in Germany has developed a wireless electric shock weapon that delivers a debilitating shock to its victims in the form of an aerosol.
According to a report in this week's New Scientist, the weapon has been developed by Ratingen-based Rheinmetall W&M and is similar to the U.S Taser weapon in its effect.
Video stills of a prototype of the "Plasma-Taser" in action during firing-range tests were shown at the European Symposium on Non-Lethal Weapons in Karlsruhe at the beginning of the month. In the first image, a spray of dark gas is seen approaching a human-size target. In the next, taken a fraction of a second later, there is a lightening-like flash of electrical discharge intended to incapacitate the targeted person.
Unlike the ordinary Taser, which fires a pair of darts at a target delivering a 50,000-volt electric shock, the Plasma-Taser doesn't need wires because it fires an aerosol spray towards the target, which creates a conductive channel for a shock current, claims Rheinmetall.
Steve Wright from Manchester-based Omega Foundation, which monitors non-lethal weapon technology, was concerned about the potential misuse of electric shock weapons.
"Such new technologies enable systematic human rights abuses to be more automated, so that one operator can induce pain and paralysis on a mass scale," he said.
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