Flash-Ball is a registered trademark for a
less-lethal
Non-lethal weapons, also called nonlethal weapons, less-lethal weapons, less-than-lethal weapons, non-deadly weapons, compliance weapons, or pain-inducing weapons are weapons intended to be less likely to kill a living target than conventional ...
hand-held projectile launcher developed by
French hunting firearms manufacturer
Verney-Carron
Verney-Carron S.A. is a French firearm manufacturing company based in Saint-Etienne, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. The company makes a wide range of hunting shotguns and rifles. In 2004, Verney-Carron purchased the traditional artisan gun making compa ...
. Flash-Ball is intended to be used by
riot police
Riot police are police who are organized, deployed, trained or equipped to confront crowds, protests or riots.
Riot police may be regular police who act in the role of riot police in particular situations or they may be separate units organize ...
as an alternative to lethal
firearm
A firearm is any type of gun designed to be readily carried and used by an individual. The term is legally defined further in different countries (see Legal definitions).
The first firearms originated in 10th-century China, when bamboo tubes ...
s,
bean bag rounds, and
plastic bullet
A plastic bullet or plastic baton round (PBR) is a non-lethal projectile fired from a specialised gun. Although designed as a non-lethal weapon, they have caused a number of deaths when used incorrectly.
Plastic bullets are generally used for ...
s.
Characteristics
The weapon exists in two versions of caliber 44/83. The super-pro version features vertically stacked barrels and is made from metal alloys, while the compact version is made from lighter
composite material
A composite material (also called a composition material or shortened to composite, which is the common name) is a material which is produced from two or more constituent materials. These constituent materials have notably dissimilar chemical or ...
s with the twin barrels side by side. Both versions of the weapon can be used to fire a variety of ammunition although a soft 44 mm rubber ball is the most common.
According to the manufacturer's own publicity, the Flash-Ball's standard round packs the
stopping power of a .38 (9 mm) caliber
handgun
A handgun is a short- barrelled gun, typically a firearm, that is designed to be usable with only one hand. It is distinguished from a long gun (i.e. rifle, shotgun or machine gun, etc.), which needs to be held by both hands and also braced ...
but considerably less kinetic energy per square centimeter, making it unlikely to penetrate the body of a normally clothed person even at ranges down to 5 meters.
This said, various
human rights
Human rights are Morality, moral principles or Social norm, normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for ce ...
groups have expressed fears that the widespread deployment of such weapons could result in police being less likely to apply
de-escalation
De-escalation is a human behavior that is intended to prevent escalation of conflicts. It may also refer to approaches in conflict resolution. People may become committed to behaviors that tend to escalate conflict, so specific measures must b ...
tactics when dealing with potentially dangerous situations.
Safety concerns
Numerous eye losses, comas, and brain traumas as well as major bone breakages and one death due to cardiac arrest have been attributed to the use of Flash-Ball by police.
Users
* :
Law enforcement in France
Law enforcement in France has a long history dating back to AD 570 when night watch systems were commonplace.Dammer, H. R. and Albanese, J. S. (2014). ''Comparative Criminal Justice Systems'' (5th ed.). Wadesworth Cengage learning: Belmont, C ...
* : Grupo de Operações Especiais (Special Operations Group) of
Macau Police
* :
Public Security Police
In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichkei ...
See also
*
Blast ball
References
External links
*
Multiple-barrel firearms
Police weapons
Riot guns
Firearms of France
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