Dear Nick,

«A guy on drugs with a knife does not really need to die»
«and the guy slowly sinks to his knees begging forgiveness»

Whence this assumption that the guy is in the wrong and the police is in the right?

What if the guy's only "crime" is refusing to fill the census?
What if the guy is wielding the knife in defence of his son, if the policemen are at his doorstep in order to grab his son to Vietnam?

If the guy was indeed habitually on drugs thus dangerous to the community, then he should be shot to kill - which is much more merciful than throwing him in jail. Death is not final, but an opportunity to start afresh.

Totally agree. If he comes out of a pub with the smell of death on him, a hit squad should mow him down. (Not doing census is treason and computer fraud , shoot in knee caps only.) Absolutely death is a new start and he can be planted under the pub beer garden to make the grass plants ready for smoking.

Anyone heard of a Tazer?

It works without killing, which is why police use them.

Nick, I was a top marksman. On a range, or hunting I rarely wasted a round, or even an arrow, when I used a bow occasionally. Actually in clear shallow reef water the bow was the best fishing implement I've used.

However, if an armed assailant was coming at me with a weapon, I wouldn't be mucking around with fancy trick shots at moving knees. Hell I wouldn't even try to be Tom Mix & shoot the weapon out of his hand.

The only course of action is to stop the attacker, & that means shooting for the largest target that will do that. That's the upper body, & only the upper body.

Hi there NICKNAMENICK...

Thank you for introducing such a riviting topic on a new range or non-lethal weapons - a 'Phaser'. Are these devices available to the general public, if so where may I purchase one and at what cost please. Or are they only available for law-enforcement and the military ?

In your opening remarks you mentioned the deployment of darts as another option to a bullet. Would one fire or throw this 'dart', or what other method would be needed to deploy the thing ? I should think the dart should contain a phial of anaesthetic which would put the offender to sleep, a far better option to killing them don't you think? Of course the dose would need to be carefully measured otherwise you'd have offenders asleep all over the place, and that would not be good for public relations.

Thank you NICKNAMENICK.

OSW...we have "offenders asleep all over the place" at a location called Caaarnbra (Capital Hill), very untidy and about as useful as hip pockets on a singlet each and every one of them.

The US military have been developing a 'Phaser' type weapon for several years, see: http://www.livescience.com/309-military-mulls-star-trek-weapons.html and further: http://www.nature.com/news/military-technology-laser-weapons-get-real-1.17613 We saw recently the operational firing of the US Navy ship mounted 'Rail Gun'.

The biggest hurdle to getting this into the hands of Plod & Co is keeping the battery sizes small enough to give the grunt to the charge i.e. phaser/laser beam and retaining a practical sized weapon. Given the NSW Police went "full Brazilian" a few years back, even the current issue Tasers (actually a direct descendant of the Star Trek phaser idea) have had problems in their deployment.

As an armourer, it has been on some occasions not funny at all when a colleague 'test fires' their Taser at you. Believe me, going to sleep is the last thing on your mind !