The Defenzia M-09 is a Russian-made less-lethal firearm that shoots rubber bullets, flash bangs and/or signal flares out of 18.5×55 mm cartridge. As the report above reveals, Pinal County, Arizona Sheriff Department is the first U.S. law enforcement agency to deploy the M-09 stateside. On his Facebook page, Sheriff Babeu claims “This weapon may prove to be a transformative opportunity for law enforcement to be pro-active, trying everything possible to safely resolve incidents when force must be used. The deployment of this weapon may also help mitigate civil liability.” On the civilian side . . .
OSA and Defenzia plan on introducing a 50 caliber “M11” version of the M-09 to the U.S. market this year, pending BATF approval. (Not sure why they didn’t go with the Compact 40mm above.)
As TTAG’s Armed Intelligentsia no doubt concluded, as wikipedia.org reports, “A person shot from about 1 meter with an 18x45T OSA pistol to the temporal region of the head suffered a penetrative injury, with the bullet traversing most of the brain, reducing the victim to a vegetative state.” Does that qualify as a non-lethal injury?
[FYI: For the gun mentioned above, we’re talking a “15.3 mm rubber bullet in aluminum case. The traumatic cartridge contains an 11.6 g bullet, made of rubber and having a metal reinforcing core. This bullet has an initial speed of about 120 m / s and a muzzle energy of about 85 J.”]
The police just want to give bad guys a sporting chance
Barney, let’s do something really stupid.
Somebody in purchasing watched Judge Dread……. and the reason for not using the .40 cal verson is to keep em from loading live rounds in it… you know they would.
Or maybe Hellboy’s “Good Samaritan” revolver
“Pro-active” means you get to shoot people more often, right?:-)
So this will be an NFA item?
Just a thought here but maybe we are moving in the wrong direction with these steps. As a whole we keep finding more and more less lethal tools to employ so that in the mind of the bad guy who already knows he is caught the penalty for stupid is something that hurts and another charge served consecutively so no reason to not try for the slim chance of escape or opportunity to hurt someone as they go down. If we remove these tools and go back to a force continue of comply or get shot maybe some of the issues with law and order fix themselves.
Now there are of course issues with police brutality, mistakes and abuse by individual LEO’S and entire LEAs. I get that and there is no perfect solution. Just thinking out loud.
85 joules is roughly the same as a 25 auto. I am not sure how “less lethal” this is.
“Less lethal” not “non-lethal”….. Dont confuse the two.
What about less lethal shotgun shells?
I imagine the advantage to this would be mobility, you could carry it on the belt in lieu or alongside a taser
If you load enough crap on the LEO’s utility belt doesn’t that eventually make the LEO himself a less-lethal threat? It would not take very long, IMO, for a young, hopped-up Bad Guy to outrun any less-lethal device such an over-burdened officer might have to hand and so the end result would be resorting to the tool with best effective range and accuracy – his Glock.
It will be interesting to see the results of this beta test.
Thats a very flawed understanding of force escalation. Cops, security guards, property owners, etc get out run all the time by crimianls without the aformentioned pursuers resorting to lethal force. Shooting a person in the back because you cant keep up is pretty heinous. I dont know what your understanding of deadly force is but you should really brush up if youre a POG lest you find yourself in prison one day based on a false notion.
I am not a fan and I am a not a cop. Fifteen year veteran Mesa County, Colorado sheriff’s deputy was taken off life support Tuesday, February 9th, 2016. Responding to a report of a possible armed person, he tried to arrest a 17 year old sex offender and choose a to use the less lethal TASER. The felon chose a more lethal hand gun and and shot the deputy multiple times including in the head. http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_29495122/recordings-officer-could-not-feel-wounded-colorado-deputys
P.S. Don’t call an armed 17 year old sex offender a “boy” or “teen”.
Uh, he clearly met the criteria for both terms whether or not he was an armed a-hole.
You mean like Trayvon Martin?
He was armed…twice.
Armaments based on civil litigation. Evidence city managers calculate a dead cop cost less than a dead criminal. Criminals in Pinal County can criminal knowing a bruise is in their future.
I can’t wait until they introduce the 100 calorie version that fires Stay Puft marshmallows or Hersey Kisses. The ultra high velocity Hello Kitty bubble adapter will be out in the spring of 2017. This will really teach those bad guys a lesson.
Less than lethal gets you killed or sued. Period.
Again…. “Less than lethal” and “non lethal” are obsolete terms. Theres no such thing. “Less lethal” is what all the cool kids are saying these days. If you defend yourself youre going to get sued. Its something you need to mentally prepare for so you dont get mind screwed at the moment of truth. You can scream non-pc words at people and get sued much less shoot them and get sued….. Hell, you can refuse to make someone a wedding cake and get sued.
Nothing complicates a split-second life or death decision more than additional options.
Last year, less than 60 police officers were shot dead by criminals. It appears that about 1000 people were shot dead by cops, although we will never be allowed to know the exact number. We will also never know how many of the shootings were justified.
Having a less lethal alternative, and the training to know when and how to use it, might be beneficial to the police. Not killing so many people might help to restore some semblance of public trust in the police.
If Sheriff Babeu wants to give this alternative a try, he should go for it.
There are 320,000,000 people in this country and police shot and killed 1000 of them. There are 750,000 law enforcement officers in this country and 60 of them were shot and killed by the public.
1k ÷ 320m = .000003
60 ÷ 750k = .000080
Using your numbers, a cop is 2360% (23.6 times) more likely to be shot and killed by the public than the cop shooting and killing a member of the public.
“If you find yourself in a fair fight, your tactics suck.” – John Steinbeck
“f you find yourself in a fair fight, you didn’t plan your mission properly.” – David Hackworth
Why am I not surprised to find the officers in Pinal County with these… Next it’ll be net guns from Japan.
The net gun – Useful for taking down stray drones in your back yard.
Well it looks OK for a non-cop who likes Pepper spray or stun guns. I’m still waiting on the “less lethal” rubber shot-gun shell report that killed a 95 year old WW2 vet in Park Forest,Illinois.
If you’re a cop and think you could use one of these in the situation you are in, get out of that situation. Back up. “De-escalate.” The only time you should be using kinetic force against someone should be if they are threatening your life and then it should be a bullet. Otherwise you too will be a pawn in the ghetto lottery.
I use a less lethal device bedside.
Always there when I don’t bother with anything else.
No it’s not my dog. He is gone.
A 12ga flaregun that anyone can buy at a boating store. No papers required.
And pretty f’n scarey too. Better than nothing.
Nothing like a flaming hot ball of phosphorus in the face that won’t come off.
Shoot someone with a Signal Flare, and less lethal or not, I think I’d rather be shot with a regular bullet.
Indeed. 🙂
And ya I know it’s not phosphorus.
Nitride salt, 5000 degrees just the same.
Plus it doesn’t blow your ears out when you fire it..
Rule 1 – do not make your less than lethal weapons fire like a gun. It is a matter of time before a LEO in the heat of a confrontation uses deadly force when he intended to use this thing.
I don’t have any issue with this technology. It should be at the officers discretion. Although it needs to be a different color.
Not only does Less Than Lethal = Less Than Effective, I think for civilian use, the current SD laws are not adequate most places. It is recognized when you can use a firearm for self-defense, when you are “faced with an imminent threat of grave bodily harm,” or similar wording. LTL stuff like this seems to be in a grey area legally. I think the problem with this thing is you will have to prove it was a proportional response and what is proportional for a rubber bullet that may just sting someone but may also seriously injure them? I think something like a Taser or pepper spray is better for LTL, because even though in theory they might cause serious injury in rare circumstances, it doesn’t happen very often. So if you carry a rubber bullet gun as your only weapon, it’s too much for LTL and not enough for lethal.
Also, two of their three models don’t have trigger guards. What could go wrong with that?