Bill Would Let Public Buy New Pepper Weapon

During the riot of anarchists at the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle last year, police fought demonstrators with an arsenal of high-tech weapons, including a nonlethal bullet known as the PepperBall.

Projected at great force from a hand-held launcher, the hard plastic bullet bursts on impact, stunning and psychologically disorienting its victims and filling their eyes, noses and mouths with a fiery concoction of disabling pepper powder.

Many police and sheriff’s departments across the country are using or testing the PepperBall, as are state and federal prison guards and international peace-keeping forces.

Now, over the objections of California law enforcement officials, comes a San Diego manufacturer that wants legislative approval to sell its next generation of PepperBalls and launchers to citizens for self-protection.

But first the maker, Jaycor Tactical Systems, must overcome the state’s prohibition against citizen use of tear gas products, except aerosol sprays for self-defense. Jaycor’s bill to change the law, SB 331, was introduced by state Sen. Bill Morrow (R-Oceanside) and is speeding almost unnoticed toward final passage.

The civilian version of the PepperBall launcher is in the prototype stage. Jaycor says it will look much like a common flashlight but pack a wallop like a hard punch to the chest.

The impact is so powerful that officers shot with the pepper bullet at police training sessions “think they have been shot with a gun,” said spokesman Dennis Cole. The impact creates only a bruise, he said.

Using highly compressed air and fitted with a laser beam sight, the weapon will fire six to eight high-velocity pepper bullets in a second or two, Jaycor says.

It can be reloaded with disabling rounds that contain oleoresin capsicum, or OC, a mixture of profoundly hot pepper powders and an oil that adheres to the skin and clings to mucus membranes.

“You cannot kill anybody with our product. . . . It really gives an alternative to people who are afraid in their homes but who don’t want a gun,” said Cole, the company’s director of training.

Politically influential organizations representing police chiefs, sheriffs, narcotics agents and rank-and-file officers oppose the Jaycor bill, arguing that it would make California a more dangerous place, not a safer one.

They filed a long list of objections, including the concern that the flashlight device could change from a defensive to an offensive weapon in the hands of criminals.

“It has a huge potential to be misused by the criminal element,” contended Lt. Louis Fetherolf of the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department.

He noted that unlike regulations on the purchase of a handgun, the bill would require no criminal background check and no waiting period. Also, purchasers would not undergo training in pepper gun safety and handling, a requirement for peace officers.

Fetherolf said the availability of such weapons would jeopardize the safety of peace officers and could actually increase the number of accidental police shootings of citizens.

Others agree that the potential for a tragic confrontation between an officer packing a firearm and an innocent citizen armed with a pepper gun could be great, especially at night when visibility is poor.

“If the situation is . . . scary enough for the officer, the officer is going to make a mistake and shoot,” noted Lt. Paul R. Curry of the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department.

Fetherolf said, “If you’ve got a laser beam pointed on your chest or car, your first reaction is to get away from it. You cannot afford the luxury of thinking it is not a weapon.”

But Morrow and Jaycor’s Cole say law enforcement opposition to the bill is unfounded and overblown.

Morrow said police organizations raised the same “shopworn” arguments against the 1995 bill that legalized aerosol pepper spray for civilian use. He said none of their fears came true.

“If somebody’s crazy enough to point a PepperBall weapon at a policeman, he’s crazy enough to point a firearm at the policeman,” Morrow said.

As pressure mounts in this country for greater restraints on police use of firearms, nonlethal or “less than lethal” weapons are being invented and deployed as alternatives. The private sector appears to be the next marketplace.

“We are designing this really for home or business defense. We envision it to be effective at zero to 25 feet. The kinetic energy is the same [as that of police models] but the OC powder is about one-third of that of law enforcement PepperBalls,” Cole said.

He said Jaycor is the only company in the United States that has developed a prototype for the public, and is preparing to market the weapon early next year at $150 to $200 each. He said a South Carolina company also is pursuing the idea.

A Vow of No Special Treatment

Cole insisted that the Morrow bill would not give special treatment to Jaycor, which makes modest campaign contributions, including $675 to Morrow in 1995-96.

If competitors came forward, the bill would provide the same sales opportunity to them, Cole said.

Jaycor’s PepperBall launchers and bullets, currently in use by such major agencies as the New York City Police Department, Cole said, were first deployed in the Seattle riots in 1999.

However, officials there reported that some bullets were deflected by demonstrators’ heavy clothing and headgear and did not burst as intended, Curry said. Consequently, officers lowered their aim to the unprotected legs and knees of the protesters and achieved “pain compliance.”

Cole disputed the claim that the PepperBalls were ineffective. “They ordered another 1,500 projectiles at one point, so it must have been working,” he said.

In spite of law enforcement’s opposition, Morrow’s bill moved swiftly through the Senate on the votes of liberals and conservatives and is ready for an Assembly floor vote.

Law enforcement lobbyists concede that they probably will not be able to stop the bill in the Legislature. But they intend to ask Gov. Gray Davis to veto it.

A spokesman for Davis said the governor has no position on the proposal.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Packing a Nonlethal Punch

The manufacturer of a prototype pepper powder gun touts it as a nonlethal weapon for civilian self-defense.

Prototype Weapon

Length: 16 inches

Capacity: 6 to 8 projectiles *

How It Works

1 Launcher emits targeting laser beam

2 Trigger launches projectile

3 Impact creates fine powder cloud *

A Closer Look

The pepper powder restricts breathing and burns the eyes, nose and mouth. The incapacitating effect lasts about 10 minutes.

Pellet produces two-foot cloud of finely ground powder.

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Source: Jaycor Tactical Systems