Beyond the Rubber Bullet

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WEBS AND NETS Spider-Man has competition. a firm called Foster-Miller, based in Waltham, Mass., has created the WebShot, a 10-ft.-wide Kevlar net. Packed in a cartridge and fired from a special shotgun, the WebShot can entangle targets as far away as 30 feet. Bigger nets can work on bigger targets. The Portable Vehicle Arresting Barrier, developed for the Pentagon by General Dynamics in Falls Church, Va., is a tough, elastic web that springs up from the ground in an instant to block a road. It can stop a 7,500-lb. pickup truck traveling 45 m.p.h. and then wrap around it to trap the occupants inside.

REAL RAY GUNS Further out on the horizon, the line between weapons development and science fiction becomes perilously thin. Mission Research Corp. of Santa Barbara, Calif., is working on a pulsed energy projectile (PEP) that superheats the surface moisture around a target so rapidly that it literally explodes, producing a bright flash of light and a loud bang. The effect is like a stun grenade, but unlike a grenade the PEP travels at nearly the speed of light and can take out a target with pinpoint accuracy. Or picture this: a flashlight-size device, currently in development at HSV Technologies in San Diego, that transmits a powerful electric current along a beam of ultraviolet light. Shine that light on a human target, and you have a wireless taser that can paralyze targets as far away as 2 km.

DRUGS, BUGS AND BEYOND Even their supporters agree that "nonlethal weapons" is a dangerous misnomer and that any of these devices has the potential to injure and kill. What is more, some of them may not even be legal. Over the past three months, a chemical-weapons watchdog organization called the Sunshine Project has obtained evidence that the U.S. is considering some projects that appear to take us beyond the bounds of good sense: bioengineered bacteria designed to eat asphalt, fuel and body armor, or faster-acting, weaponized forms of antidepressants, opiates and so-called "club drugs" that could be rapidly administered to unruly crowds. Such research is illegal under international law and could open up terrifying scenarios for abuse. "This is patently quite dangerous and irresponsible," says human-rights activist Steve Wright, who, as director of the Omega Foundation, works with Amnesty International to monitor nonlethal weapons. "What the U.S. invents today, others, including the torturing states, will deploy tomorrow." Just how much is that magic rubber bullet worth to us? Maybe some science fiction should remain fictional.

--With reporting by Mark Thompson/Washington