Fear this:
http://images.google.com/images?q=police nonlethal nerf round&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi
See that blue round in the first row? Apparently, Detroit police can use THAT as a nonlethal countermeasure for crowd control.
With the original link provided, here's the article:
"If Final Four fans get too rowdy, cops have Nerf attack ready
By AMBER HUNT • FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER • April 1, 2009
Detroit Officer Brandon Cole loaded the Nerf round into a launcher, warned onlookers to back away and fired.
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Wham.
The projectile slammed into a tree trunk, leaving a little puff of smoke in its wake.
Cole smiled slyly: “It’d make you leave, right?”
That’s the goal of the non-lethal Nerf round — a blue sponge grenade meant to temporarily incapacitate security threats through blunt trauma. Used properly (read: between 5-120 feet away from the target), the grenades don’t break skin or even break a rib.
Instead, it’s “pain compliance,” Cole said. In short, it hurts, hopefully halting any hijinks that too-feverish Final Four fans might start.
“We’re basically getting prepared,” Cole said.
Not that Detroit police hope — or expect — to have to use any of the non-lethal gadgets their “grenadiers” with the Tactical Mobile unit practiced with today. But Michigan State University has had Final Four-related riots in the past.
If things do get out of hand, Cole said it’s better to use tear gas and sponge grenades than bullets.
Among their arsenal:
• Tear gas that can be deployed grenade-style by pulling a pin and lobbing the can into a crowd, or shot by a 12-gauge launcher or 37-mm gun. Officers usually launch a smoke-only grenade first to test the wind.
• The so-called Nerf rounds, which are shot from a 40-mm gun and travel 300 feet per second.
• The 12-gauge bean bag launch (remember those welts left on Johnny Knoxville in “Jackass: The Movie”?), which are smaller and do more damage than their Nerf counterparts.
“It’s all just physics,” Cole said.
And, hopefully, unnecessary.
“This is just precaution,” he said. “If they know we’re out there, we hope they’ll stay in line.”
Contact AMBER HUNT : 586-469-4682 or alhunt@freepress.com"
Damn... definitely a far cry from getting shot with one of these (http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&um=1&sa=1&q=nerf+ballistic+ball&btnG=Search+Images&aq=f&oq=), eh?