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Baton round

Impact munition used in riot control

Summary

Impact munition used in riot control

37mm L5A4 UK issue baton round ("rubber bullet") — 12GA]] shotgun cartridge for scale

Baton rounds, also known as kinetic impact projectiles (KIPs), are a less lethal alternative to traditional bullets. Baton rounds are designed to impact rather than to penetrate and are typically used for riot control.

Common types of baton round have included the:

Bean bag round, a less-lethal projectile fired from a normal 12-gauge shotgun
Plastic baton round or plastic bullet, a less-lethal projectile fired from a specialised gun
Rubber baton round, commonly called the rubber bullet, a rubber-coated projectile with a metal or ceramic core.
Wooden baton round (which are meant to be skipped off the ground into the targeted area), also called a wooden bullet (a bullet is a direct impact round).
Foam baton round, also called a sponge grenade

Such munitions are meant to cause pain and incapacitation but not penetrate flesh. However, baton rounds can cause death and serious injuries such as damage to internal organs, permanent disabilities including blindness, especially when fired from close range at the head, neck, chest, or abdomen.

History

The use of baton rounds dates back to the 1880s, when Singapore police fired sections of broom handle at demonstrators in Singapore.{{cite magazine

Baton rounds, in the form of the Rubber bullet round were used extensively by the British Army against rioters in Northern Ireland during The Troubles, from 1970.{{cite web | access-date = 2023-03-14 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20221224002627/https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/othelem/chron/ch70.htm#Aug | archive-date = 2022-12-24}}

"Rubber bullets", with their pointed tips, tended to bounce uncontrollably, and were replaced by shorter, denser, plastic baton rounds like the L5A4: solid PVC cylinders 10 cm long, 38 mm in diameter, and weighing 135g. They were invented by Porton Down scientists and intended for use against rioters in Northern Ireland, first used there in 1973.{{cite news | url-status = live | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20230314075541/https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=WIbyn2jxGhoC&q=%22Plastic+bullet%22&pg=PA674#v=snippet&q=%22Plastic%20bullet%22&f=false | archive-date = 2023-03-14 | access-date = 2023-03-14 | url-status = live | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20230314070513/https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ASbEHcRgGosC&lpg=PA292&vq=rubber%20bullet&pg=PA292#v=onepage&q=rubber%20bullet&f=false | archive-date = 2023-03-14 | access-date = 2023-03-14

Injuries

In a 1975 study of injuries in 90 patients injured by baton rounds, 1 died, 17 suffered permanent disabilities or deformities and 41 required hospital treatment after being fired upon with baton rounds.{{Cite journal |archive-url=https://archive.today/20130106045139/http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/112190390/abstract |archive-date=2013-01-06

References

Hogg, Ian V.. (1985). "The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Ammunition". The Apple Press.
(2017). "Death, injury and disability from kinetic impact projectiles in crowd-control settings: a systematic review". BMJ Open.
(21 November 2019). "La policía de Chile suspende el uso de perdigones tras herir a mil personas".
(6 November 2019). "Récord mundial de lesiones oculares durante protestas en Chile".
(24 February 2020). "Chile's Struggle to Democratize the State". NACLA.

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

non-lethal-projectiles paramilitary-cartridges

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