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"Human beings hardly ever learn from the experience of others. They learn; when they do, which isn't often, on their own, the hard way."
- Robert Heinlein
 |
| Chunker | ||
| A device that fires small cubes of rubber; a non-lethal form of riot control. |
William Gibson's characters inhabit worlds in which there always seems to be a potential for violence.
| The chunkers weren't even guns, not legally anyway, but a ten-second burst at close range would chew somebody's face off. They were Israeli riot-control devices, air-powered, that fired one-inch cubes of recycled rubber. They looked like the result of a forced union between a bullpup assault rifle and an industrial staple gun, except they were made out of this bright yellow plastic. When you pulled the trigger, those chunks came out in a solid stream. |
| From Virtual Light,
by William Gibson. Published by Bantam in 1993 Additional resources -
|
This is just the sort of weapon that could protect a client, but would be unlikely to result in the death of a client or the client's property.
Research is underway to produce weapons that would give military or police forces a non-lethal choice. Weapon types include antitraction materials (for example, making a sidewalk or street too slippery to walk on). Or (speaking of Spiderman) the WebShot, a 10-ft.-diameter Kevlar net. The net is packed into a projectile and fired from a special shotgun, snaring targets up to 30 feet away.
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'... with large padded feet, who were apparently polishing their way the whole length of Rama's six artificial suns.'
'Anything larger than a BB shot it picked up and placed in a tray on its upper surface...'
'the human seats took up two-thirds of the room in each'
'the curious absent look of a robot talking on the TBR circuits...'
'Over her lacerated right shoulder he sprayed art-derm...'
Now, that was a Pontiac Trans Am with some real style.
'There is a built-in microphone that hears everything you say, and an electric brain that selects a suitable answer.'
