Baton rounds, better known as rubber bullets, can seriously hurt people
if they strike a sensitive part of the body. So Armwell, a company from
Welwyn Garden City in Hertfordshire, has developed a riot control baton
round which is made of thick, dense jelly.
Normally it would be impossible to fire jelly from a gun because it
would gum up the barrel. But the new round, described in British patent
application 2 275 323, is contained in a tube. When the gun fires, the explosive
charge drives the tube down the barrel. At the muzzle of the gun the tube
hits a spring, which stops it dead. The jelly inside it shoots out of the
end of the barrel as a long thin bullet of gunge which splatters all over
the target.
