For a while now, I've thought if anyone could displace Glock's leadership position in law enforcement sales, it would be Axon. Axon has been growing much faster than Glock, they've gained the agility to pivot into more than one product and market, and they've attained single-vendor contracts with most of the ~18,000 police agencies in the US. Technologically, there is no reason they couldn't produce a Glock-comparable striker-fired semi-auto 9 with MRDS, integrate it and the holster into their cloud-based hardware/software subscription-based ecosystem and sweep that market into their portfolio. As it turns out, Axon founder Rick Smith's vision and mission are in fundamental contrast to that opportunity. From the time he founded Taser based on Jack Cover's technology in 1993, his vision has been to enable the stopping of people without killing them and thereby make killing people to stop them obsolete.
Now we know that Taser didn't do that, and that even today those weapons are not as effective as a handgun when a lethal aggressor must be stopped. But we also know that handguns themselves leave a lot to be desired in "stopping power." We constantly debate cartridge effectiveness, bullet performance, ballistics, gel tests, statistics, training, shot placement, number of shots needed, tactics and on and on, and the only conclusion we can come to is that we just can't be that certain a handgun will stop an aggressor before they can kill, and that it's especially dubious to depend on a one-shot stop. We also know not to conflate killing with stopping, and that while killing is often the result of shooting someone, the meaningful goal is always to stop the attacker immediately.
"I have set a goal that in the next 10 years, we will have non-lethal weapons that outperform police handguns. That is going to be a game-changer because cops are not legally authorized to be an executioner. When they kill someone, it is not because they are out to kill that person. Instead, it is because when they do so, lethal force is the only way to reliably stop a critical threat. However, that will not be the case for much longer. We have a clear line of sight as to how we can outperform lethal force. We believe we will be able to stop someone faster without killing them." Rick Smith
I realize the skeptic will want to see such a thing before they believe it or give the concept much credibility. What we know is that handguns have not meaningfully gained stopping power in over 120 years. We have seen the stopping power of large handguns shrink into smaller cartridges with better bullets and lighter handguns, but we have not seen handgun technology improve in a way that people can be stopped faster and with more certainty. The bullets are not doing anything fundamentally different than they have been for over a hundred years. Handgun stopping power is not improving and there is no vision to realize its improvement (probably due to regulation squashing innovation).
Because of this, it seems highly plausible that energy weapons will displace handguns. Whether the technology will ultimately be less lethal or not remains uncertain. It would seem the critical goal to focus on would be faster incapacitation, because that is where handguns fall short and are quite vulnerable.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/peterh...-plans-to-make-bullets-obsolete/#1faca7c677e3
Now we know that Taser didn't do that, and that even today those weapons are not as effective as a handgun when a lethal aggressor must be stopped. But we also know that handguns themselves leave a lot to be desired in "stopping power." We constantly debate cartridge effectiveness, bullet performance, ballistics, gel tests, statistics, training, shot placement, number of shots needed, tactics and on and on, and the only conclusion we can come to is that we just can't be that certain a handgun will stop an aggressor before they can kill, and that it's especially dubious to depend on a one-shot stop. We also know not to conflate killing with stopping, and that while killing is often the result of shooting someone, the meaningful goal is always to stop the attacker immediately.
"I have set a goal that in the next 10 years, we will have non-lethal weapons that outperform police handguns. That is going to be a game-changer because cops are not legally authorized to be an executioner. When they kill someone, it is not because they are out to kill that person. Instead, it is because when they do so, lethal force is the only way to reliably stop a critical threat. However, that will not be the case for much longer. We have a clear line of sight as to how we can outperform lethal force. We believe we will be able to stop someone faster without killing them." Rick Smith
I realize the skeptic will want to see such a thing before they believe it or give the concept much credibility. What we know is that handguns have not meaningfully gained stopping power in over 120 years. We have seen the stopping power of large handguns shrink into smaller cartridges with better bullets and lighter handguns, but we have not seen handgun technology improve in a way that people can be stopped faster and with more certainty. The bullets are not doing anything fundamentally different than they have been for over a hundred years. Handgun stopping power is not improving and there is no vision to realize its improvement (probably due to regulation squashing innovation).
Because of this, it seems highly plausible that energy weapons will displace handguns. Whether the technology will ultimately be less lethal or not remains uncertain. It would seem the critical goal to focus on would be faster incapacitation, because that is where handguns fall short and are quite vulnerable.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/peterh...-plans-to-make-bullets-obsolete/#1faca7c677e3
