After a cursory search, I can’t find anything on other-than-audible-discomfort sonic weapons near ready for deployment.

The pulse wave generators sound fascinating, but not nearly non-lethal. Kind of like a concussion grenade you point, from what I understand. The Ultra Low Wave stuff is too imperfect at this time as well.

My understanding of how low-frequency sonic crowd control devices work is that they hit particular resonant frequencies for specific muscles. My recollection from first reading of these 30-35 years ago is that this was discovered in a French lab with a device which broadcast at (I think) seven cycles a second, which happened to be the frequency used by human muscles in vibrating to create body heat. The sonic device somehow interfered with this natural vibration.

Everyone in the room with the unit felt very sick and some started to collapse. They turned it off before they passed out and died. Which could have made an interesting science-fiction mystery story.

So the things can be bloody dangerous. Further experiments revealed that specific muscle sets could be targeted to make them relax, such as those of the adult male bladder.

But again (my recollection) these late 1960′s & early 1970′s experiments showed such major limitations (enclosed rooms below a certain size) that it was just a laboratory curiousity.

Your Marine story indicates that a way may have been found to make these things work outdoors, sort of. I’d love to know more about them.

And they’d make a dandy plot device for our host.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that with this stuff on hand, the cops can go and conduct searches without obtaining warrants, or not inform a suspect of their Miranda rights when being arrested. They need this stuff to keep a potential demonstration from turning into a violent rampage.

We DO know just from how the anarchists acted in 1999 in Seattle that given enough impetus they will go in and trash every business in an area, we need to keep these people under control, and the NYPD’s use of the LRAD and other devices should provide enough deterrence to say to the potential protestors, “We’re here, don’t even THINK of f**king with us ’cause we will f**k you over BAD with this stuff.”

Floyd Bennett Field.

I know for a fact that there is a microwave device that causes the surface of exposed skin to feel as if it is on fire. Don’t know if that one has been approved for use or not.

If you do venture near the protesters, Sportsman’s Guide has a good selection of Swedish and Soviet gas masks. Make sure you buy fresh filters and don’t install them until the day you intend to use the mask.

And Roger, I’m sure an old Lefty like yer own self doesn’t need advice on how to treat tear-gas exposure.