New Ammo Promises to Render Targets Unconscious, Not Kill

It’s not often you find a manufacturer willing to bring to market a product in search of a market (although that shoe horn thing that Gilbert Godfried is hawking As Seen On TV certainly qualifies), but this one makes my list. German ammunition manufacturer Scheiße AG has announced the availability of a “revolutionary” cartridge designed to wound – but not fatally injure – a human target. Designated the Scheiße Ich Lüge, the bullet itself is designed to break the skin, but not penetrate through muscle tissue, organs, or bone, dissipating the kinetic energy throughout the body to render the target unconscious. The effective range of the load is between 7 and 25 feet, bringing it into line with the typical handgun loads. Available in 9mm, .38 Special, .357 Magnum, .380, .40 S&W, 9mm and both the .45 ACP and .45 GAP cartridges, pricing is in line with the higher-end jacketed hollow-point, +P rounds, although the company is currently not offering any cartridges in +P loads, due to the need to keep the kinetic energy of the bullet within acceptable tolerances.

I spoke with Scheiße’s U.S. Director of Sales, Jerry Salinger. After explaining their patented energy-dispersal technology of the bullet itself, we spoke about the market for such a cartridge.

In the current climate for handguns, from controversies with Starbucks to issues surrounding conceal carry and gun-free zones, Scheiße believes that there is a market for a bullet that can neutralize, but not kill.

Salinger says, in theory, the Ich Lüge round will function much like rubber bullets, Tasers, and other non-lethal weapons. But the new round will allow law enforcement personnel to carry the loads in their service weapons.

“We see officers keeping Ich Lüge rounds chambered, with standard JHPs in their magazines,” Public Relations rep Heather Duke said. “Allowing them to fire the equivalent of warning shots into a target, followed immediately by more deadly rounds, if needed.”

I got a bad feeling about this, Sundance.

In a shooting situation, I doubt any officer will want to waste space in a service pistol for a non-lethal round, much less run the risk of drawing on a target with the intent to wound but not kill. On the other hand, I can see brain trusts like the California State Assembly and the city councils of San Francisco and other bastions of Progressive thought as embracing this idea as the ideal way to make police more “user friendly” (read: “cannon fodder”) while allowing the bad guys to purchase armor-piercing rounds to “level the playing field.”

Will Scheiße’s Ich Lüge bullets catch on? I dunno. It sounds like little more than a bad joke to me. But on a day like today – and only in America – anything’s possible.