Whether or not you’re a gun fan, you’re pretty used to seeing police officers — and even some private security guards toting guns around to protect citizens and property. But not every criminal enterprise is a hanging offense — or a shooting offense, as it were — and if you’re leveling a firearm at someone who is stealing a candy bar, chances are you’re overreacting at least a little bit. That doesn’t mean you have to let a criminal get away — after all, look how that turned out for Spider-Man. Thanks to British security company Selectamark, though, you can now serve up appropriate justice through the barrel of a gun — a gun that fires soft bullets filled with unique DNA that can be used to tag and help convict a suspect later on.
While it’s short of the tracking devices invariably used to track evildoers to their secret lairs in comic books, the splattering of unique DNA could prove very helpful in court. After all, it’s pretty hard to explain why you’re covered in DNA from a crime scene you were never at, and it sort of pokes the old “I was at the movies, I have a ticket stub!” excuse full of holes. Police will still have to catch the perpetrator on their own, of course, but the pistol has the potential to make lawyers lives easier and keep criminals off the street once they are apprehended. And no one even had to shoot anybody with a real bullet, which we’re prepared to call a win-win.
Selectamark brags that their ammo — basically a paintball filled with DNA — is accurate up t0 40 meters and can help identify a suspect tagged with the substance weeks later. We’re a little skeptical on that last bit, though. After all, if you’re a criminal that gets shot with one of these, wouldn’t you just ditch your black and white striped shirt and domino mask and take a good hot shower afterwards? Maybe this is why I never made a very good criminal.
(via The Verge, image courtesy of Selectamark)
- We want to load these with DNA coding for Shakespeare’s sonnets and have a poetry shootout
- “You weren’t there, eh? Then where is this four-helix DNA from, sir? Answer us that!”
- DNA is also being used to track pooping dogs in one Florida condo
