Recent Book: Tear Gas: Tear Gas Munitions

Date01 October 1968
Published date01 October 1968
DOI10.1177/0032258X6804101010
Subject MatterRecent Book
TEAR
GAS
THOMAS
F.
SWEARENGEN:
Tear Gas Munitions. Charles C. Thomas. Springfield,
Illinois, U.S.A. $34.50.
With the thoroughness expected
from marine warrant officers, Mr.
Swearengen has covered in fascinating
detail, running to 529 illustrations and
569 pages, the entire range
of
North
American commercial tear gas devices,
including the nausea-producing con-
trivances as well as the lacrimatories.
The use
of
any gas against civilians
produces in Western
Europe
generally,
and in this country in particular,
emotive memories
of
the terrifyingly
insidious toxic effects caused to
our
troops
in the
Great
War. Although in-
creasingly used in Continental
Europe
at times of civil disorder, the use
of
lacrimatory gas in
Great
Britain is
wholly restricted to the capture
of
armed criminals or dangerously un-
balanced persons in barricaded situa-
tions, so much
of
the detail in this
manual is
of
only academic interest to
British readers.
Of
particular interest, however, are
three sections
of
the text. The first
deals exhaustively with
"tear
gas pen
guns", nationally advertised in the
United States, but classified as
"pro-
hibited weapons" here. These devices
are increasingly coming to notice in
the
U.K.
Secondly, the
"protection
devices" involving tear gas, available
both
for the safeguarding
of
vehicles
conveying valuables, and defending
safes. There is here an avenue
of
crime
prevention worthy
of
serious con-
sideration by British officers. Thirdly,
the chapter
(VII)
dealing with
tear
gas
cartridges capable
of
use in a twelve-
bore shotgun. When tear gas is re-
required to minimize possible loss
of
police officers' lives here or
abroad,
it
is required quickly. Central storage of
the larger grenades and projectors
inevitably means delay, yet general
issue on a grand scale to minor police
units can never be justifiedon economic
grounds. Twelve-bore cartridges con-
taining alacrimatory, capable
of
projection by the ubiquitous shotgun,
would seem the answer to this dilemma.
It
is economically feasible, and possibly
desirable, for a dozen such cartridges
to be hermetically stored in every
divisional police station.
Chief
Warrant
Officer Swearengen's
authoritative
manual
deserves a place
in specialized force libraries, and most
certainly at
our
forensic laboratories.
D.P.
A
NEW
POLICE
AUTHOR
TERENCE
JONES:
Drugs and the Police. Butterworths. lOs. (by post 6d. extra)
Detective Superintendent T. J. Jones, not moralize but clearly sets out the
of the Hertfordshire constabulary, facts which policemen need to know,
making his first venture as an author, listing the drugs concerned and
has done a useful service for all his describing their effects, explaining
colleagues by writing this study of the current methods of treatment, giving
problems posed to the police by the the law and the procedure, including
illegal use of drugs. Professor
Camps's
suggested charge headings, and also
foreword rightly stresses its dual supplying working hints for police
nature:
the need to stop the supply and observation and action from his own
the need to treat the victims. He also specialist experience. A useful feature
stresses the law's double interest:
"not
of the book is the glossary
of
addicts'
only do drugs
harm
individuals but
slang-argot
is always a good indicator
also the individuals
harm
others by for the police.
breaking the law in order to get the The great value of the
book
is
that
drugs or when affected by
them".
He it arises directly
out
of
asenior police
refers, too, to the sinister gains
of
officer's recent
and
practical knowledge
those responsible for illicit sales which of this grave development of evil in our
are in themselves generators of crime. community.
It
will do a lot to make
it is good to note his tribute to the police officers more aware of the
Service:
"In
my associations with the menace and also to
make
them betert
police in this connexion I have never equipped to tackle it.
Too
much
police
seen anything else
than
sympathy and experience remains uncirculated and
help being extended to those who inaccessible,
and
Mr. Jones is to be
deserve
it".
congratulated on opening his own
Mr. Jones's treatment
of
his subject expertise for the benefit
of
his fellow-
is informative and practical; he does officers.
QUAESTOR
484 October 1968

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