[eastforker]

We have pocket phones more powerful than the computers that sent men to the moon. We have lasers that can shoot rockets out of the sky, we should be able to develop weapons than can immediately disable suspects instead of lethal force.

[armydoc]

We have pocket phones more powerful than the computers that sent men to the moon. We have lasers that can shoot rockets out of the sky, we should be able to develop weapons than can immediately disable suspects instead of lethal force.

Welcome to the real world. I can assure you that the development of less-lethal (not non-lethal; tasers, rubber bullets and batons certainly can and have killed people) weapons is active. There is every incentive to do so. The bigger issue in my mind is the moral hazard in play here. If a criminal is convinced that his non-compliance to police commands will be met with a less-lethal response, and cops are convinced that their actions will be evaluated in the worst possible light,nothing good will result.

[Svartalfiar]

We have pocket phones more powerful than the computers that sent men to the moon. We have lasers that can shoot rockets out of the sky, we should be able to develop weapons than can immediately disable suspects instead of lethal force.

And yet those computers still manage to brick or run slow. Those lasers are super expensive, limited, and require lots of power. Neither of those is perfect or at max capability.

Likewise, currently the most effective personal immediate-use stun weapon is a taser. It is the best development yet for a weapon that can disable suspects without lethal force. The only way to really make it batter is like some kind of stun gun from a sci-fi movie, but we don't have personal spaceships, teleporters, or commonplace laser weapons yet either.