DSEi '13: Companies Kicked Out For Promoting Less-Lethal Technology

Along with professionals, gun industry expos and defense industry shows invariably attract a small but persistent crowd of haters determined to see them shutdown. Every couple of years some company is kicked out of a show for some minor infraction after a media “storm in a teacup”.

DSEi has all the latest lethal technology on display from warships to MANDAPS to grenades, but certain less/non-lethal equipment is banned from being promoted. Two companies were told to leave the show for handing out catalogs containing “prohibited” less-lethal technology at an arms expo, the irony of which was lost on the British media. The BBC reports (emphasis added)…

Two companies have been ejected from a UK arms fair for promoting illegal weapons, after an MP raised the issue.

A spokesman for the DSEI event in London’s Docklands said they were French firm Magforce International and Chinese company Tianjin Myway.

Green Party MP Caroline Lucas said the companies were promoting handheld projectile electric shock weapons, weighted leg cuffs and stun batons.

Organisers said HM Revenue and Customs enforced the law at the event.

A spokesman said the two companies were “found with literature in breach of British law”.

You can’t make this stuff up 🙂 Just to add to the irony, just three days ago the BBC reported that Taser use by police in the UK has doubled in the past few years …

Police use of Tasers in England and Wales more than doubled between 2009 and 2011, according to Home Office figures.

The devices were used 7,877 times in 2011, compared with 3,328 in 2009.

In only about a quarter (25.7% in 2011) were they actually discharged. In most situations they were only readied or pointed as a warning.

I suppose anyone needed leg cuffs or shock collars in London this week will have to find the nearest erotica store 😉